Rorey Bosotti
Live page editor

Image source, Reuters

Nearly seven months after it was first debated, the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill has now completed all its steps in the House of Commons.

Before the vote, MPs spent almost three hours debating concerns with the bill.

Opponents claimed amendments made since its second reading failed to address safeguarding concerns for the vulnerable members of society who could be coerced to apply for assisted dying services.

Supporters rejected the claims, insisting the proposed legislation aims to hand back terminally ill people the power of choosing how and when to die with dignity.

In an unusually-packed Commons, 314 MPs voted for the bill against 291 rejecting it - a majority of only 23.

• Why today's assisted dying vote is so significant
• Assisted dying bill: What happens next?
• Profound social change that is now likely to become law

Bill sponsor Kim Leadbeater said she's "over the Moon" as the bill will now give terminally ill patients a "choice and dignity where they might not otherwise have it".

Opponents of the bill have expressed dismay over it clearing the Commons, with the Not Dead Yet UK campaign describing the vote as "a set back but not the end".

But the journey of the bill isn't over yet - it will now head to the House of Lords, where peers are expected to debate it further.

We're now bringing our coverage of today's vote to a close. Thank you for joining us and you can find out how your MP voted in our story.

Munaza Rafiq
Disability producer

Image source, Reuters

Today’s vote comes as a heavy blow to some disability rights campaigners who have fought hard to have their voices heard against the arguments put for this bill and are today defiant that this is not the end.

Commenting after MPs voted this afternoon, Baroness Jane Campbell, who has been heading the Not Dead Yet UK campaign said "our fight goes on" and added she was “heartened” that the vote was won by a slim majority.

Many disabled people argued the bill set a "dangerous" precedent and did not offer protection to vulnerable disabled people who could be coerced to prematurely end their lives with some seeing themselves as a burden.

Disability Rights UK also expressed its "devastation" at the passing of the bill adding "such a monumental change… should not be rushed through on such a slim margin".

It’s important to remember that not all disabled people oppose the bill, with some like author and broadcaster, professor Tom Shakespeare, who has previously argued that a law based on terminal illness means disabled people are safe within the proposed law.

Sam Francis
Political reporter

The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill has split Parliament. Unusually, the split is not along party lines, but by belief - pushing some unlikely allies through the same voting lobby.

All this week Downing Street had been very tight lipped today about whether Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer would back the bill.

When the time came his name appeared among those voting aye, alongside his predecessor in 10 Downing Street, Rishi Sunak. Chancellor Rachel Reeves was also joined by her opposite number - shadow chancellor Mel Stride.

Other senior figures voting in favour included Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, Defence Secretary John Healey and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband.

Conservative Party Leader Kemi Badenoch voted against bill, alongside the majority of her party and senior Labour figures like Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner.

The two government ministers in charge of the departments that would implement the new policy, Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood, also voted against it.

Lib Dem Leader Sir Ed Davey, who voted against the bill at Second Reading, was absent due to being out of the country. His deputy, Daisy Cooper, voted for the bill - alongside the majority of her party.

The vote split Reform UK down the middle, with Nigel Farage voting against the bill but his predecessor Richard Tice voting in favour.

All four Green Party MPs voted for the bill.

Hugh Pym
Health editor

Most health organisations had adopted a neutral position ahead of the key Commons vote on assisted dying.

But some had expressed reservations about the detail and concerns about lack of consultation on how it would be implemented. That is reflected in the reaction of different groups today.

Hospice UK, representing the hospice sector, said if the bill became law, it would have a “huge impact” and that it was vital that palliative care was transformed so people wouldn’t choose assisted death for the wrong reasons.

The Nuffield Trust think tank noted that assisted dying services would almost certainly be publicly funded and there were questions over how that would be achieved.

The sense from the health world is that the House of Lords consideration of the bill will be vital and after that, the government has much work to do.

Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, who is against the assisted dying bill, says she's heard from "disabled people [who] are absolutely terrified" about the bill.

The former Paralympian says that while one side of the debate is "celebrating", she doesn't think today's vote is a "victory for anybody because by appearing to give choice to some people, we're ripping choice away from others".

Grey-Thompson tells the BBC that she wants to put forward amendments to the bill in the House of Lords to make it "as tight as possible" so that "there's not the ability to coerce [people into choosing assisted dying] or for people to slip through the net".

