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The campaign to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales suffered a significant setback on 11 September 2026. The House of Commons voted against the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill at second reading by 286 votes to 270, a majority of 16. The result reverses the Commons’ own decision of June 2025 and raises instructive questions about the relationship between the two Houses of Parliament.

A Tale of Two Bills

The first bill, sponsored by Kim Leadbeater MP, passed its third reading in the Commons on 20 June 2025 by 314 votes to 291 and went to the House of Lords. Lords committee stage began in November 2025. Campaigners say more than 1,200 amendments were tabled in the Lords. The bill had not completed its Lords stages when the parliamentary session ended in late April 2026, and so it fell.

After the State Opening on 13 May 2026, Lauren Edwards MP (Labour, Rochester and Strood), who came second in the ballot for private members’ bills, took up the cause. She introduced a new bill on 17 June, and its text was published on 16 July. It was identical to the bill the Commons had passed in 2025, apart from two amendments made in the Lords.

What the Bill Would Have Done

The bill would have allowed terminally ill adults aged 18 or over, with mental capacity, to request help to end their own lives. The safeguards included assessments by two independent doctors at least seven days apart, approval by an Assisted Dying Review Panel, a 14-day period for reflection (reduced to 48 hours where death was imminent), a second declaration and, finally, an approved substance that the person would take themselves.

The Vote

The government stayed formally neutral, and MPs had a free vote. According to LabourList, the number of Labour MPs voting in favour fell from 234 in 2025 to 190, and 87 MPs did not vote at all. Labour opponents, including Ashley Dalton, Meg Hillier and Jess Asato, argued that the medical royal colleges would not vouch for the bill’s safety and that palliative care in the NHS should be fixed first. Ms Edwards called the result “hugely disappointing” and blamed tactics in the Lords. Sarah Wootton of Dignity in Dying said that change was “a question of when, not if”.

The Constitutional Questions

This episode is a textbook study of bicameralism for students of UK Public Law. Three points stand out.

The first concerns the Salisbury convention. Under it, the Lords do not oppose at second reading government bills that carry out manifesto commitments. As Professor Mark Elliott argued on his Public Law for Everyone blog in April 2026, a private member’s bill on a conscience issue falls outside the convention. On that view, the Lords did not act unconstitutionally by scrutinising the first bill at length, even though the result was that it ran out of time.

The second concerns the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949. A public bill passed by the Commons in two successive sessions, and rejected by the Lords in each, can receive Royal Assent without the Lords’ consent, provided one year has passed between Commons second reading in the first session and Commons passage in the second. Failure to pass a bill counts as rejection for these purposes, and section 2(4) of the 1911 Act allows amendments already made by the Lords. That explains why the 2026 bill copied the Commons-passed text with only the Lords’ two amendments. Commentators had described the Parliament Acts as the “failsafe” for the elected House. By rejecting the bill itself, the Commons has closed that route for this session.

The third point is more basic. On a free vote, the Commons can change its mind. The fall in support suggests that some MPs who backed the principle in 2025 had changed their minds or chose to stay away. No convention protects a bill from the doubts of the House that first passed it.

What Happens Next

A future attempt would need a new bill in a later session, or government time. Meanwhile, Jersey and the Isle of Man are pursuing their own legislation. For now, the law in England and Wales is unchanged. Encouraging or assisting suicide remains an offence under section 2 of the Suicide Act 1961, subject to the Director of Public Prosecutions’ prosecution policy.

Sources

1. UK Parliament, Commons Division 75 (11 September 2026): https://votes.parliament.uk/votes/commons/division/2428
2. House of Commons Library, Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill briefing (CBP-12181): https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-12181/
3. LabourList, Assisted dying vote at second reading (September 2026): https://labourlist.org/2026/09/assisted-dying-vote-second-reading-2026/
4. Dignity in Dying, statement after the vote: https://www.dignityindying.org.uk/news/dignity-in-dying-vows-to-continue-fight-for-assisted-dying-law-after-mps-narrowly-vote-down-lauren-edwards-bil/
5. Mark Elliott, Public Law for Everyone (24 April 2026): https://publiclawforeveryone.com/2026/04/24/the-fall-of-the-terminally-ill-adults-end-of-life-bill-a-constitutional-outrage/