Civil servants and ministers will begin work on implementing the assisted dying bill if it passes its first stage in parliament on Friday, but the Guardian understands it will not be adopted as a government bill.
MPs will have a free vote on the bill to legalise assisted dying in the case of terminal illness. It is a private member’s bill, brought by the Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, which means the government is technically neutral on the issue.
But departments are poised to begin assessments into the impact and workability of the bill, which is likely to mean new amendments when it reaches the next parliamentary stage.
The bill will not get additional “government time” if it passes, the Guardian understands. It will not return to parliament until next April if it passes the House of Commons on Friday, which is expected to be a very tight vote.
A bill committee of MPs will be chosen by Leadbeater to scrutinise all the provisions in the bill and she has promised to include its opponents in the committee.
A government source said that a Ministry of Justice minister would then be assigned to the committee, who could recommend amendments for Leadbeater to adopt.
“We do not want to end up in a similar situation as we did with Brexit where no work was allowed to be done at all which led to complete chaos,” one senior government source said.
The health secretary, Wes Streeting, has told colleagues he will go into “make-it-work mode” if the bill passes, despite having been publicly opposed to it.
Many of the bill’s opponents have raised significant concerns over the bill’s process, saying that the time for debate in the Commons on a Friday was curtailed because of the nature of a private member’s bill. Supporters of the bill reject that idea, saying the bill has a longer period of scrutiny in bill committee than most other government bills.
MPs could vote twice more on the bill, including on any new amendments and again at third reading, after which it will go to the House of Lords.
On Thursday, the House of Commons leader, Lucy Powell, urged MPs not to get “bogged down” in the process of the assisted dying bill.
The government will work to make the bill “operable” if it is supported at its second reading, Powell told the Commons.
“Should the bill pass its second reading, the government will work with the sponsoring members to make sure this bill is operable and is implementable,” Powell said.
Powell added that, in the event of it passing the vote on Friday, “work will begin in earnest following the second reading debate. Should it not pass at second reading, that work would not happen at all. So that’s what I think Members should consider when considering the principles of this bill, and not get too bogged down in some of the process.”
MPs concerned about the process have submitted a reasoned amendment to the bill that calls for an independent review and a public consultation before it should return to the House for further debate.
The Conservative MP Jesse Norman accused the government of proceeding with the bill the “wrong way round”.
He told MPs: “Personally I feel very strongly pulled in both directions, by both sides, on the issue of assisted dying. But on one thing, no one can be in any doubt at all: that the government has no business trying to rush this legislation through this house by proxy.
“The text of the bill was published barely two weeks before we vote tomorrow. No impact assessment and no legal issues analysis has been published.
“Far from public debate preceding legislation, legislation has preceded debate. This is completely the wrong way round.”
Campaigners on both sides of the debate have been making final pleas to MPs before the knife-edge vote. The former health secretary Matt Hancock, a supporter of the change, released a video of him speaking to a constituent about his terminal illness and desperation for the right to choose his own death.
But on Thursday, Labour’s disabled activist wing wrote to all MPs urging them to reject the legislation. “A significant portion of our members express serious concerns about the potential risks and implications of such legislation,” Disability Labour said in their statement.
“We are worried that the current proposals may not include sufficient safeguards to protect vulnerable individuals from coercion or undue pressure. Furthermore, there is apprehension that the criteria for eligibility could expand over time, as has been observed in other countries, potentially leading to unintended and harmful consequences for people with disabilities.”
• This article was amended on 29 November 2024. An earlier version said that Matt Hancock was a former home secretary instead of health secretary.
