When could the first assisted death happen?

What about people who are sick now? Will doctors need to be trained? How could it be done? Can the Lords block it? Will it be significantly changed via amendments? What about Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland? Will the process need to be signed off by a judge?

- Rowena Mason Whitehall editor

long careers fighting for vulnerable women and disabled people. Almost all of those who spoke yesterday - for and against - talked about some of the hardest moments of their lives: deaths of parents from pancreatic cancer, a sister with brain cancer, friends dying too young.

Some supporters of the bill said they wished at times that Leadbeater had taken a harder line. "Kim has tried to be too constructive with people - you can't negotiate or work with people whose sole intent is to kill the bill. And that's what's frustrating, because whatever you give them, give them an inch and they take a mile," one MP said.

There is still deep unease among advisers in No 10 about the prospect of the bill passing and until the 11th hour there was a live discussion over whether Starmer would abstain on the vote - especially given the Iran situation.

But, as some staffers acknowledge, it would have had echoes of Boris Johnson heading to Afghanistan to avoid a vote on Heathrow. The horse had bolted. The public, whatever the PM says about neutrality, will assume this is a Labour government endeavour. "Perhaps there is a lesson here about not promising parliamentary time to Esther Rantzen," one quipped.

The prime minister himself had been deeply conscious of not wanting to appear to influence MPs. He had personally admonished Streeting for doing so ahead of the last vote. But his very presence in the yes lobbies would always be a factor for some.

For some MPs, there is a feeling now that the government should take ownership of the issue, as David Cameron did on equal marriage.

"Why not try and take credit for something good? A lot of people really like it," one MP said.