‘We won’t give up on assisted dying until Parliament is willing to make change’

Lauren Nicklinson, right, and as a child with her dad Tony who was left paralysed after a stroke (Picture: Lauren Nicklinson)

In June 2025, there were scenes of jubilation outside the Houses of Parliament from supporters of assisted dying.

MPs had just voted to back the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill on third reading, meaning it had officially passed the Commons – ensuring the measure was closer to legalisation than any other point in British history.

Dame Esther Rantzen, perhaps the UK’s most prominent campaigner for assisted dying, said she was ‘so relieved’, adding: ‘I am astonished I have lived to see the moment.’

But ten months on, the mood is very different.

Peers in the House of Lords tabled an unprecedented number of amendments to the bill, all but ensuring they would run out of time to scrutinise it before the end of the Parliamentary term.

The bill will officially fall this afternoon, when the final debate in the Lords comes to an end.

Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP who introduced the proposed legislation, and Lord Charlie Falconer, the ex-Labour justice secretary who led the process in the Lords, called this ‘a matter of great regret’.

In a joint statement, they said: ‘All of those who have been depending on this Bill to offer them dignity and choice at the end of their lives will be rightly disappointed that Parliament was unable to deliver on its commitment to legislate.’

Among those disappointed is Lauren Nicklinson, who has been calling for the legalisation of assisted dying in the UK for around 14 years.

Her dad, Tony Nicklinson, had a stroke while on a business trip in June 2005, leaving him paralysed from the neck down and unable to speak.

Tony Nicklinson sleeping with a young Lauren on his lap (Picture: Lauren Nicklinson)

He made clear his wish to die but lived for another seven years, while his family fought battles in court seeking legal permission for a medically assisted death. They were unsuccessful, and he died in summer 2012 after contracting pneumonia and refusing treatment.

Tony’s case would not have fallen within the parameters of Leadbeater’s bill, which focused exclusively on people with a terminal illness, but Lauren said she saw it as a ‘step towards’ a law which would have helped her dad.

She told Metro: ‘I’ve got a lot of respect for the fact that it is emotive, and it worries a lot of people, so it should be difficult. This should be a really hard thing to get through, no one’s saying that it shouldn’t be.

‘Of course, it should be a challenging law to put through, because it’s complex.

‘But I think I wrongly, and perhaps a bit stupidly, had a bit more faith in the House of Lords that they would scrutinise it from the position of democracy and what people wanted, whereas I think they’ve just scrutinised it from position of, “I don’t agree with this”.’

The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill has stalled in the House of Lords (Picture: House of Lords/UK Parliament/PA Wire)

She accused peers of acting ‘childish’ by adding ‘stupid, little, tiny amendments’ to the bill in a deliberate effort to make it run out of time.

The opponents of the bill in the House of Lords have argued it was unsafe and unworkable as they received it.

A letter signed by Baroness Luciana Berger and six other opponents in December said a majority of expert witnesses who gave evidence to committees examining the bill indicated it was ‘not fit for purpose’.

It added: ‘Scrutiny should never be conflated with obstruction.’

Kim Leadbeater MP demonstrating alongside Rebecca Wilcox, daughter of broadcaster Dame Esther Rantzen, on Wednesday (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

Lauren insisted that despite the blow to momentum, she still feels positive that the legalisation of assisted dying will come one day.

‘I will always do everything I can to support a a dignified death for anyone, whether they are terminally ill or not.

‘I will always support that so that there’s hope it will happen at some point. It will – whether that’s in two years, 20 years, or 200 years, no one’s ever going to know.’

She continued: ‘If these people aren’t the ones to do it for us, it’s keeping up momentum, keeping up the campaigning, keeping up the talking and the explaining till we get to the right group of people who are prepared to make the change that we need.’

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