MPs vote to accept assisted dying bill
MPs have voted to accept the assisted dying bill, with 314 votes in favour to 291 against, a majority of 23.
The bill will now go to the House of Lords for further scrutiny.
Key events
The PA news agency has reaction from inside and outside parliament:
Some MPs appeared visibly emotional as they left the chamber after the assisted dying bill cleared the Commons.
Others lined up to shake hands with Kim Leadbeater, the bill’s sponsor through the Commons, with some, including Home Office minister Jess Phillips, stopping to hug the Spen Valley MP.
A group of campaigners who backed the bill, sat in one of the Commons upper galleries, were tearful after the vote result was announced.
Outside parliament, supporters of the assisted dying bill wept, jumped and hugged each other as the news came through that it had been passed by MPs.
The crowd of about 100 people in Parliament Square, Westminster, erupted into cheers on Friday afternoon as the news was livestreamed over a speaker by campaigners from Dignity In Dying.
One supporter said: “Yes, dad” and others patted each other on the shoulder.
“This is for all the people who couldn’t be here today. This vote sends a clear message. Parliament stands with the public and change is coming,” said Sarah Wootton, chief executive of Dignity in Dying.
Jenny Carruthers, 57, from Bath, who had retired from the NHS due to ill-health, said she felt emotional and relieved. Carruthers wiped tears from her eyes and hugged friends and fellow campaigners. She said: “This means that I can die holding my children’s hands.”
My colleague, Jessica Elgot, has written on the news that assisted dying is set to become law in England and Wales after the terminally ill adults (end of life) bill was passed by MPs on Friday.
You can read it here:
Speaking before the Commons vote, care minister Stephen Kinnock, said the government would “ensure the safe and effective implementation of” assisted dying, if the terminally ill adults (end of life) bill clears both Houses of Parliament.
Kinnock told the Commons:
Should it be the will of parliament for this legislation to pass, then the government will ensure the safe and effective implementation of this service.
Afterwards, MPs headed for the voting lobbies in a division, to decide whether the bill should clear the Commons and face further scrutiny in the House of Lords at a later date.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch was also spotted in the Commons chamber as MPs gathered for the vote.
MPs vote to accept assisted dying bill
MPs have voted to accept the assisted dying bill, with 314 votes in favour to 291 against, a majority of 23.
The bill will now go to the House of Lords for further scrutiny.
Dan Milmo
Keir Starmer’s artificial intelligence tsar, a key figure in steering the government’s approach to artificial intelligence, is stepping down after six months in the role.
Matt Clifford, the author of the government’s AI opportunities action plan, said he would leave his post next month for personal reasons.
He described his work on drafting and implementing the 50-point plan as a “privilege”, adding he was “hugely optimistic about the UK’s potential to be an AI superpower”.
He said:
For family reasons, I will step back from my role as the prime minister’s adviser on AI opportunities at the end of July, but I’m delighted that this important work will continue across government.
A government spokesperson said Starmer had thanked Clifford, who was appointed in January, for his “dedicated work” on AI policy.
“We will be building on this work to bolster AI expertise across government and cement the UK’s position as a world leader in AI,” the spokesperson said.
Clifford came to prominence as a tech investor – he is the chair of the investment firm Entrepreneurs First – but was already established as an influential political adviser before Labour won the 2024 general election.
The 39-year-old played a crucial role in organising the global AI Safety summit, hosted by Rishi Sunak in 2023, and establishing the government’s AI Safety Institute, now called the AI Security Institute.
MPs voting on assisted dying bill as debate in Commons ends
MPs have divided to vote on the assisted dying bill.
Keir Starmer could be seen sitting on the government frontbenches in the
House of Commons as the assisted dying bill debate drew to a close.
If the bill is approved by the Commons today, it will go to the House of Lords for further scrutiny. If MPs do not support the bill, it will fail.
Labour MP Chi Onwurah criticised the assumption that those who have been unequal in life will suddenly be equal in death.
