Commons rejects assisted dying bill 286-270 after earlier votes had gone the other way

The House of Commons voted 286 to 270 on Friday against the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, ending the latest attempt to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales. The majority against was 16. A near-identical bill had passed the Commons in June 2025 by 315 to 291. Support dropped by 45 votes. Opposition numbers barely moved.

Labour backbencher Lauren Edwards reintroduced the text after Kim Leadbeater's earlier bill ran out of time in the House of Lords. Edwards's version would have let adults aged 18 or over, judged by two doctors to have six months or fewer to live, apply for medical help to end their lives, subject to an expert panel. The bill now makes no further progress this session.

Why the numbers shifted

BBC political correspondent Harry Farley reported that both camps agreed turnout decided it. Some MPs changed their minds. Janet Daby, Labour MP for Lewisham East, told the House that after she backed the earlier bill her conscience was not at peace and she could not vote for it again. Most of the swing came from MPs who stayed away or who had entered the Commons since the last vote.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham was not an MP when Leadbeater's bill was first debated. He abstained on Friday to avoid whipping a free-vote issue. After taking office he had argued that palliative and social care should be fixed before the criminal law on assisting suicide is rewritten. That public sequence gave cover to Labour MPs who already doubted the safeguards.

Ashley Dalton, Dame Meg Hillier and Jess Asato, all Labour, called the bill unsafe and unworkable and welcomed the result. Edwards called it hugely disappointing and heartbreaking for terminally ill people who had been given hope when the Commons voted for the earlier text. Kim Leadbeater told the BBC another attempt could come as soon as next year.

What the bill would have done

The draft law covered England and Wales only. Scotland's parliament rejected a similar measure in March. The Commons itself voted against assisted dying in 2015. Leadbeater's 2024 bill cleared two Commons stages and then stalled in the Lords after peers tabled a large volume of amendments and the clock ran out in April.

The Edwards bill kept the six-month prognosis test, two-doctor approval and a panel. Critics said those checks would not hold once the statute existed, and that disabled and elderly patients would feel pressure. Supporters said dying adults already travel to clinics abroad or take their own lives without medical supervision, and that the present law forces families into legal risk.

Friday's debate ran about four hours. MPs on both sides used personal cases. When the result was read, some opponents cheered and pumped fists. Supporters sat still. The atmosphere was sharper than in 2024, when the first Leadbeater vote felt like a historic opening. This one felt like a closing of that window for the current parliament.

What happens next

A new private member's bill can be tabled in the next session. It would again need Commons time and a Lords timetable that does not run out. Burnham's focus on palliative care sets a political condition that campaigners must answer with money and staffing numbers, not only with moral argument. The raw parliamentary fact is simpler. In June 2025 the Commons was 24 votes in favour. On 11 September 2026 it was 16 votes against. The law in England and Wales stays as it is.