Paul Kirby
Europe digital editor

Meanwhile, the laws on assisted dying are very different in the Netherlands and Belgium, but both countries across the North Sea legalised euthanasia in 2002. In both countries the numbers have risen and the laws have evolved over time:

• Last year alone, 9,958 people in the Netherlands chose to end their lives, external: 5.8% of the deaths that year and a rise of 10% on 2023
• In Belgium, there were 3,991 euthanasia deaths, external - 3.6% of all deaths recorded in 2024 and a rise of 16.6% on 2023.

Euthanasia and assisted dying are legal, external in the Netherlands if a request is made voluntarily and patients are enduring "unbearable suffering with no prospect of improvement" with a medical dimension. A doctor must always be involved and must consult with a second doctor.

For most people (86%) who chose to die through euthanasia in the Netherlands in 2024, that involved a physical condition. But the law also covers psychiatric disorders, and more than 400 people had dementia.

A relatively new phenomenon has emerged in the Netherlands of "duo euthanasia" for life partners who choose to end their lives together. Last year there were 54 such cases, including ex-prime minister Dries van Agt and his wife Eugenie, who were both 93.

Children over 12 can also request euthanasia in the Netherlands under stringent conditions, and last year there was one minor who died this way because of unbearable physical suffering. Dutch law changed in 2023 to allow doctor-assisted death for terminally ill children aged 1-12.

Sam Francis
Political reporter

As we've previously reported, the trend in Parliament has been for MPs to turn against the bill as it's progressed.

Today's vote passed with a majority of 23 MPs, representing a drop from the first time it was debated in November, when it passed by 55.

Voting records show Labour's Jack Abbott was the only MP out of the 604 that voted to switch from an opponent to a supporter - but there were also 10 MPs who switched from abstaining to voting in favour.

Between Second Reading and today's vote 14 MPs switched from supporters to voting against – including Labour figures like Kanishka Narayan, Yuan Yang and Markus Campbell-Savours.

Andrew Snowden was the only Conservative MP to flip to voting against the bill. Lib Dem supporters turned opponents include Steve Darling and Jess Brown-Fuller.

Reform UK chief whip Lee Anderson switched from a supporter to opposing the bill, as did his former colleague Rupert Lowe.

Image source, PA Media

We can now bring you comments from the Bishop of London - who's a member of the House of Lords and a former chief nursing officer for England - on the assisted dying bill clearing the Commons.

Dame Sarah Mullally says the proposed changes to the law pose a risk to "the most vulnerable people in our society" as she argues there is "mounting evidence" that the bill is "unworkable and unsafe".

"If enacted, this legislation would come into force amid serious shortfalls in adult social care, a postcode lottery in palliative care and well-documented pressures on the NHS, multiplying the potential risks to the most vulnerable," she says.

"We must oppose a law that puts the vulnerable at risk and instead work to improve funding and access to desperately needed palliative care services."

Peers don't normally block government bills from becoming law - but assisted dying is a private members' bill, sponsored by a backbench Labour MP, Kim Leadbeater.

Lord Falconer, a long-time campaigner for assisted dying, is hoping to shepherd the bill through the Lords and says he is sure peers will "respect the views taken by the Commons on this".

"Ultimately it is for the Commons to decide on whether we should have an assisted dying law, and what its shape will be," he said yesterday.

"And we in the Lords will do what we do best, which is scrutinise the details, but leave the main decisions to the Commons."

Baroness Finlay, a palliative care doctor who is against the bill, told the BBC that "our role is not to rubber stamp whatever has happened in the Commons, particularly when we know that so many amendments put down in the Commons that would have improved the bill have gone undebated".

Andrée Massiah
Live reporter

Zoe Mead from Lincoln has terminal cancer and has spoken to the BBC about why she is in support of the bill.

“I watched my father die a slow and painful death from cancer in 2016 and it was horrible to see,” says Zoe.

She has terminal cancer and tells me she is "very scared of the future", adding that it is likely towards the end of her life she will be "unable to speak and will be paralysed".

Zoe says that the bill passing "equates to when women first got the vote".

"I strongly believe it should be my choice to try and die with more dignity. It would also mean that my young children would not need to see their mum in such a horrific state."

Jennifer McKiernan
Political reporter, reporting from outside Parliament

Beatrice Akomolafa is here with the Christ Embassy and says she is still hopeful the bill will be overturned.

"We are not hopeless," she says, as her colleagues sing gentle hymns behind her.