She told the Commons:
This bill could change the founding principles of the NHS, clinicians are trained to save lives, now they will also be able to kill people.
Our police, our armed forces, their job is to protect life and liberty, now they will also protect those who take people’s lives, because this marks a fundamental change in the relationship between state and citizen.
It requires much more public and parliamentary debate, we have not even begun to interrogate all the social implications of this change. All of human life is here, it will change the ethos of the NHS, it will enable private companies to kill private citizens.
The MP for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West added:
There seems to be an assumption that those who have been most unequal in life will suddenly be rendered equal in death, but the least valued by society are often those who value themselves the least.
British nationals who want to leave Israel to be offered flights to UK, says David Lammy
British nationals who want to leave Israel will be offered charter flights from Tel Aviv as soon as airspace reopens, the government has said.
With the conflict with Iran continuing, Whitehall officials have been working to organise escape routes for the thousands of British and dual nationals in Israel.
Those who are holidaymakers, on business trips, visiting relatives or are otherwise temporary residents are most likely to be prioritised, but the Foreign Office said flights would be provided based on demand and the safety of all British nationals was its top priority.
David Lammy, the foreign secretary, said:
The UK will provide charter flights for British nationals from Tel Aviv when airspace reopens. Register your presence to receive further guidance.
Government advice remains that British nationals should follow local guidance on movements within Israel and take decisions on whether to leave based on their individual circumstances.
Thousands of people currently in Israel or the occupied Palestinian territories are understood to have registered their presence with the Foreign Office, but the government has not moved to advise a general departure or relocation to Tel Aviv.
Many of those registered are thought to be dual British-Israeli nationals who may not seek UK consular assistance, but a smaller number of people have made active requests for support.
Airline staff being trained to bar people without visas from flights to UK
Aletha Adu
Thousands of European airline staff are being trained to stop people boarding flights to Britain without valid visas, in a move billed by the foreign secretary as a digital upgrade to border controls.
David Lammy said the measures marked a step towards “more secure, more digital and more effective” borders, but the move could raise questions about human rights safeguards.
More than 9,000 airline workers at carriers including Wizz Air, Jet2 and Lufthansa, have undertaken training to verify UK visa documents at departure gates in 39 countries, including those on major transit routes for irregular migration such as Greece, Malta, Italy and Albania.
The scheme, delivered by the Foreign Office, deputises airline workers as frontline immigration officers, blocking passengers from even attempting to travel without the correct paperwork.
The training is part of the broader rollout of the Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) and eVisa system, which requires travellers – including many EU citizens – to pre-register before entering the UK.
It represents a significant overhaul to UK border controls and is now being touted as a key aspect of Labour’s immigration crackdown.
Lammy said:
Tackling irregular migration demands cooperation across borders and industries to disrupt the pathways used by those attempting to enter the UK illegally. We’re sending a clear message – air travel simply isn’t an option without proper authorisation and registration.
The initiative could attract scrutiny from civil liberties groups that express concern over legitimate travellers, especially asylum seekers, and would outsource critical immigration decisions to private airline staff.
It comes as Labour seek to outflank Reform UK on border control and respond to what the party believes is public anxiety over uncontrolled immigration. Keir Starmer is seeking to maintain a hard rhetorical line, with returns and enforcement appearing to be central to his government’s approach.
Today’s assisted dying bill vote is on a knife-edge, writes Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee. MPs must take their chance to drive forward personal freedoms – and add to Labour’s legacy, she adds.
You can read her opinion piece here:
Assisted dying could represent “a huge shift in the relationship between the individual and the state”, Tom Tugendhat has warned.
The Conservative former minister told the Commons that the assisted dying bill “is about power and it’s about trust”. He said:
It’s about the power over life and death, not just over ourselves, because we already have the power to end our own lives, it’s called suicide. It is not a crime – it hasn’t been a crime in this country for decades.
