Lauren Edwards MP: speeches

Speeches

• 11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. It is a privilege to open this debate on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill—a Bill that will give dying adults, under very stringent criteria, choice, autonomy and dignity at the end of their lives. What is being asked of MPs today? It is a fair question, given that this House already voted to send the near identical Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) back to the House of Lords in June last year. On Second Reading, we vote on the principle of a Bill, but we did that in November 2024. It is a broader principle that the House must consider today: who ultimately decides the laws that govern our nation? Many Members would no doubt prefer to be working in their constituencies today. They are not because a small number of peers in the other place chose to prevent any votes from taking place on the substance of the Bill in the last Session.

• 11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  No, I will make some progress. If, at that point, Members of this House decide to vote the Bill down, I and many others, in this Chamber and outside, would be upset and disappointed, but I would accept that as a result of the proper democratic processes being followed. What I cannot accept, and what many people both inside and outside the Chamber cannot accept, is the current situation, where a small number of unelected peers filibustered legislation that was supported by this Chamber. That is not how our democracy is supposed to function.

• 11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  No, I am sorry; I will make some progress. It is my fervent wish that all the peers in the House of Lords will accept that important distinction between their Chamber and ours, and fulfil their role in the usual way. In doing so, they can consider and send an amended Bill back to us for a final vote before Royal Assent.

• 11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  There were a number of amendments around points of clarification—some external organisations wanted some words made a little clearer, although they seem robust to me—that I certainly believe could be made in the House of Lords.

• 11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  We have been through that process. There was a Committee that had hundreds of hours of scrutiny and properly kicked the tyres on the robustness of this legislation. What we need to do as a House is send the Bill back to the House of Lords so that they can finish their job. We did ours.

• 11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I will not give way. I am asking Members today to start the process of sending this Bill back to the House of Lords, so that they can continue their important function of fulfilling their constitutional role.

• 11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I will once I have concluded my opening remarks. That decision by those peers means that one of the most significant national conversations that we have been having as legislators was brought to an abrupt halt. Who suffers detriment as a result? Clearly, the terminally ill and their families, who had a fair assumption that the will of the people they elected to represent them in this Chamber would be respected, but also those who must navigate our current, unclear laws. They are laws that do not protect or guide those who work in our health system, laws that do not contain safeguards against the risks of coercion, laws that criminalise and traumatise families who simply want to be with their loved one at the moment of their death, and laws that four Directors of Public Prosecutions have urged need to change. If we do not vote today to allow this Bill to continue its passage through Parliament, we accept those outcomes as the cost of maintaining the status quo, and who knows how long it will be before we get the opportunity to consider the introduction of assisted dying laws again, despite consistent polling showing that it receives majority public support?

• 11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  No, I will make a little bit more progress, please. Although the Government are neutral on the issue of assisted dying—then, as now—they have a duty to ensure that any legislation that Parliament passes is effective, legally robust and workable. I am confident in saying to this House that the Bill before us today is a well-designed, safe piece of legislation.

• 11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  As has been mentioned, the Bill has been subject to hundreds of hours of scrutiny, and amendments have been made to strengthen its safeguards, but that does not mean it cannot be strengthened further. As with any Bill, it will benefit from additional scrutiny. The Bill before us today already includes an important clarification on eating disorders that was agreed without a vote in the House of Lords last time. Together with the co-sponsor of the Bill in the House of Lords, Lord Falconer, who is in the Gallery today, I have recently met representatives from medical bodies and hospice organisations to discuss further amendments that could be made in the other place.

• 11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I think we need to be very careful when we are quoting polling. For instance, we know that Whitestone Insight has been criticised heavily by the British Polling Council in recent weeks for failing to meet its standards in terms of disclosing who has been funding its research. The reference I am making in my speech is to those very robust, independent polls, such as the British attitudes survey, which in 2024 found that 73% of the British public supported assisted dying and have done so over the last 20 years.

• 11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am sorry, but I will not give way. I thank all those who took part in the debate on the Bill in this Chamber during the last parliamentary Session. We showed politics at its best through our robust but courteous debates. We did our job, and we did it well; now it is time for us to send this assisted dying Bill back to the House of Lords, so that it can finish what it started. Whatever our respective views on the form and composition of the second Chamber, I hope we can agree that peers play an important role in scrutinising, refining and strengthening the legislation that we send there.

• 11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I disagree with the position that any time we amend a Bill in this place, it is ultimately deficient and unworkable. That is not how it works. All I am asking the Chamber to do today is to send the Bill back to the House of Lords so it can continue its work, which was interrupted, of scrutinising the Bill.

• 11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  Absolutely—it would set a dangerous precedent. Those Members who want to come in on the specifics of the Parliament Acts will have ample opportunity to do so later in my speech, and I will be willing to take interventions on that matter. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley for the courage, courtesy and openness she showed during the passage of her Bill. Her engagement with those from all sides of the debate, particularly in Committee, delivered a stronger Bill that this House voted for on Report and Third Reading. One strengthening factor was the introduction of a requirement for the Health Secretary to report regularly on the availability, quality and distribution of palliative care. In asking parliamentarians to consider assisted dying, my hon. Friend also prompted a national conversation about how we improve and fund palliative care. We saw more funding for hospices, as well as Government action to develop a new framework to improve palliative care and end-of-life care.

• 11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I will make some progress. Members took the best part of a year to grapple with this issue: spoke to constituents; engaged with the organisations that would be affected; read the materials; thought deeply; consulted their conscience. They arrived at a decision—whatever that decision was and however they voted or, indeed, did not vote at all—but it was a difficult process. It is not acceptable that the outcome of those deliberations has not been respected. We owe it to the people we represent to find a resolution on this issue one way or another within this Parliament.

• 11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  It is not quite the exact same Bill; it incorporates two amendments that were agreed without a vote in the House of Lords last time. We have had our conversation in this Chamber about this Bill in 2025, and we have had an interrupted conversation as a nation. I am asking Members of this House to send the Bill back to the House of Lords so that they can continue their important work of amending and scrutinising legislation.