There will be further debate on June 13

The amendment to ensure employees who work for an employer who had chosen not to provide assisted dying cannot do so whilst working for that employer has been defeated by 243 in favour and 279 against.

MPs have voted to end today’s debate, happy that the amendments have been discussed sufficiently.

Tory MP Kit Malthouse forced the vote, which passed by 288 to 239.

Pro-assisted dying MPs are now being criticised for trying to prevent sufficient debate, with lots of MPs yet to contribute to the discussion.

MPs have approved, without a formal vote, an amendment to ensure no health professional has to provide assisted dying services if they object, although they would need to give their patient advice about how to find someone else who is willing to be part of the process.

MPs are now voting on an amendment to ensure employees who work for an employer who had chosen not to provide assisted dying cannot do so whilst working for that employer

Parents of disabled people face being unaware of their child’s decision to choose assisted dying until they have completed the process, a Labour MP has warned.

Daniel Francis, whose daughter has a disability, tabled amendment 24 to the Bill which would disapply the Mental Capacity Act 2005 principle which automatically assumes a person has “capacity”.

Mr Francis told the Commons: “When you are the parent of someone with a learning disability, you become accustomed to supporting them in their decision-making.”

Putting a scenario to lawmakers, the Bexleyheath and Crayford MP said: “An adult with a learning disability discovers they have less than six months to live, they have a level of mental capacity which allows them to make many decisions in life, they have enough capacity to understand they could be a burden on their elderly parents, and their elderly parents might take the view that they require support, however, to make the most complex of decisions.

“Yet their son or daughter, because they would be assumed to have capacity and under principle one of the Mental Capacity Act, could go through the entirety of this process, and the first time their parents would be aware is when they have been informed that their child has been assisted to die.”

This may sound odd but the first vote is on whether to end the debate now and start holding votes on amendments.

Some MPs – those opposed to the Bill – feel that there hasn’t been enough time to discuss the amendments.

Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle confirms that further amendments will be discussed at a future date.

Debates on the first set of amendments are nearing an end. It means there are likely to be votes on proposed changes to the Bill.

Labour MP for Bradford West Naz Shah said the assisted dying Bill process is “fundamentally flawed”.

In relation to her own amendments that would mean patients cannot bring themselves within eligibility by voluntarily stopping eating or drinking, she said: “I really, really want to emphasise this to all members listening and the public at home, this process is flawed, fundamentally flawed. This is not how we make legislation.

“I take my responsibility, as I’m sure everybody in this House does, extremely, extremely seriously. This is literally a matter of life and death. If this Bill passes that it doesn’t have the safeguards, there’s no coming back from those decisions.”

Ms Shah concluded: “I’ve spoken to parents of a girl who had … diabetes and complexities of anorexia. They came to Parliament and they said the law that helped them, the law that assisted them, because their daughter wanted to go to Dignitas was because it would have been illegal, and that’s the law we today are trying to change.

“If the safeguards in this Bill fail, even once, it will be a young woman like Jessica who dies, it will be parents like Leslie and Neil who lose a child. That is a terrible tragedy no family should ever have to endure.

“No-one in this House will be able to say truthfully that we did not know or didn’t see this coming. That is not compassion, that is abandonment. I will not be complicit in that and I hope this House will not be either.”

MPs who support and MPs who oppose assisted dying have spoken in this debate.

Most of those who have spoken have doubts about the proposed new law, which would allow assisted dying.

However this doesn’t mean that a majority of MPs oppose it. Last time there was a vote, a majority voted in favour.

What’s happening today is that MPs are discussing possible changes to the Bill. That means MPs who think the Bill isn’t currently a good one are most likely to speak.

MP Naz Shah says changes are needed to make certain people cannot become eligible for assisted dying because they have stopped eating or drinking. This would include people with anorexia, she said.

She says young women with anorexia will die unnecessarily if the Bill is passed without changes.

Assisted dying debate risks “treating clinicians as though they have no care for their patients”, a former doctor MP has warned.

Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst, the Conservative MP for Solihull West and Shirley, also said that a raft of new amendments to the Bill threatens “layering protections to the point of paralysis”.

He was objecting to proposed new amendments to the law that would add extra safeguards. Supporters of the legislation say it already includes adequate safeguards.

MP Rachel Maskell is proposing an amendment giving social workers and psychiatrists a bigger role in the early stages of deciding whether a patient is eligible for assisted dying.

So far, many of the MPs speaking have been those opposed to the legislation.

Conservative Sir Edward Leigh says a care home owner has told him that older people would seek to end their lives because they want to leave money to their children rather than spending it on expensive care home fees.

Labour former minister Anneliese Dodds says it is essential people are not helped to die because they have conditions such as depression or anorexia.

Labour MP Diane Abbott backs the suggestion that doctors should not tell patients that assisted dying is an option.

She says that in practice, patients would feel doctors are encouraging them to end their lives.

Labour MP Meg Hillier is now proposing an amendment that would prevent doctors from raising the possibility of assisted dying. It would mean patients who want to do this would have to suggest it themselves.

She says she fears vulnerable people “will feel pressured to end their lives”.

Former LibDem leader Tim Farron says he will not be backing today’s Bill.

He tweeted late last night: “Down to Westminster tomorrow for the Assisted Dying debate. The evidence is increasingly clear that the bill is a threat to vulnerable people. Almost half of those who opt for AD in Oregon do so because they fear ‘being a burden’. The bill is illiberal and inhumane.”

