The new Prime Minister says he believes palliative and social care funding should be prioritised over debates on whether to legalise assisted suicide.
While addressing questions following a speech on social care, the Prime Minister told Sky News that “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”.
In June, Labour MP Lauren Edwards brought forward identical legislation to Kim Leadbeater’s controversial assisted suicide Bill, which narrowly passed in the House of Commons before stalling in the House of Lords. The proposals are set to be debated on 11 September.
While Kim Leadbeater’s Bill was being considered in Westminster, and a similar Bill tabled by Liam McArthur MSP was being debated in Holyrood, politicians highlighted a lack of adequate palliative care provisions in the UK.
‘Not the priority’
The Prime Minister explained: “I don’t say that there shouldn’t be a debate at some point about those issues”.
“Personally, I think there’s something that needs to happen first, and that’s the fixing of the funding of palliative care and social care.”
Writing in The Times, former Scottish Labour MSP Rhoda Grant agreed that “no assisted dying should be available while the hospice sector remains so scandalously underfunded, leaving people facing death with little real choice”.
“Telling patients they are free to choose death while failing to guarantee basics such as care, housing and mental health support is not progress.”
My concerns around the proposed Assisted Dying Bill, in the @thetimes today. The priority should be getting care right at the end of life, allowing people to live every day. pic.twitter.com/B5flPstRHz
— Rhoda Grant (@RhodaGrant) July 22, 2026
‘Undervalued lives’
Grant, who voted against Liam McArthur’s Bill in Scotland, highlighted concerns that were “repeatedly raised” in Holyrood at the time.
“Medical experts continued to question whether vulnerable patients suffering coercion, depression or feelings of being a burden can be adequately protected. Disability campaigners remained concerned about the message it sends to those whose lives are too often undervalued.”
She concluded that “there is much to be done to improve the lives of the British people, not least the sick and vulnerable. Surely it is better to vote down this divisive bill and let the issue, now twice defeated, rest in peace”.
Doctors: ‘Assisted suicide is not medical treatment’
Dawn French: ‘I worry that the poor will suffer most under assisted suicide’