Kemi Badenoch will once again vote against assisted dying legislation when a controversial Bill returns to the House of Commons this week.The Tory leader said, despite supporting the principle of assisted dying, she will again oppose the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.She warned her fellow MPs to be 'clear-eyed' about the 'fatal flaws' in the Bill and hit out at a potential bid to 'override' full parliamentary scrutiny of the legislation.Sarah Mullally, the Archbishop of Canterbury who sits in the House of Lords, has also urged the Commons to block the Bill.The Bill is due to have its Second Reading in the Commons on Friday after being reintroduced by Labour MP Lauren Edwards.This is despite its failure in the last parliamentary session when, although it passed two votes in the Commons, it fell in the Lords.Peers ran out of time to conclude their debate on the Bill, amid accusations of 'filibustering' by opponents of the legislation, before the last parliamentary session ended in April. Kemi Badenoch will once again vote against assisted dying legislation when a controversial Bill returns to the House of Commons this week Sarah Mullally, the Archbishop of Canterbury who sits in the House of Lords, has also urged the Commons to block the Bill.Ms Edwards has now reintroduced the Bill as supporters of assisted dying mount another attempt to pass it into law.There have also been suggestions they could use the Parliament Acts to force it through the Lords this time round.The Bill aims to allow terminally ill adults in England and Wales with fewer than six months to live to apply for an assisted death.Mrs Badenoch twice voted against the Bill in the Commons during the last parliamentary session and confirmed she will oppose it once more.In an article for The Telegraph, she wrote: 'Despite supporting the principle of assisted dying, I voted against it when this saga began nearly two years ago and I will be doing so again.'I have watched people I love endure prolonged and painful deaths. I understand and share the instinct to want to minimise and end their suffering.'But I am not voting in Parliament as a grieving relative; I am voting as a legislator. One of the things that has gone wrong in our country is how we make laws.'Not based on whether something works or not, but how it makes us feel. As legislators, we have to do more than that.'It is not enough to ask what we want the law to achieve; we need to question whether the system we build to achieve it will work.'Mrs Badenoch added that MPs 'can believe that terminally ill adults should have greater control over the circumstances of their death and still conclude that this process is unlikely to produce a system guaranteed to deliver that safely'.'That was my position when I voted against this legislation the first time around,' she added. 'Everything I have seen since has strengthened that position.'The Tory leader also hit out at suggestions that Ms Edwards and fellow supporters of the Bill could use the Parliament Acts to bypass the Lords.'This is no longer simply a matter of individual conscience and our individual views on assisted dying,' she wrote.'It has become a question about the appropriate use of constitutional power, and whether serious concerns arising from scrutiny of legislation concerning life and death should simply be overridden.'In a separate article, the Archbishop of Canterbury warned that medical professionals should not be involved in ending patients' lives.'If passed, the Bill will signal that we are a society that believes that some lives are not worth living,' Dame Sarah, the former chief nursing officer of England, wrote.'That would become our state-endorsed position, and the NHS would be active in its delivery.'The previous assisted dying Bill passed its Third Reading in the Commons in June last year by a majority of 23 votes.But two of those MPs who supported the Bill - former prime minister Keir Starmer and former Makerfield MP Josh Simons - have since left Parliament.Meanwhile, other MPs who previously supported the Bill have said they will not back using the Parliament Acts to force through the legislation.Andy Burnham, who replaced Sir Keir as PM in July, has signalled he is opposed to the efforts to revive the Bill.He has argued there is a more immediate need to fix palliative care and social care.But Ms Edwards this week claimed that assisted dying had been 'supported by a substantial majority in the country for a very long time'. 'On Friday, I will be asking MPs to send the bill back to the Lords,' she said. 'There they can amend the Bill if they choose, just like any legislation, and if the Commons agrees, that’s fine.'But they should not be allowed to frustrate the will of the elected chamber a second time.'
MPs told be 'clear-eyed' about assisted dying Bill's 'fatal flaws'
The Tory leader said, despite supporting the principle of assisted dying, she will again oppose the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.