MP Rebecca Paul is proposing an amendment to the legislation ensuring that nobody can be helped to die if their motivations include:

(a) not wanting to be a burden on others or on public services,

(b) a mental disorder (including depression),

(c) a disability (other than the terminal illness),

(d) financial considerations, including lack of adequate housing,

(e) lack of access, or delayed access, to treatment or other service which a public authority is required (or can reasonably be expected to) provide,

or

(f) suicidal thoughts

MP Rebecca Paul is calling for better palliative care. This is care to help people at the end of their life, such as pain relief.

She is explaining why she opposes the legislation.

In theory, today’s debate is about specific amendments that could be added to the Bill making assisted dying legal (officially called the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill), not whether the Bill itself should be approved or not.

However, perhaps predictably, MPs are also talking about whether they support the principle of assisted dying.

The debate has begun. MPs will consider a series of amendments that would make changes to the Bill.

Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, who is championing the proposed new law, is moving an amendment that would make it clearer no medical professional is obliged to take part in the process of helping someone who wants to end their life (though they would have to help the patient find another medical professional who will help them).

As well as doctors, her amendment means this safeguard would apply to people such as pharmacists.

Maddie Cowey, 27, was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of cancer, sarcoma, aged 18.

She said: “It’s going to be the thing that kills me one day and I would really like the choice to have dignity in my death.”

Maddie is currently taking part in a clinical trial, but said her cancer is still growing slowly.

She added: “It’s not going away and it’s not going to be cured. I naturally have concerns about how my death is going to play out.

“I’ve had nine years to ruminate about this. It’s not something that I take lightly but I think a lot of people don’t think about their death until it’s coming and actually it’s going to happen to all of us. Who wouldn’t want a peaceful death?

“Even if I choose to take the assisted dying route, having the choice and the option there is really important to me.”

Jilly McKeane, 72, was diagnosed with renal cancer in 2019, which has now spread around her body.

She said: “I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that eventually this is going to kill me.

“I want the choice, when I have no quality of life, when I can’t enjoy the simple things in life…when that time comes I don’t want my life to be prolonged.

“If I can’t do it here, I will go to Switzerland or somewhere that will allow me to do that. But I shouldn’t have to.”

Jilly, of Cheshire, said she did not think the law would change in time for her.

But she added: “Perhaps us being here today will help people in the future have that choice that I haven’t got.”

Both supporters and opponents of the proposed Assisted Dying bill have gathered outside Parliament bright and early this morning.

The pro-AD side is in Parliament Square, wearing pink t-shirts and holding a banner reading: “We’re connected by a dying wish: let us choose.”

The anti side is just down the road, bearing protest signs shaped like gravestones.

Some read: “Kill the bill, not the ill”, while others point to the rollout of assisted dying in other countries such as Canada.

Speaking to the Daily Express, Catie Fenner said she is pleased the Bill has reached this stage.

Ms Fenner, who waved goodbye to her mum when she left in a taxi for Dignitas, said she is out demonstrating this morning “because I believe in terminally ill, mentally competent adults having choice over their deaths.”

“My mum was able to have that but she had to go to Dignitas and we couldn’t be there. I don’t want any family to go through what we did.”

The sun is shining in Westminster and dozens of campaigners are arriving to show their support for or opposition to the assisted dying bill.

In Parliament Square, Dignity in Dying campaigners are gathering in their signature pink.

Their banner reads: “We’re connected by a dying wish: let us choose.”

Sue Ryder, a national palliative care and bereavement charity, warns there are gaps in the provision of palliative care that need fixing to ensure no one feels forced to consider assisted dying because they can’t access the care they need.

A recent survey conducted by the charity found that 77% of respondents felt that either a few, some or most terminally ill, people would view assisted dying as their only option because the end-of-life care they need isn’t available.

Dame Esther, credited for her efforts in bringing the conversation on assisted dying to the fore in recent years, said she remains a strong backer of the Bill, which is being championed by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater.

The 84-year-old, who has stage four cancer, said in a statement to the PA news agency: “I continue to fully support Kim Leadbeater’s assisted dying Bill which will give patients, like me, with a terminal diagnosis, choice they need and deserve at the end of their lives.”

It is understood she will try to follow the debate remotely on Friday, having given an update last month that she is on a different treatment since her “wonder drug has stopped working” and faces an “extremely limited” future.

Amendments potentially set to be debated today include ensuring there is no obligation on anyone, such as medical staff, to take part in the assisted dying process; that no medical professional can raise the subject of assisted dying before a patient does; and that health professionals cannot broach the topic with someone under the age of 18.

Reform UK has smashed the Tories and Labour in a further two council by-elections overnight, just two weeks after their incredible local election results. Nigel Farage swept Labour away in the Stoke-on-Trent council seat of Birches Head & Northwood, with a mega 40 point swing to Reform.

He also won off the Tories in Norfolk, where the council’s wider election was delayed until next year amid local government reforms.

In a third by-election, Reform pushed Labour into third place in West Dunbartonshire, giving the party further hope for next year’s Holyrood elections.

Reform UK’s new Runcorn MP Sarah Pochin has said she will vote for Kim Leadbeater’s bill today, after her Labour predecessor Mike Amesbury voted against the legislation.

She told ITV last night: “It is a very emotive subject, and I know that not everyone in my constituency is going to agree….but we were elected to give our opinions. I’ve considered all the facts”.

She insisted there are “enough checks and balances in place within the legislation.”

MPs will today consider amendments to the legislation. These are proposed changes to the law, such as measures designed to add extra safeguards.

Some of the amendments have been proposed by supporters of assisted dying. Others have come from opponents of assisted dying, and might make it harder for people to request help to end their life.

What they won’t do today is make a decision on whether to back assisted dying or not. The next vote on the principle of the Bill is likely to take place in June, probably on June 13. This is known as the third reading, and if MPs choose to back it then the Bill will move to the House of Lords for further discussion.