Millie Cooke, Political Correspondent

Assisted dying bill dies in the Commons

What a difference a year makes.

Last June, MPs voted to introduce assisted dying in England and Wales, arguably the biggest vote regarding bodily autonomy since the legalisation of abortion in 1967.

Today, however, they changed their minds. MPs voted down the legislation in a dramatic U-turn after an emotional four-hour debate, in what represents a major setback for assisted dying campaigners.

Labour MP Lauren Edwards, who re-introduced the Bill after it ran out of time earlier this year, said the result was “heartbreaking” for those terminally ill people and their loved ones who she said had been “given hope when the Commons voted for this Bill last year”.

The vote came after a number of powerful interventions from MPs, including from former minister Ashley Dalton who has terminal breast cancer. She urged colleagues to vote down the legislation, claiming that people with terminal diagnoses have been “scaremongered” into "believing our deaths will be horrific”.

Meanwhile, another MP, Claire Hazelgrove, spoke publicly for the first time about her mother’s decision to bring her late-stage terminal illness to an end “on her terms”, arguing the “harmful status quo” meant her mother died alone in October last year after living with a rare blood cancer for half her life.

What happens next is unclear. Kim Leadbeater, the MP who introduced the original legislation last year, believes the bill could come back to parliament as soon as next year. Others are not so optimistic.

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