Peers table 942 amendments to assisted dying bill in effort to run down clock

Peers will mount a new offensive to halt the assisted dying bill today, tabling almost 1,000 new amendments to the legislation in an effort to run down the clock.

- Jessica Elgot

More than half of the 942 amendments have been tabled by just seven members of the House of Lords, all of them vocal opponents of assisted dying. A source close to the bill said it was possible it could in effect be filibustered if peers pushed all the amendments to a vote.

The bill - which began as a private member's bill from the Labour MP Kim Leadbeater - passed the Commons in June and is now in the Lords.

Last night, 65 peers including the former Labour leader Neil Kinnock and Ruth Davidson, the former leader of the Scottish Tories, warned that it would be antidemocratic for the Lords to kill the bill after it had been comfortably passed in the Commons.