Walthamstow MP Stella Creasy and Leyton and Wanstead MP Calvin Bailey voted for the piece of legislation, while Chingford and Woodford Green MP Iain Duncan Smith voted against it today, reports Marco Marcelline

Waltham Forest MPs joined their parliamentary colleagues in voting on the Terminally Ill Adults Bill today (29th November), which gives some terminally ill adults the right to end their lives.

Walthamstow MP Stella Creasy and Leyton and Wanstead MP Calvin Bailey, both Labour, voted for the piece of legislation, while Chingford and Woodford Green MP Iain Duncan Smith, a Conservative, voted against it. 

As a whole, parliamentarians backed the bill by 330 votes in favour to 275 against, a majority of 55. Keir Starmer and the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, voted in favour while Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, and Wes Streeting, the health secretary, voted against.

Brought to a vote in parliament by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, the private member’s bill, if signed into law, would allow terminally ill adults with less than six months to live the right to request to die, provided it is then signed off by two doctors and a high court judge.

The contentious bill will now go ahead to committee and report stage, where amendments can be made, before it is brought again to the house floor for a vote. If it is passed again, the House of Lords will vote on whether to sign it into law.

As the issue was treated as a matter of conscience, the government took a neutral position on the bill, and no political party present during the vote today whipped their members.

Walthamstow MP Stella Creasy said she voted for the bill as the right to die is a principle she believes in, but also because she wanted the bill to be “open to amendments and revisions”, which will be the case at committee and report stages.

Expanding on her view, she said: “The process of ‘committee stage’ could enable amendments to address concerns about the safeguards regarding the role of doctors, the nature of palliative care in our country and the wider concerns about the NHS itself and the involvement of the private sector. If the bill does not progress through this stage of parliamentary scrutiny this cannot happen.”

She previously voted for assisted dying in 2015, but that bill was defeated by a wide margin. 

In a statement for constituents, Bailey said he had been on a “journey” in regards to his view on the issue.

Stating that he entered the debate today without a clear ideological view for or against the issue, he said he decided to vote for it after listening to two moving debate contributions, one by Dr Peter Prinsley MP and the second by Marie Tidball MP.

Prinsley had described seeing patients in pain and indignity while dying in “horrendous” ways, while Tidball, who is disabled and wanted to die while enduring intolerable pain as a child, stated she would vote for the bill because it was solely restricted to terminally ill people.

Bailey stated he “still had concerns” about access to good palliative care in the country, and would “continue to test these questions and seek answers” to ethical concerns at the next stage of the bill.

He added: “Please do not underestimate how difficult this process has been for me and my colleagues. This has been an exhausting process, but we will continue our engagement and will enter the next debate more informed, but equally open minded.”

Speaking after his vote, Bailey told the Echo: “At one point last week I felt that I didn’t have enough time to scrutinise the bill but then when I sat down and read it properly, I realised that the narrowness of the bill meant a lot of my concerns aren’t applicable.”

Reservations and concerns that he still holds, but that he hopes will be answered in the committee stage, include the issue of coercion, and a lack of ethnic minority engagement in palliative care. 

Bailey stated he would be prepared to vote against the bill if its scope expands in later reading stages. 

Meanwhile, like the majority of his parliamentary party, Duncan Smith voted against the bill, reasoning that he did not believe it had enough protections for those who are suffering.

He said: “Evidence from abroad in countries such as Canada, Netherlands, Belgium and even the state of Oregon show that it is inevitable once you open the door to state assisted suicide that it will be constantly amended and weakened as time goes on.”

Stating that he believed the priority for legislators should be to improve palliative care over the right to death, he continued: “At the heart of this and the reason why I voted against the legislation is because I am patron of Haven House Children’s hospice and what is clear from those involved in palliative care because this is now so heavily underfunded and reliant on private funds, that not all cases can be dealt with because of a lack of funds.”

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