This is not a matter of individual conscience, we have to vote as legislators and consider all possible scenarios.
Despite supporting the principle of assisted dying, I voted against it when this saga began nearly two years ago and I will be doing so again.
I have watched people I love endure prolonged and painful deaths. I understand and share the instinct to want to minimise and end their suffering. But I am not voting in Parliament as a grieving relative; I am voting as a legislator.
One of the things that has gone wrong in our country is how we make laws. Not based on whether something works or not, but how it makes us feel. As legislators, we have to do more than that. It is not enough to ask what we want the law to achieve; we need to question whether the system we build to achieve it will work. This was my training as an engineer and what I want to see more of in Parliament.
Engineers do not design systems for the easiest possible scenario; they design them for the things that might go wrong. We find the points of failure and build in safeguards. Legislation should be no different.
Too often in the past, politicians have started with the outcome they wanted and worked back. It happened with net zero 2050 – although I was one of only two MPs to question the plan behind the ambition. It happened with immigration – as if a points system alone would be sufficient to bring down numbers.
Too many politicians have made promises, passed laws and set targets, only to discover afterwards that the systems needed to deliver them either did not exist or did not work.
Imagine the ideal case of an assisted death. Someone who is terminally ill, mentally competent, surrounded by a loving family, receiving excellent medical and palliative care and making a settled decision entirely free from pressure.
Now imagine the difficult case. Someone depressed. Someone who thinks they have become a burden. Someone alone. Someone whose relatives stand to inherit. Someone whose mental illness has not been properly diagnosed. Someone receiving inadequate palliative care. Someone whose doctor has neither the time nor the expertise to identify coercion.
The law applies equally to everyone; it has to protect everyone. We cannot design legislation around the easiest case and simply hope the safeguards work for the hardest.
Some MPs are still upset that the House of Lords spent months examining the assisted dying bill. Scrutiny should not be dismissed as obstruction simply because it was inconvenient to those who wanted the bill passed quickly.
Parliament is supposed to be inconvenient. Scrutiny is supposed to be difficult. Making law should be harder than making a promise to well-meaning campaigners.
The most important responsibility of an MP is to legislate well. There cannot be a greater test of that responsibility than creating an entirely new legal system governing decisions over life and death.
By reintroducing an identical assisted dying bill, Lauren Edwards, a Labour MP, and her fellow sponsors have confirmed that they want to use the Parliament Acts to bypass the Lords’ scrutiny.
The Parliament Acts exist to resolve exceptional conflicts between the elected House of Commons and the House of Lords. They are extraordinary powers, used extraordinarily rarely and only ever by an elected government, not backbench MPs.
It is my belief that “legislating well” does not mean reaching for the strongest constitutional tool available, simply because the Private Member’s Bill process has not produced the outcome campaigners wanted.
This is no longer simply a matter of individual conscience and our individual views on assisted dying. It has become a question about the appropriate use of constitutional power, and whether serious concerns arising from scrutiny of legislation concerning life and death should simply be overridden.
None of this requires anyone to change their view on the principle of assisted dying. You can believe that terminally ill adults should have greater control over the circumstances of their death and still conclude that this process is unlikely to produce a system guaranteed to deliver that safely.
That was my position when I voted against this legislation the first time around. Everything I have seen since has strengthened that position. Endorsing an identical bill at second reading and bringing the Parliament Acts into play will not secure a better outcome.
Good government starts with reality, not just good intentions. We cannot give the state a power this profound unless the safeguards are strong enough to protect those most at risk.
I do not believe they are. This Friday, I will vote against the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. I hope colleagues who support the principle but are clear-eyed about the fatal flaws in this Bill and this approach will join me.
