The House Article | MPs, do not force us to ensure Leadbeater’s bill again

A protest against the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill in June 2025 (Jeff Gilbert/Alamy)

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Last time, Kim Leadbeater was successful, beginning the 18-month process that produced her ill-fated and fatally flawed assisted dying bill. Let’s not endure the same process again. It is crystal clear the Private Members’ Bill process is not the appropriate legislative vehicle for such matters literally concerning life and death.

Some MPs successful in the ballot will choose proposals capable of delivering meaningful improvements to the lives of working Britons, many of whom have yet to see the positive change they were promised at the last election. Labour governments come around rarely, and this one is failing to rise to the challenge. As the purported ‘grown-ups’ turn inwards, plunge the knife into Keir Starmer’s leadership and jostle for the keys to Downing Street, the country is crying out for serious answers to serious problems.

Yet Kim Leadbeater has written to colleagues urging them to give life support to her flawed bill and attempt once again to press dangerous legislation onto the statute book. She claims that the Private Members’ Bill ballot is the “simplest way” for Parliament to “complete consideration of the legislation”. Should simplicity really be the guiding principle here?

Parliamentarians spent vast amounts of time trying to square the circle and make Leadbeater’s bill workable – and failed. Even those who support assisted dying in principle should recognise this particular bill is fundamentally flawed and not a public priority.

When it fell, supporters cried foul and even had the audacity to accuse peers standing up for the most vulnerable in our society of being “undemocratic”. I would gently remind all concerned that legalising assisted dying was not a manifesto commitment of any major political party at the last election. There is no democratic mandate.

Legislators are not sent to Westminster to rubber-stamp flawed laws out of sympathy for the effort that went into drafting them. We are sent to scrutinise legislation properly, identify dangers and weaknesses, and reject it where necessary. Even Lord Falconer felt compelled to table 74 amendments in an attempt to patch it up. It was a Frankenstein bill.

Forcing through the same broken bill, without addressing those underlying flaws, would be an abdication of duty. After 18 months of debate and line-by-line scrutiny, we ended up in the extraordinary position of still not knowing how an assisted suicide service would be implemented, which drugs would be permitted to end lives, or what the consequences would be – for either the individual or the doctor – should those procedures fail. And with healthcare being a devolved matter in Scotland and Wales, we opened a Pandora’s box of constitutional complications.

Parliamentarians spent vast amounts of time trying to square the circle and make Leadbeater’s bill workable – and failed

The answer cannot be – as it was last time – to hand sweeping Henry VIII powers to ministers to address fundamental concerns at a later date, once the service is already operational. As legislators, we cannot simply refuse to grapple with the complex and inconvenient truths that accompany such a profound change in the relationship between the state, society and the individual.

Members should instead focus on some of the serious issues exposed during the assisted dying debate: the postcode lottery in palliative care provision; the need for greater support for young women battling anorexia and eating disorders; and stronger protections for elderly and disabled people vulnerable to domestic abuse, coercion and financial pressure.

It is incumbent upon MPs of all parties to take the initiative and use the process to introduce positive, constructive legislation that addresses the real issues people face in their everyday lives. Not every MP will become a minister and enact change through government, but every MP has the opportunity to contribute something worthwhile through this process. Let us do that. 

John Cooper is Conservative MP for Dumfries and Galloway