Amendments to Assisted Dying Bill approved by Tynwald

Bill will now be resubmitted for royal assent

Tynwald has today voted to approve amendments to the Island's Assisted Dying Bill.

It means the bill will now again be submitted to the UK's Ministry of Justice for royal assent.

BACKGROUND

In case you missed it, in March this year, the UK Government decided that 'certain matters must be addressed directly on the face of the Bill to comply with the European Convention on Human Rights'.

The crux of the issue was that not enough safeguards were built into the bill, with proponents pointing out that a lot of this would've come later, in secondary legislation.

This is largely because our bill was brought forward by Alex Allinson as a private members' bill, as opposed to the likes of Jersey, whose own bill was government-backed from the outset, so is arguably more iron clad from the get-go.

You can read more on this HERE.

DEBATE

But it didn't come without further split opinions in the court.

MLC Gary Clueit argued he supported the safeguards contained in the amendments 'without reservation':

Meanwhile Douglas Central MHK Chris Thomas again argued for the bill to be scrapped in favour of a new government-backed bill to be brought forward in the next administration:

VOTE

Dr Allinson had argued ahead of today's debate that the new amendments 'strengthened the safeguards of the Bill and put it on a much firmer footing should it ever be challenged'.

Ultimately, the majority of members agreed with him, with 16 members for, and six against in the House of Keys, and five members for, and one against in the Legislative Council.