"It was a tight one and we're confident there can still be an overturn, despite what the other side believe; so we're hopeful."

"I came here to stand up for life, stand up for hope and stand up for the ill," she adds.

If you would like to get in touch with us about today's vote, you can contact us in the following ways:

• Email: bbcyourvoice@bbc.co.uk, external
• WhatsApp: +44 7756 165803, external
• Upload pictures or video, external
• Tag us on X: @BBC_HaveYourSay, external, external
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Image source, Getty Images

Dame Esther Rantzen, who has been a staunch supporter of the assisted dying bill, says the result will make a “huge positive difference".

Speaking after the vote passed through the Commons, she says:

“This will make a huge positive difference, protecting millions of terminally ill patients and their families from the agony and loss of dignity created by a bad death."

Image source, Parliament

The assisted dying bill now has to go through all the stages it went through in the Commons, but in the House of Lords - and then MPs will get a final say when they have looked at any changes suggested by peers.

This is the point the bill will officially become law - unless it runs out of parliamentary time or peers who are opposed to it find a way of blocking it.

Peers will get a free vote, meaning they are allowed to follow their conscience rather than the party line.

The BBC understands supporters of the bill feel there's a majority in favour in the Lords but until peers actually vote, that's just an informed guess.

• You can read more about the next stages the bill has to go through in our story

Chris Page
Ireland correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

Northern Ireland is the only UK nation where there is currently no legislation on the table to legalise assisted dying.

In a statement, the devolved government’s Department of Health says it has no plans to propose new laws in the Stormont Assembly.

"In Northern Ireland, assisting or encouraging suicide or killing someone on compassionate grounds remains a criminal offence," it adds.

The largest party in the power-sharing Assembly, Sinn Féin, said it supported allowing assisted dying “under limited grounds”.

Its seven Westminster MPs do not take their seats in the House of Commons.

The Democratic Unionists, who are the second biggest political party in Northern Ireland, voted against the bill in London – as did other unionist MPs and the MP for the cross-community Alliance Party.

The only MP from Northern Ireland who backed the legislation was Colum Eastwood of the SDLP.

As we reported earlier, this bill was called as a free vote in the House of Commons - which means MPs were allowed to vote as they chose, rather than along party lines as is usually the case.

We've just had the full breakdown of votes, so here's a summary of how each party voted as a whole:

We've been getting some reaction from campaign groups and charities about today's House of Commons vote.

• The result of the vote is "a landmark moment for choice, compassion and dignity at the end of life", Dignity in Dying says on social media platform X, external
• Humanists UK describe it on X , externalas a "landmark victory for compassion, dignity, and choice"
• Elsewhere, James Sanderson, CEO of palliative care and bereavement charity Sue Ryder, says the organisation "maintains a neutral position" on assisted dying. But he adds it is concerned that gaps in care could leave some people feeling it's their only option

Image source, Getty Images

Prime Minister Keir Starmer voted in favour of the assisted dying bill, according to the voting list provided by Parliament.

Meanwhile, Conservative Leader of the Opposition Kemi Badenoch voted against.

We're combing through the list and will bring you details of how some other high-profile MPs voted shortly.

• You can see how your MP voted on the Parliament website, external

We're now hearing from Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, who proposed the bill.

"There's a huge sense of relief," she tells BBC News. "I'm over the Moon because I know what this means to terminally ill people."

Leadbeater describes the result of the vote today as a "huge moment in time" and says MPs are "adding an extra dimension of choice" for those who are terminally ill.

"We've given people choice and dignity where they might not otherwise have it."

She's asked what she would say to those who are scared by today's result and are worried that vulnerable people will be put in a more vulnerable situation.

Leadbeater says she wouldn't have proposed the bill if she wasn't confident in the "safeguards and robustness of the process".

She adds that dying people are "vulnerable too" and says "we have to look after their rights and their needs".

"It will not cause damage to other people," she says about the bill.

Jennifer McKiernan
Political reporter, reporting from outside Parliament

More now from outside Parliament where, as we have been reporting, people on both sides of the debate around this bill have been gathering throughout the day.

Not Dead Yet campaigner Harry Gibson earlier told me he was worried about palliative care decreasing for working class people and changing societal attitudes.

"Palliative care should be a human right," he said.

"I'm concerned about the repercussions of the bill and the creation of an atmosphere and social conditioning where it's completely fine to annihilate people," he added.