How did party leaders and ministers vote on assisted dying?

Plans that could legalise assisted dying cleared their first hurdle in Parliament on Friday.

A majority of MPs – including Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and former PM Rishi Sunak – backed the proposals which would allow terminally ill adults with a life expectancy of less than six months to end their lives.

MPs voted by 330 to 275 to back the proposals, a majority of 55.

Fifteen members of the Cabinet, voted for the Bill – including the PM. The colleagues alongside him in the aye lobby included Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband and new Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander.

Meanwhile eight voted against, including Health Secretary Wes Streeting, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, Foreign Secretary David Lammy, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood and Women and Equalities minister Anneliese Dodds

There was no vote recorded for the Scottish Secretary Ian Murray.

The MP for Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice said: “I believe that everyone deserves dignity in dying, and that every person has the right to a good death. Unfortunately, the law as it stands today is inconsistent.”

Mr Lammy was among the Cabinet figures who decided to not back the legislation. In a letter to his constituents posted on social media after the vote, he said that he “worried” that if the plans become law “large numbers of people from all backgrounds” will feel pressure in their final days.

He said: “When a soul’s moment of departure becomes an option, something to be scheduled, so does the financial expense of keeping oneself on earth.”

Mr Sunak was among the 23 Conservative MPs who backed the bill, and has said he believes it will “reduce suffering”.

Writing for the Darlington and Stockton Times – his constituency’s local paper – Mr Sunak said that there “were people I am proud to call friends and whom I deeply admire in both lobbies”.

He wrote: “I believe that, where possible, we should prevent suffering. I know from speaking and listening to many of you, that too many people have to go through painful, traumatic, drawn-out deaths.

“These moving, deeply personal stories have left a profound impression on me. This Bill will make these ordeals, which are so traumatic for patients and their families, less frequent: it will reduce suffering.”

Most Tory MPs voted against the plans, including new leader Kemi Badenoch, who had said before the vote that while she believes giving people a “level of control over how they die” is the “right thing to do”, she could not back this legislation.

She wrote in The Times newspaper: “We cannot keep agreeing to things, however well intentioned, without a clear plan for how they will be delivered in practice, with all the implications fully considered.”

Commons data shows the list of shadow ministers who voted for assisted dying: Mel Stride, Chris Philp, Laura Trott, James Cartlidge, and Victoria Atkins.

The list of shadow ministers who voted against assisted dying: Mrs Badenoch, Richard Fuller, Dame Priti Patel, Alex Burghart, Helen Whately, Andrew Griffith, Claire Coutinho, Robert Jenrick, Edward Argar, Stuart Andrew, Gareth Bacon, Alan Mak, Mims Davies, Andrew Bowie, and Jesse Norman.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey was among 11 of his party’s MPs who voted against the legislation, alongside former party leader Tim Farron and the party’s education spokesperson Munira Wilson.

Earlier this month, Sir Ed wrote in the Times that he feared “if we make assisted dying a state-sanctioned option, some people would inevitably feel an enormous psychological pressure to take it up, even if it’s not what they really want”.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage voted down the legislation, alongside his party colleague James McMurdock. The other three Reform MPs all chose to back the plans.

In a post on social media after the vote, Clacton MP Mr Farage said he voted in the way he did “not out of a lack of compassion, but because I fear that the law will widen in scope”.

He added: “If that happens the right to die may become the obligation to die.”