ASSISTED DYING: The law will not change, and Swansea’s MP says that is not the end of it

For anyone in Swansea Bay living with a terminal diagnosis, nothing changed on Friday.

The law on how they may die is the law it was on Thursday, and will stay that way for the rest of this Parliament.

MPs rejected the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill by 286 votes to 270, ending a two-year attempt to change it.

The bill would have let mentally competent adults in England and Wales with six months or less to live ask for help to end their lives, with two doctors and an expert panel required to agree.

Swansea West MP Torsten Bell voted for it. “This is probably the issue over which I have had the most heartfelt conversations with constituents over the past 18 months,” he said afterwards.

That is the part that does not show up in a division list. “It is rightly one on which people across Swansea and beyond hold deeply felt ethical, moral and personal views, often shaped by difficult personal experiences,” he said.

On his own vote, he said: “After listening carefully to both sides, I continued to give the Bill my support. My view is that ultimately the status quo is not good enough. Prolonged suffering is too often the norm, leaving some travelling abroad to end their lives in isolation.”

He rejected the idea that better end of life care and a change in the law were alternatives. “Badly needed improvements in palliative care and greater choice for terminally ill adults are also consistent rather than mutually exclusive,” he said. “Indeed, the debate on assisted dying has already helped build a consensus on the need for high-quality palliative and end of life care, but even the best palliative care cannot meet every person’s needs or resolve every concern about the end of life.”

Those who voted the other way made an argument with just as much weight behind it. Opponents have consistently warned that vulnerable people could feel pressured into ending their lives rather than be a burden, that safeguards cannot catch every case of coercion, and that the proper answer is to fund palliative care properly rather than offer an alternative to it.

Dame Nia Griffith in Llanelli voted against, by proxy. She has not commented since Friday’s vote, but set out her reasoning at length before the last one, in June 2025, and it was as personal as Bell’s.

“The pain of watching a friend or family member suffer at the end of life is something I know all too well, and it is not something I would wish on anyone,” she said then. “The impact on both those suffering and their loved ones is immense, and it is only right that we act with compassion to minimise that suffering wherever possible.”

Her objection was to what the bill might do in practice. “I have had to carefully consider the serious concerns surrounding this Bill, particularly how it could affect vulnerable individuals, including those who may feel they are a burden to their families or the NHS,” she said in that statement. “The risk of coercion, whether overt or subtle, is a matter that cannot be overlooked.”

She also pointed to the state of end of life care, saying in June last year that the palliative care system was “already under considerable strain” and that any debate on the bill had to ensure care at the end of life was of the highest possible standard. She had supported amendments to strengthen its safeguards, she said, but remained “concerned around its potential applications and consequences”.

Ann Davies, the Plaid Cymru MP for Caerfyrddin, also voted against, but has not publicly set out her reasons.

Stephen Kinnock in Aberafan Maesteg voted for the bill, as did Henry Tufnell in Mid and South Pembrokeshire, David Chadwick in Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe and Ben Lake in Ceredigion Preseli.

Tonia Antoniazzi in Gower, Carolyn Harris in Neath and Swansea East and Chris Elmore in Bridgend have no vote recorded. Parliament notes MPs may be absent on constituency or ministerial business, may abstain, or may have a procedural reason for not voting.

Both party leaderships allowed a free vote, and the split ran through every major party rather than between them.

The bill was first introduced by Kim Leadbeater in October 2024 and passed the Commons in June 2025 by 314 to 291, before running out of time in the House of Lords. Lauren Edwards reintroduced it in June.

“Inevitably the defeat of the legislation will be received as good news by some, and very bad news by others,” Bell said. “That is the nature of democratic decision making on a topic that gets to the heart of something as central to the human experience as how our lives come to an end.”

He does not expect it to rest there. “While the Terminally Ill Adults Bill will not continue its journey through Parliament this year, I think we will see the debate on assisted dying continue,” he said.

“In the short term that debate will be in the country more widely, but it will return to the chambers of our Houses of Parliament in the years ahead. Exactly because this issue is so central to what it means to be human, it will not go away.”

Division figures from the House of Commons. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.