Press release – New poll shows 82% back Burnham on assisted suicide, as calls for MPs to prioritise fixing care and vote down assisted suicide Bill today

PRESS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Press release – New poll shows 82% back Burnham on assisted suicide, as calls for MPs to prioritise fixing care and vote down assisted suicide Bill today

11 September 2026 – A new major poll published this morning has revealed that the vast majority of the public back Andy Burnham’s position on assisted suicide, with the results showing that 82% of the general public agree Parliament should first ensure no one would feel driven towards assisted suicide because they cannot get the care and support they need at the end of life. Only 8% disagree

Campaigners have called on MPs to listen to the public and vote down the Edwards assisted suicide Bill at Second Reading today.

The poll conducted by British Polling Council Member, Whitestone Insight, is the largest poll of the public undertaken in the final two weeks before the vote, providing the most comprehensive up-to-date picture of where the public stands on assisted suicide ahead of today’s vote.

The same poll also found that 68% of UK adults agree MPs should pause consideration of legalising assisted suicide until medical Royal Colleges can confirm a Bill would be safe. Only 13% disagree.

Dozens of serious flaws in the legislation now reintroduced by Lauren Edwards in substantially the same form have been identified by Royal Colleges, professional bodies, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and charities specialising in mental health, domestic abuse and representing vulnerable people. 

None of those organisations has been prepared to state that the Bill is safe, and they have expressed significant concerns. Government ministers have also not been willing to confirm the Bill is safe.

Whitestone Insight surveyed 2,071 UK adults online on 28-31 August 2026. Data were weighted to be representative of all adults. Whitestone Insight is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules.

Full background information along with a list of groups and experts who have expressed concerns about the dozens of flaws in the Bill or the need for further safeguards to be added is provided at the end of this press release.

Key findings from the polling:

• The public agrees with Burnham: fix care first
  • 82% agree: “Before Parliament considers whether to legalise assisted suicide, it should first ensure that no one would feel driven towards it because they cannot get the high-quality care and support they need at the end of life”. Only 8% disagree. 
  • Agreement reaches 89% among people aged 65 and over and 87% among respondents who reported a disability.
• Wait for legislation medical that Royal Colleges can confirm would be safe
  • 68% agree MPs should pause any consideration of legalising assisted suicide until a Bill is brought forward which medical Royal Colleges are able to confirm would be safe. Only 13% disagree. (Table 10)
  • Agreement is 74% among people aged 65 and over and 70% among 18–24-year-olds.
• MPs with serious concerns should vote against the Bill
• 72% agree MPs should vote against the assisted suicide Bill if they have serious concerns about the impact it could have on the most vulnerable. Only 14% disagree. (Table 11)
  • Agreement is 74% among respondents who reported a disability.

• Widespread concern about vulnerable people being coerced or pressured
  • Respondents were asked how concerned they would be that people in six named vulnerable groups would be in danger of feeling coerced or pressured into assisted suicide if it were legalised.
    • People with mental health struggles:
      • 83% are concerned this group would be in danger of feeling coerced or pressured into assisted suicide. Only 9% are not concerned. (Table 2)
    • People with dementia:
      • 80% are concerned this group would be in danger of feeling coerced or pressured into an assisted suicide. Only 12% would not be concerned. (Table 3)
      • Concern reaches 83% among people aged 65 and over.
    • People with disabilities:
      • 82% are concerned this group would be in danger of feeling coerced or pressured into an assisted suicide. Only 11% would not be concerned. (Table 4) 
      • This increased to 84% for people with a disability
    • Victims of domestic abuse:
      • 79% are concerned this group would be in danger of feeling coerced or pressured into an assisted suicide. Only 12% would not be concerned. (Table 5)
      • Concern reaches 81% among women.
    • The elderly:
      • 79% are concerned that this group would be in danger of feeling coerced or pressured into an assisted suicide. Only 14% would not be concerned. (Table 6)
    • People who are socially isolated or lonely:
      • 78% are concerned this group would be in danger of feeling coerced or pressured into an assisted suicide. Only 13% would not be concerned. (Table 7)
• Feeling a burden may create a sense of responsibility to have an assisted death
  • 77% agree: “Some terminally ill patients who feel they are a burden on family, friends or society may feel a sense of responsibility to have an assisted death if assisted dying is legalised”. Only 12% disagree.
    • Agreement is 81% among respondents who reported a disability, including 47% who strongly agree.
• Funding pressures could lead people to choose assisted suicide earlier
• 74% agree: “Current pressures on NHS and social care funding could lead some people to choose to end their lives through assisted suicide earlier than they otherwise would because they fear they will not receive the care and support they need at the end of life”. Only 12% disagree.
  • Agreement is 81% among respondents who reported a disability and 76% among women.
• Money should not be taken from the NHS budget to finance assisted suicide
• 63% agree: “Money should not be taken from the current NHS budget to finance an assisted suicide service”. Only 18% disagree.
  • Agreement reaches 73% among people aged 65 and over.

