The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill:

The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (previous post June 2025) has run out of time as the end of the 2024-26 Parliamentary session approaches. The result is that the Bill will not carry over to the next session. 

The King's Speech, marking the start of the next session of Parliament, is to be on 13 May 2026.

The full Parliamentary history of the Bill may be seen at Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill - Parliamentary Bills. The Bill is a Private Members' Bill sponsored by Kim Leadbeater MP and Lord Falconer of Thoroton. It was introduced in the House of Commons on 16 October 2024 and completed its time in the Commons with Third Reading on 30 June 2025.  Transferred to the House of Lords, the Bill reached committee stage by 14 November 2025. Largely due to members of the House of Lords moving numerous amendments, the Bill did not complete committee stage.

Proponents of the Bill

consider that, because the Bill passed the House of Commons, the House of Lords has behaved "unconstitutionally" by delaying the passage of the Bill until it ran out of time. The  thinking is that the "unelected" and thus "undemocratic" House ought not to have done this but that is to misunderstand the role the House has in scrutiny and revision of Bills. A serious concern was that the safeguards in the Bill were not sufficient to protect more vulnerable individuals.

A number of points:

1) It is often argued that the British political system has a democratic deficit. 

The Commons is elected by a first past the post system which enables a party to obtain a majority of seats with far less than a majority of the votes case in a general election. This school of thought would prefer election by some form of proportional representation. 

The Lords is not elected at all and should therefore have at least some, if not all, of its membership elected.

Proposals for reform of Parliament include a Commons elected by proportional representation (e.g. Briefing on Proportional Representation (2026) – Electoral Reform Society) and, for Lords Reform, see for example Electoral Reform Society - Unfinished Business: Routes to an Elected Second Chamber).

Regardless of such issues, the UK is undoubtedly a democracy and is generally so regarded internationally - see, for example, Democracy Countries 2026

2) The question of which Bills are allowed to carry over from one parliamentary session to the next is explained in some detail at Carrying over bills in Parliament - GOV.UK. This is a matter of parliamentary practice.

3) The Labour Party manifesto of 2024 did not contain any proposal for assisted dying for the terminally ill. The Salisbury-Addison Convention applies only to government bills foreshadowed in the election manifesto.  

4)  The End of Life Bill was not a government Bill. It was a private members' bill.  The Bill is however a PUBLIC BILL in that, if it became law, it would apply to the population generally. 

5) To become law (as an Act of Parliament), a Bill must pass BOTH Houses of Parliament and receive Royal Assent. This basic principle is modified, for certain types of Bill, by the Parliament Acts 1911- 49. A guide to those Acts is published by the Hansard Society at What does the Parliament Act do?

In relation to Bills to which they apply, the Parliament Acts give the House of Lords a power of delay  but no longer an absolute veto.

In principle, the Parliament Acts could be used to re-introduce the End of Life Bill in the next Parliamentary session. This extract from the Hansard Society publication is relevant:

7) In the next session of Parliament, the government could choose to either re-introduce the same End of Life Bill or introduce a new Bill.  Of course, any such Bills would not have arisen from a manifesto commitment.

Also, in the next session, a private member could introduce the same Bill or a different Bill.

Whilst proponents of the Bill may complain and accuse the Lords of "letting down" the terminally ill, it is perfectly arguable that the parliamentary system has worked, The House of Lords carried out its revising function and found the Bill to be seriously wanting. It was for those in favour of the Bill to address the concerns raised. 

If there is to be a new Bill then it seems preferable that it be a government bill introduced following a thorough public consultation - (Green / White Papers).  

Most of the clauses in the Bill were to apply only to England and Wales. The Scottish Parliament considered a similar Bill - the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill. The Scottish Bill fell on 17 March 2026. The Scottish Parliament was dissolved until elections to be held 7 May 2026.

Links:

Further consideration of this topic may be read at - The fall of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill: A constitutional outrage? – Public Law for Everyone