Ten of Devon’s thirteen MPs voted in favour of a private member’s bill to legalise assisted dying in the House of Commons on Friday as the bill reached its crucial second reading stage.
A total of 330 MPs voted in favour and 275 against the bill, which would allow some terminally-ill adults to request medical assistance to end their life if it becomes law, a majority of 55.
The free vote was the first vote on assisted dying since the House of Commons rejected a similar private member’s bill in 2015.
The new bill was brought by Kim Leadbeater, Labour MP for Spen Valley, after she was drawn first in the September private member’s bill ballot.
She announced the following month that she would introduce a bill on assisted dying.
The controversial bill will have to pass through several further steps if it is to become law.
A public bill committee will convene to examine the bill line by line early next year. It is expected to spend around three months taking written and oral evidence before voting on potential amendments.
The House of Commons will then also vote on any amendments at the normally straightforward report stage, when some MPs are asking for more parliamentary time than usual to be allotted to enable full debate on any proposed amendments.
After its third reading in the House of Commons the bill will pass to the House of Lords, which is likely to make further changes in a sequence of steps that mirror the bill’s passage through the Commons.
Both houses then consider the other’s amendments before holding final votes on the bill.
If it passes and becomes an Act of Parliament, a two-year implementation period will then follow.
Exeter Labour MP Steve Race voted in favour of the bill, as did as did Luke Pollard, Labour MP for Plymouth Sutton & Devonport and Fred Thomas, Labour MP for Plymouth Moor View.
All Devon’s Liberal Democrat MPs also voted in favour. These are Richard Foord for Honiton and Sidmouth, Martin Wrigley for Newton Abbot, Caroline Voaden for South Devon, Ian Roome for North Devon, Rachel Gilmour for Tiverton and Minehead and Steve Darling for Torbay.
One Devon Conservative MP voted in the bill’s favour, Mel Stride MP for Central Devon.
Conservative MP for Torridge & Tavistock Geoffrey Cox, Conservative MP for South West Devon Rebecca Smith and Conservative MP for Exmouth & Exeter East David Reed all voted against.
Following the vote, Steve Race said on X, the social network formerly known as Twitter, that he had “long been supportive of changing the law on assisted dying” and that the bill allowed “for choice and dignity at end of life for people with a terminal illness, accompanied by significant safeguards”.
In a comprehensive statement, David Reed said that while he did not wish for anyone to suffer unnecessarily he could not support the bill due to several concerns including risk of a perceived “duty to die” and the possible future widening of eligibility criteria.
He said that until there was “universal access to high-quality, compassionate end-of-life care legalised assisted dying risked offering a false choice”.