• Esther Rantzen’s experience and the difficulty of estimating remaining life
  • 75% agree with the following statement put to respondents: “More than three years ago, campaigner and journalist Esther Rantzen was given just weeks to live by her doctors, but thanks to effective treatment she is still alive, which shows that doctors often struggle to estimate how long terminally ill patients have left to live”. Only 9% disagree. (Table 6, rows 205–233.)
  • Agreement reaches 88% among people aged 65 and over and 81% among respondents who reported a disability.
• Concern about an irreversible decision relying on a prognosis that could be wrong
  • 75% agree: “I would be concerned if an irreversible decision about permitting assisted suicide relied on a prognosis that could be wrong”. Only 11% disagree. 
  • Agreement reaches 82% among people aged 65 and over.

Patrick Hurley MP, Labour MP for Southport, said:

“Andy Burnham is right to suggest that we must sort out palliative and social care before Parliament considers whether to legalise assisted suicide. When someone is dying, they need to know that help will be there for them. If they are frightened of being left without care, or of asking too much of their family, that can affect the decisions they make. As Labour MPs, we should be doing everything we can to remove those pressures.”

“This polling shows how widely that concern is shared. Labour should be putting its energy into rebuilding the services that people depend on when they are seriously ill. That means being able to get pain relief, a nurse when they need one and help at home, wherever they live. The Prime Minister has set out the right priority. I urge my colleagues to vote against the Bill today and make improving end-of-life care our priority instead.”

Andrew Hawkins, Chief Executive of Whitestone Insight, said:

“This polling clearly shows that a large majority of the public agree with Andy Burnham’s position that ensuring everyone can get the high-quality care and support they need at the end of life should come first.”

“For MPs, these findings amount to a clear public mandate to prioritise fixing social and palliative care before Parliament considers whether to legalise assisted suicide. If those who previously supported the Bill now conclude that inadequate care could drive people towards assisted dying, voting differently this time would be consistent with the position held by a large majority of their constituents.”

Alisdair Hungerford-Morgan, Chief Executive of Right To Life UK, a charity that opposes the introduction of assisted suicide and euthanasia, and campaigns instead for greater investment in palliative care, said:

“The Prime Minister is right. Given the state of palliative and social care in this country, introducing assisted suicide would be a recipe for disaster”.

“Palliative and social care are in crisis. Hospices are cutting services, and hundreds of beds cannot be used. A terminally ill person should never feel that an assisted death is their only option because the care they need is not available.”

“This polling shows that, instead of introducing assisted suicide, the public overwhelmingly supports Parliament focusing on policies that ensure care, protection and support for people at the end of life.”

“The polling also shows that the public do not support money being taken from the current NHS budget to pay for assisted suicide at a time when people are struggling to get the treatment and care they need. MPs should prioritise protecting and improving these services.”

