Ahead of a vote in Senedd Cymru on 20 January, please use our new email tool to contact your MSs, asking them to vote against the Legislative Consent Motion (LCM) concerning Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide bill.
In October 2024, Senedd Cymru rejected a motion to “support the principles of assisted dying and support Westminster parliament to introduce a… law in England and Wales.” Yet while the Leadbeater Bill as it stands would empower Cardiff to decide whether to offer assisted suicide on the NHS, it would not allow MSs to decide whether to accept the Bill’s provisions overall.
With health matters devolved (as in Scotland) while justice is reserved to Westminster (unlike Scotland), former Forest of Dean MP Lord Harper recently told Peers:
“We have ended up with a very uncomfortable halfway house, which I do not think will be at all satisfactory, where we will be making decisions here for a service being delivered in Wales, not doing it in line with the wishes of those elected by the people of Wales.”
In its recent report on the Leadbeater Bill LCM, the Welsh Parliament Health and Social Care Committee said it “remain[s] concerned about the potential longer-term impact of the Bill on the provision of palliative and end-of-life care in Wales.”
A quick and easy way for supporters in Wales to tell MSs that you are…
‘…deeply concerned by the proposed Legislative Consent Motion to allow the UK Parliament to legislate for assisted suicide in Wales. The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, if passed, will allow assistance for suicide to be provided within the NHS in Wales.’
‘It is not right to have the UK Parliament legislate on a healthcare matter relating to Wales… We… call on all MSs to defend devolution… in healthcare. Otherwise, too many people who are vulnerable owing to age, disability or for other reasons will not get the healthcare they need but will be offered assisted suicide fully funded on the NHS instead.’