This is a different power. This is about the power of the state through its agents to exercise power over life and death. Yes, agreed; yes, approved of in advance; but when the state takes a life, even with consent, that is a huge shift in the relationship between the individual and the state.
Tugendhat later said:
This isn’t assisted dying – assisted dying is what a hospice does already, today, now, helping people, caring for people, supporting them. This is assisted killing – or assisted suicide – depending on which word you choose.
But honesty in language is important. If we’re not even willing to be honest with ourselves in this place, how on earth can we expect the courts when they have to look at the cases to consider the questions that we’ve debated?
Turning to fears of coercion, he claimed MPs have said “that those who merely feel pressure are allowed to access this service”.
In response, Labour MP Kim Leadbeater held up a printed copy of her bill and some of her supporters shouted “no” and “it’s in the bill”.
Security review launched after break in to RAF Brize Norton
A security review has been launched across the defence estate after pro-Palestinian activists broke into an RAF base and sprayed two military planes with red paint, reports the PA news agency.
Footage posted online by Palestine Action on Friday morning shows two people inside RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire.
The clip shows one person riding an electric scooter up to an Airbus Voyager air-to-air refuelling tanker and appearing to spray paint into its jet engine.
The Ministry of Defence condemned the vandalism, while Keir Starmer said it was “disgraceful”.
Downing Street said security is being reviewed across the defence estate and that the government is working closely with police.
A No 10 spokesperson said:
A full security review is under way at Brize Norton. We are reviewing security across the whole defence estate.
We treat all breaches of security very seriously, and where there is suspected criminal activity, we will take the necessary steps to investigate and prosecute in line with longstanding principle.
He said the incident had not disrupted any planned aircraft movements or operations.
Many MPs have now addressed the House of Commons. Each of them have been asked to keep their speeches to five minutes.
A vote must be called before 2.30pm, as per parliamentary procedure, reports the PA news agency.
A Conservative backbencher indicated he had changed his voting position on the assisted dying bill since it was first introduced.
Mike Wood, the MP for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire, told the Commons:
I didn’t vote at second reading in November.
The member for Spen Valley [Kim Leadbeater] in her opening speech this morning said that we could choose to vote with our head or with our heart.
I am afraid it is that tension, that conflict, that I have been grappling with over the last few months.
He said his “sympathy of the principle of assisted dying was as strong as it ever was”, but later added he would be “voting against this afternoon” because he did not believe the bill offered enough safeguards.
Joe Coughlan
Backing the proposal, Conservative MP Mark Garnier said “the time has come where we need to end suffering where suffering can be put aside, and not try to do something which is going to be super perfect and allow too many more people to suffer in the future”.
He told MPs that his mother died after a “huge amount of pain”, after a diagnosis in 2012 of pancreatic cancer.
Garnier, who is also a former minister, told the Commons he had watched “the start of the decline for something as painful and as difficult as pancreatic cancer” after his mother’s diagnosis.
He said:
My mother wasn’t frightened of dying at all.
My mother would talk about it and she knew that she was going to die, but she was terrified of the pain, and on many occasions she said to me and Caroline my wife, ‘can we make it end?’
And of course we couldn’t, but she had very, very good care from the NHS.
Garnier later added that he had attended the memorial service of one of his constituents years later who had also died of pancreatic cancer. He said:
But because she had been in Spain at the time – she spent quite a lot of time in Spain with her husband – she had the opportunity to go through the state-provided assisted dying programme that they do there.
And I spoke to her widower – very briefly, but I spoke to him – and he was fascinating about it. He said it was an extraordinary, incredibly sad thing to have gone through, but it was something that made her suffering much less.
He said he was “yet to be persuaded” that paving the way for assisted dying was “a bad thing to do”, and added: “The only way I can possibly end today is by going through the ‘aye’ lobby.”
If MPs back the bill at third reading, it will face further scrutiny in the House of Lords at a later date.
