Dying people and bereaved loved ones urge MPs: ‘When we cannot stay, let us choose how we go’
Time and location: 8:30am on Friday 16th May 2025 in Parliament Square, ahead of the debate at 9:30am. Photos and interviews available with people affected by the ban on assisted dying, cross-party MPs and Dignity in Dying spokespeople.
Photos of the stunt will also be distributed to media.
Interviews will be available with people with personal experience, MPs and spokespeople once the debate ends at 2:30pm.
In a historic week for the fight for choice at the end of life – with both Westminster and Holyrood debating assisted dying reform – terminally ill people and bereaved families will take their dying wishes to Parliament Square on Friday 16th May.
People with lived experience of the ban on assisted dying will gather in Parliament Square on Friday as MPs prepare to debate Kim Leadbeater MP’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which covers England and Wales, once again. Dame Esther’s Rantzen’s daughter Rebecca Willcox will stand alongside terminally ill people including Sophie Blake, a terminally ill mother from Brighton, and Nathaniel Dye, a terminally ill music teacher from East London. Each has a different reason and personal experience behind their support for the Bill, but they are all connected by a dying wish: when we cannot stay, let us choose how we go.
Friday 16th will be the first opportunity for the whole House to debate the Bill since its momentous Second Reading debate in November 2024, when a clear majority of MPs voted to progress it, agreeing that the status quo is not working and that current options and protections for dying people are not sufficient. Three quarters (75%) of Brits support making it lawful for dying adults to access assisted dying in the UK, with support high regardless of voting intention, age, location, class or ethnicity.
The Bill has now progressed further in the Commons than any previous proposal, with its critical Report Stage coming just days after MSPs will vote for the first time on the separate Assisted Dying for Terminally ill Adults (Scotland) Bill, proposed by Liam McArthur MSP, on Tuesday 13th May.
Report Stage enables all MPs to propose, debate and vote on amendments to the Bill, following the work of a cross-party Committee of MPs who scrutinised and amended the Bill for almost 90 hours over seven weeks earlier this year. Report is followed by Third Reading, which will determine whether the Bill can progress to the House of Lords. Third Reading may take place on the same day or on a future sitting Friday, with the next possible date Friday 13th June. Timings will be determined by the Speaker’s grouping of amendments selected to be debated.
During the Bill’s Committee Stage, which concluded in March, a group of cross-party MPs with a range of expertise and views on the Bill heard from 50 expert witnesses, scrutinised the Bill line-by-line and debated amendments. The Bill, already hailed as the strongest in the world, has been strengthened further as a result, with key amendments accepted including the establishment of a judge-led multidisciplinary panel to oversee every application, the requirement that assisted dying can only be discussed with patients within the context of all of their end-of-life care and treatment options, mandatory training for doctors and panel members on detecting coercion, and the creation of a Disability Programme Board.
On Friday 2nd May, the Government’s financial and equality impact assessments for the Bill confirmed that it goes further than any other around the world in its safeguards, regulation and oversight. It also projected that, based on analysis of 10 jurisdictions where assisted dying is already available to terminally ill, mentally competent adults, assisted dying will account for under 0.7% of total deaths in England and Wales after 10 years of implementation, and that such laws do not expand beyond their original scope, echoing the findings of the Health Select Committee’s inquiry published last year. The assessments also confirmed the Government’s view that the Bill is compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
The Assisted Dying for Terminally ill Adults (Scotland) Bill, proposed by Liam McArthur MSP, will have its Stage 1 vote on Tuesday 13th May, the first time MSPs will vote on this Bill and the first vote on any Assisted Dying Bill in Scotland since 2015. Subject to Royal Assent, a similar bill has been passed in the Isle of Man, with the choice potentially available to terminally ill residents from 2027 after an implementation period. Jersey’s Assisted Dying Bill, which also applies to terminally ill adults, is expected to be debated in the Spring.
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For more information or interview requests, please email Molly Pike, Senior Media and Campaigns Officer at Dignity in Dying, molly.pike@dignityindying.org.uk or call 07855209809