The British assisted suicide bill is back - And so is Not Dead Yet.

The following message was sent out by Not Dead Yet UK on July 23, 2026.

By now you'll know that the assisted dying bill is back.

On 17 June, Labour MP Lauren Edwards introduced a new version of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. MPs will vote on whether it should proceed at its second reading on 11 September 2026. That's less than two months away.

So what's new?

Honestly? Not much.

This is the same bill Kim Leadbeater brought forward in 2024 — the one that spent months being picked apart in the House of Lords, generating more than 1,300 amendments before running out of time in April. The bill fell not because it was defeated, but because Parliament was prorogued. Now it's back, with two minor Lords amendments incorporated.

The first is a technical Wales amendment. Because delivering health services is devolved to the Welsh Government, the bill now requires the Senedd to give its approval before Welsh Ministers can set up the regulations for assisted dying in Wales. It's a constitutional housekeeping change. It doesn't alter what the bill actually does.

The second concerns people with eating disorders. This one is more serious. During the Lords debates earlier this year, peers raised concerns that someone with anorexia could potentially stop eating — deliberately — in order to reach the six-month terminal threshold and qualify for an assisted death. A minor amendment was added in the Lords to address this. But experts who work with people with eating disorders say it doesn't go far enough. The loophole, they argue, remains. We agree.

Everything else about the bill — its safeguards, its eligibility criteria, its scope — is unchanged. The concerns we have always raised remain. Disabled people face cuts to their independence, support, and care. Palliative care is under-resourced. In that environment, telling people they have the option to end their lives early is not compassion. It is a profound risk to people who already feel like a burden.

Even the new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, has acknowledged this. He has said he supports the principle of assisted dying — but only if hospices are "properly funded and sorted out" first. "You can't have this law change with an underfunded hospice movement," he said. We agree. And that underfunding hasn't been fixed.

What we're doing about it.

We are meeting very shortly to put the final touches to our campaign strategy for September. Our main goals are:

• Persuading MPs to vote against the bill at second reading on 11 September.
• Organising a demonstration outside the Houses of Parliament on the same day.

We will be in touch with full details as soon as they're confirmed — including how you can write to your MP, join us in person, or support the campaign in other ways.

We know many of you have been with us since the beginning of this fight. Your support matters enormously. We are not done yet.