A Labour backbencher in the House of Commons who introduced the assisted-dying bill that passed the Commons in June 2025. The bill would allow mentally competent adults with fewer than six months to live to be prescribed a lethal drug, with safeguards described as arguably the strictest of their kind in the world. As a private-member's bill, it lacked the resources and protections of government legislation.
The bill was blocked in the House of Lords by a handful of peers who put forward almost 1,300 amendments (23 per page, a record for a bill at that stage). Nearly two-thirds of the amendments came from just seven peers who oppose the principle of assisted dying. Ms Leadbeater has said that the upper chamber has "signed its own death warrant". The bill's final scheduled day in Parliament was April 24th 2026, by which date it was certain not to become law.
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