“MPs can support assisted suicide in principle but still recognise that introducing this Bill in the middle of a care crisis would put vulnerable people at risk. Those who backed the earlier Bill should feel free to vote no this time.”

“MPs should vote against this Bill today and instead focus together on making high-quality social and end-of-life care available to everyone who needs it.”

Responding to the polling showing that 68% of UK adults agree MPs should pause consideration of legalising assisted suicide until medical Royal Colleges can confirm a Bill would be safe, Alisdair Hungerford-Morgan said:

“MPs should judge this Bill on the evidence before them now. Since MPs last voted on the Bill, expert scrutiny has exposed its serious flaws even more clearly, while the context in which it would operate has changed substantially.”

“Medical Royal Colleges, professional bodies and groups representing vulnerable people have identified dozens of flaws in the Bill and called for further safeguards. Yet the Bill has been brought back in essentially the same form as the Leadbeater Bill with serious concerns unresolved. MPs should listen to the people who would have to make this law work and who protect patients every day.”

“Scotland has rejected its own Bill since the Commons last considered the issue. MPs must now confront the practical and legal problems of introducing assisted suicide in England and Wales while patients, families and clinicians on either side of the border would be dealing with different laws.”

“Kim Leadbeater said only ‘a few hundred’ people a year would have their lives ended by assisted suicide if her Bill became law, but now MPs are faced with a much higher projected death toll. The Government have had to almost double their estimate of how many people would die under the revived assisted suicide bill in the first decade, from 13,500 to over 25,000.”

“The Government’s new equality impact assessment also warns that structural pressures such as poverty, inadequate care, neglect and abuse could result in disproportionate numbers of people from ethnic-minority backgrounds opting to end their lives through assisted suicide. Parliament should be focusing on introducing policies that provide care, protection and support for people facing these structural pressures who may feel pressure to end their lives, not assisted suicide.”

FURTHER INFORMATION:

Burnham comments

• At the end of July, when asked about his view on the revived assisted suicide Bill after a press conference on social care reform, the Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, said that before any further debate about assisted suicide takes place, the “fixing of the funding of palliative care and social care” must “first” be addressed. 
• Andy Burnham’s subsequent letters concerning his decision to abstain, clearly communicate that he will not give the Bill his support. This is in contrast to Keir Starmer, who publicly backed and voted for the previous Bill.

Social and palliative care are in a state of crisis

• Hospice UK says nearly one in three people who need palliative care currently miss out on the support they need. Hospice UK, August 2026
• Its 14 August analysis found that hospices in England ended the last financial year with a collective deficit of more than £70 million, more than double the previous year. At least 33 hospices had already made significant cuts, almost 60% were making or considering reductions, specialist community hospice visits had fallen by 150,000, and 380 hospice beds were out of use. Hospice UK’s full analysis
• Separate research cited by Hospice UK estimates that around 170,000 people in England each year, nearly one in three people who die, do so without adequate care and support. Hospice UK on the palliative-care gap
  • Hospice UK itself responded positively to Burnham’s intervention, saying it welcomed his recognition that palliative care needed to be fixed as a priority, while calling for that ambition to be matched by sustainable funding.

Palliative care organisations have warned that if assisted suicide is legalised, people will choose assisted death because they cannot get care

• In response to the reintroduction of the assisted suicide Bill, Hospice UK stated that “This Bill is being reintroduced at a time when hospice and palliative care is under strain … It is unacceptable that anyone might feel they have to consider an assisted death because they fear they will not receive the care they need at the end of life. Improving access to high-quality palliative and end of life care must therefore remain a central focus for the Government … Real choice at the end of life means people have equitable access to high-quality care, whoever they are and wherever they live”. (Hospice UK statement)
• The Association for Palliative Medicine of Great Britain and Ireland opposes the legalisation of assisted suicide because of concerns about “The lack of adequately funded and equally available specialist palliative care services in all areas in the UK”. (APM position statement, p. 1)

Royal Colleges and professional bodies have made it clear that the Bill is not safe

