British Prime Minister Andy Burnham has declined to state whether he supports legalising assisted dying, saying the United Kingdom should first improve funding for palliative and social care before revisiting the issue.
Burnham made the remarks on Wednesday while relaunching his long-standing campaign for a national care service aimed at addressing the country’s care crisis for the elderly and vulnerable.
Speaking at a London care association event, the Prime Minister was asked to clarify his position on assisted dying but avoided giving a direct answer.
“Personally, I think there’s something that needs to happen first. That is the fixing of the funding of palliative care and social care,” Burnham said.
“I think it is very challenging to introduce that wider debate in a context of people not receiving that care and having the peace of mind about that care,” he added.
The comments marked Burnham’s first public remarks on the issue since becoming Prime Minister less than two weeks ago.
A bill seeking to legalise assisted dying failed in Parliament in April after stalling in the House of Lords.
When he previously served as a Member of Parliament, Burnham, who was raised as a Catholic, abstained during the 2015 parliamentary vote on assisted dying.
In 2024, he said he would likely have voted “in favour of the principle” of assisted dying if he had still been an MP, but stressed that proper funding for hospices should come first.
“There should be a kind of requirement that the hospices of this country get properly funded and sorted out before that law change comes in,” he told the BBC.
Despite the bill’s failure earlier this year, campaigners have vowed to continue pushing for legal reform.
Under the proposed legislation, terminally ill adults in England and Wales with less than six months to live would have been allowed to request an assisted death, subject to approval by two doctors and an independent expert panel.
The debate is expected to return when Parliament resumes in September, with Labour lawmaker Lauren Edwards set to reintroduce the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.
Like the previous proposal, the bill will be introduced as a Private Member’s Bill, meaning it is not backed by the government, and lawmakers will be allowed to vote according to their personal convictions rather than along party lines.
Source: AFP.
