British MPs Help Home of Lords Rejecting Radical Assisted Suicide Bill

A significant majority of Members of Parliament believe the House of Lords has a clear constitutional right to reject the “deeply flawed and unsafe” Assisted Dying Bill, as support for changing the law wavers, finds a major new poll.

Contrary to claims from Lord Falconer and other supporters of legalising assisted suicide, the poll of 102 MPs found that by a margin of 2:1 (61 per cent to 28 per cent), parliamentarians recognise the Upper House’s authority to amend, block or reject the legislation if safeguards are deemed inadequate, reiterating the position of the Constitutional Committee Report.

This suggests that the threat of using the Parliament Act to force through a change in the law, should the Lords not approve an assisted dying bill in the next parliamentary session, is unlikely to succeed.

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Crucially, more MPs disagree (47 per cent) than agree (41 per cent) that such a rejection would trigger a “constitutional crisis,” further debunking claims that the Lords must defer to the Commons on this issue, which is not a Government Bill and was not included in any manifesto.

This major survey from Whitestone Insight, a member of the British Polling Council, is being published ahead of the final day of debate on the Assisted Dying Bill in the House of Lords tomorrow.

It suggests that support for the Bill appears to be softening since a plethora of doctors’ groups and disability rights groups have savaged the bill. Just four in 10 (41 per cent) of MPs who voted for the Bill at Second Reading say they can definitely be relied upon to vote “Aye” again, with 45 per cent said they would continue to vote “No”. Three per cent who said they had previously supported the bill say they would not do so again and six per cent were unsure. This suggests that the wafer-thin majority among MPs when it was last voted on, may have evaporated.

This shift follows growing unease over the Bill’s practical implications:

• Half (49 per cent) of MPs believe the Bill would lead to pressure on elderly and disabled people to opt for assisted suicide when they would otherwise not have done so.
• Only 4 in 10 MPs (43 per cent) believe the Bill contains sufficient safeguards, while a majority (52 per cent) remain unconvinced.
• MPs believe by a margin of nearly 2:1 (57 per cent to 28 per cent) that it will be quicker and easier for patients to access assisted suicide services than high-quality palliative care.
• More than half (54 per cent) of MPs anticipate inadequate resourcing for oversight and inconsistent application of the proposed safeguards.

The poll also revealed a startling lack of confidence in the legislative process so far. Over 4 in 10 MPs (43%) said they know of colleagues who voted for the Bill in the expectation that the House of Lords would “make it safe.”

While, six in 10 (58 per cent) of MPs cited the opposition of major medical and disability groups as a material influence on their scepticism.

Dr Gordon Macdonald, CEO of Care Not Killing, commented: “This poll blows apart the lie that the House of Commons is both settled and supportive of legalising assisted suicide. Quite the contrary, it shows that even among some previously supportive MPs there was a recognition that the Bill was fundamentally unsafe and deeply flawed. These MPs clearly hoped that the House of Lords would do its constitutional duty and try to fix it, but if this was not possible, then reject it. After all, half of those MPs surveyed admit that the bill in its current form risks putting intolerable pressure on the most vulnerable.

“Interestingly, the MPs, have given short shrift to those trying to bully the Lords into passing the Bill with threats of using the Parliament Act. While a majority believe the Bill did not have sufficient scrutiny. These findings, along with other polling we have carried out, prove that the more people hear about assisted suicide and euthanasia, or the problems within this particular Bill, the less likely they are to support it.”

Dr Macdonald concluded: “Given the very real risk of coercion, lack of conscience opt outs and the difficulty many sick and dying people experience in accessing high quality health care, we urge MPs to turn their attention to fixing these problems. I hope we can all agree that access to palliative care and support should never depend on either your postcode or bank balance. We need more care not killing.”