• To enable the use of the Parliament Acts to bypass the House of Lords to force the Bill into law, the Edwards Bill has been brought back in essentially the same form as the Leabdeater Bill that failed to become law, and has retained the same serious flaws in the previous Bill identified by Royal Colleges, professional bodies, and mental health and domestic abuse charities.
• Dozens of serious flaws in the legislation now reintroduced by Lauren Edwards in substantially the same form have been identified by Royal Colleges, professional bodies, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and charities specialising in mental health and domestic abuse.
  • None of those organisations have been prepared to state that the Bill is safe, and they have expressed significant concerns. Government ministers have also not been willing to confirm the Bill is safe.
• Groups and experts who have expressed concerns about the dozens of flaws in the Bill or the need for further safeguards to be added include the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Royal College of GPs, the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Nursing, the Royal College of Pathologists, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Children’s Commissioner, the former Chief Coroner, the Centre for Women’s Justice, Women’s Aid, Standing Together Against Domestic Abuse, the British Association of Social Workers, the British Geriatrics Society, Hospice UK, Marie Curie, Age UK, the Association for Palliative Medicine, the Mental Health and Disability Law Committee, a coalition of over 350 disability organisations including Disability Rights UK, Not Dead Yet UK and Disabled People Against Cuts, Care England, Mind charity, the National Down Syndrome Policy Group, the Chair in Palliative Care at King’s College London, a Professor of Law and Medical Ethics at Oxford University, the House of Lords’ Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, the Professor of Public Protection at the University of Gloucestershire, more than 1,000 doctors and overseas experts.

Scotland has rejected its separate Bill. 

• On 17 March 2026, MSPs voted 69 to 57 against passing the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill.
  • The Bill was opposed by the leaders of the SNP, Scottish Labour and Scottish Conservatives, three current or former First Ministers and 85% of Labour MSPs (17 out of 20).
• That decision came after its earlier approval in principle and subsequent scrutiny.

The Government’s new impact assessment on the Bill newly warns that disproportionate numbers of people from vulnerable populations could be driven to assisted suicide because they are unable to get the care and support they need

• New impact assessment warnings about impact on vulnerable populations
  • On Friday 28 August, the Government published a new impact assessment, equality impact assessment and ECHR memorandum on the revived assisted suicide Bill tabled by Lauren Edwards MP, which MPs will be voting on at Second Reading on Friday 11 September.
  • The Government has added a new warning that structural pressures involving poverty, poorer healthcare access, lower-quality care and domestic abuse could result in disproportionate numbers of people from ethnic-minority backgrounds choosing an assisted death to avoid financial hardship or escape abuse.
    • (2026 Equality Impact Assessment, p. 9, “Coercion and pressure”; compare 2025 Equality Impact Assessment, p. 8, “Coercion and pressure”).
  • In the “Coercion and pressure” section of its new Equality Impact Assessment, the Government has newly identified“neglect, poverty and difficult living conditions” as potential structural pressures on disabled people considering assisted suicide.
    • The Government says disabled people may be more susceptible to feeling like a burden and that pressure “is not necessarily felt or applied by other people”.
    • It says disabled people may feel subtle pressure because of attitudinal barriers or because appropriate alternative services and support, including palliative care, are unavailable.
    • It expressly identifies “neglect, poverty and difficult living conditions” as possible structural pressures.
    • It also records that disabled people are twice as likely as non-disabled people to experience domestic abuse, including coercive behaviour. 
    • (2026 Equality Impact Assessment, p. 9, “Coercion and pressure”; compare 2025 Equality Impact Assessment, p. 8, “Coercion and pressure”).
  • Higher numbers of people with learning disabilities, mental disorder or autism are projected to end their lives
    • In the assessment on the new Bill, the Government has now projected that by Year 10, as many as 156 people requiring an independent advocate – including people with a learning disability, mental disorder or autism, or substantial difficulty understanding the process of assisted suicide or communicating their wishes – could die by assisted suicide each year under the Government’s high scenario, an increase from 114 based on the 2025 Government Impact Assessment. 
    • The Impact Assessment also makes clear that numbers could be higher still. 

