Can the assisted dying bill survive?
Coffee House Shots
The Spectator
4.4 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 16 May 2025
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The mood in parliament was different to the second reading – which listeners will remember as a self-congratulatory affair, hailed as a ‘historic’ day by Leadbeater – but today’s debate was notably more ill-tempered. The majority of speeches seemed to oppose the bill rather than support it, and a late intervention by Esther Rantzen did not help. The prevailing opinion appears to be that, while there is support for this kind of legislation, there is little backing for a private member’s bill. If this bill does achieve Royal Assent, that will only mark the beginning of a complex challenge for Labour, who will then face major decisions on doctors, training and substances – all issues likely to dominate debate for the remainder of their term. Is Starmer right to hang his legacy on this issue?
Lucy Dunn speaks to James Hale and Rajiv Shah, a former adviser to the Attorney General and in Number 10.
Produced by Oscar Edmondson.
Transcript
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| 0:24.3 | Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots. |
| 0:26.6 | I'm Lucy Dunn and today I'm joined by James Heel and Rajav Shah, |
| 0:30.1 | former special advisor to the Attorney General and number 10. |
| 0:33.1 | Labour MP Kim Ledbetter's assisted dying bill is back in the Commons for the report stage today, |
| 0:36.9 | returning to Parliament for the first time since major changes were made to the legislation. |
| 0:42.2 | And while Ledbeton has insisted the bill is returning even stronger than before, it seems like support amongst MPs is beginning to wane a little. |
| 0:49.8 | Rajav, you've actually been at the debate today. So what are your main takeaways from what you've heard so far? Yeah, so I think the mood in the House of Commons was very different today than he was in |
| 0:59.1 | November. And I think there were much more expressions of concerns about the bill, about the workability |
| 1:05.2 | of it, about the operability of it, about whether it is safe. I think there were definitely more |
| 1:09.3 | speeches that were critical of the bill, or at least of aspects of the bill, than they were in favour. So I think there is a real |
| 1:15.9 | mood shift happening. And outside of Parliament, we've seen over the past few days, a number of |
| 1:21.3 | MPs who previously voted in favour now voting against as well. So there does feel like there is a |
| 1:26.0 | shift going on. Today, as you say, |
| 1:28.1 | was the first day of report stage. There will be very likely a second day of report stage, |
| 1:33.3 | and then on the third day, third reading. So the sort of final decision on the bill is still |
| 1:39.2 | going to be in mid to late June. So we're still some time off that. But certainly the momentum |
| 1:43.9 | seemed to be shifting away from it. Yeah. And James, I suppose So we're still some time off that. But certainly the momentum seemed to be |
| 1:44.6 | shifting away from it. Yeah. And James, I suppose as we've seen some politicians that were |
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