THE Bishop of Newcastle, Dr Helen-Ann Hartley, has welcomed a poll of more than 10,000 people which suggests that a majority in all 632 parliamentary constituencies oppose the proposed law on assisted dying being revisited without full scrutiny and approval by both chambers.
Dr Hartley was on the House of Lords select committee that examined the Private Member’s Bill brought by the Labour MP Kim Leadbeater in October 2024 (News, 18 October 2024), and spoke against it before it was defeated earlier this year in the Upper House (News, 1 May). She told the Church Times that the poll “confirms that the public does not support the suggestion of bypassing the House of Lords in order to force through an unsafe Bill”.
She said: “This would mean using a procedure never used for a Bill of this kind and acting against the advice of medical professionals, disability groups, and the concerns of all those who want to see legislation that is safe and workable.
“For a Bill of this magnitude in terms of societal change, the highest level of scrutiny is imperative.”
The MRP poll also found that legalising assisted dying did not rank among the top five priorities in any constituency — and that, in every constituency, the majority of voters agreed that Parliament should prioritise other concerns before considering whether to introduce assisted dying.
“Unsurprisingly, the public also does not see assisted dying as a priority and would prefer improvements in the NHS and in palliative, social, and end-of-life care before considering whether to introduce assisted dying,” Dr Hartley said.
“The Church of England General Synod has overwhelmingly rejected changing the law to introduce ‘assisted dying’, instead backing improved funding for desperately needed palliative care.”
The polling — the largest on assisted dying since the Leadbeater Bill — was carried out by Whitestone Insight on behalf of the think tank The Other Half, from 7 to 14 May, and canvassed the views of 10,222 people. It used MRP, the constituency-level modelling that came to prominence after YouGov’s 2017 model accurately pointed to a hung Parliament against the expectations of conventional polls.
The new poll found that, across the country, only eight per cent of the public supported pushing a measure that was not in the governing Labour Party’s manifesto into law without approval and full scrutiny from both Houses.
In Kim Leadbeater’s own constituency of Spen Valley, 61 per cent agreed that they would not want their MP to support a law pushed through without full scrutiny and approval by both Houses, compared with just eight per cent who disagreed.
In Makerfield, where Andy Burnham is seeking a return to Westminster in a by-election on 18 June, 60 per cent agreed, while eight per cent disagreed.
In the Holborn and St Pancras constituency of the Prime Minister, who supports assisted dying, voters agreed by 58 per cent to seven per cent.
Legalising assisted dying came bottom of a list of voters’ priorities that they wanted their MP to focus on, if they had the opportunity to make a law over the next year. Only seven per cent of the public and seven per cent of Labour voters consider assisted dying a priority.
And, in every constituency, the majority of voters believed that members of the House of Lords had a duty to scrutinise, amend or, if necessary, block any legislation if they believed that it could put vulnerable people at risk.