The Government’s projections of how many will die under the Bill have increased substantially.

• The Government’s central estimate of assisted deaths in Year 10 has risen by 60%, from 2,183 to 3,502 a year. (2026 Impact Assessment, p. 32, para. 81)
  • This would amount to almost ten assisted suicide deaths every day. The high scenario has risen from 4,559 to 6,257 deaths a year, more than 17 every day.
    • The report makes clear that even its 6,257 high scenario is not a definitive upper bound. (2026 Impact Assessment, p. 31, para. 77) 
    • A new sensitivity analysis produces 9,810 assisted deaths in England and Wales in Year 10 if New Zealand’s actual and projected assisted-death rates are applied here. (2026 Impact Assessment, p. 39, Table 11)
    •  The Government has changed the methodology behind its estimates after concluding there is “limited evidence” to support an assumption that growth in assisted deaths levels off after five years. (2026 Impact Assessment, pp. 28–30, paras. 64–69)
  • Telegraph analysis: Government officials raise central estimate from around 13,500 deaths to more than 25,000

Key points and evidence relating to the polling questions on prognosis accuracy

• The Bill makes an estimate of remaining life central to eligibility
  • Clause 2 requires an inevitably progressive illness or disease that cannot be reversed by treatment, with death “reasonably be expected within six months”.
  • Eligibility therefore depends on a prediction about when someone will die. (Current Bill, clause 2, printed p. 2, PDF p. 6.)
• A large UK study found substantial uncertainty when predicting survival in weeks or months

• A 2023 study examined records for 98,187 adults in London’s Coordinate My Care system.
• Clinicians selected the correct survival category in 32% of cases where they predicted “weeks” and 32% where they predicted “months”.
• Predictions were more accurate at the extremes: 74% for “days” and 83% for a year or longer.
  • (Orlovic and colleagues, BMC Palliative Care, 26 April 2023, Methods and Results.)

• A systematic review found that clinicians’ survival predictions were frequently inaccurate
  • A review of 42 studies found wide variation in the accuracy of predictions about how long patients receiving palliative care would survive.
  • Where clinicians assigned patients to defined survival categories, accuracy ranged from 23% to 78%.
  • No professional subgroup was consistently more accurate than the others.#
    • (White and colleagues, PLOS ONE, 25 August 2016, Results and Conclusion.)
• People have outlived six-month prognoses in an existing assisted suicide system
  • Oregon requires its attending and consulting physicians to establish eligibility, including a terminal illness expected to cause death within six months.
  • Its latest official annual report records that 24 of the 400 people who died by assisted suicide in 2025 had lived more than six months after receiving their prescription.
  • The report describes these patients as having “outlived their prognosis”. 
  • The figure represents 6% of reported assisted deaths that year; it does not establish how long people who took the drugs earlier would otherwise have lived.
    • (Oregon Health Authority, 2025 report, revised June 2026, eligibility on p. 5; survival figures on p. 7.)
• Esther Rantzen’s own account illustrates how treatment can change a patient’s outlook

• Writing in February 2026, Dame Esther Rantzen marked the third anniversary of her stage-four lung cancer diagnosis and credited a new cancer drug with extending her life.
• Her account illustrates the potential for treatment to prolong survival after an advanced cancer diagnosis. It does not establish that her cancer diagnosis was mistaken.
• In the same article, Rantzen continued to argue for legalising assisted suicide.
  • (Rantzen’s first-person account, The Observer, 1 February 2026.)

ENDS 

• For additional quotes and media interviews contact 07774 483 658 or email press@righttolife.org.uk 
• For further information on Right To Life UK visit www.righttolife.org.uk
• Whitestone Insight surveyed 2,071 UK adults online on 28-31 August 2026. Data were weighted to be representative of all adults. Whitestone Insight is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules.