By Lucy Frost
Claire Hazelgrove, MP for Filton and Bradley Stoke, expressed her support for the Assisted Dying Bill, saying “the harmful status quo” led to her terminally ill mother dying alone.
The debate returned to Parliament on September 11, but was narrowly defeated by 286 votes to 270.
Addressing MPs, Ms Hazelgrove shared that her mother “chose to bring her late-stage terminal illness to an end, on her terms, at home, with dignity and strength that I can only try to imagine.”
Her mother, Ruth Hazelgrove, lived with a rare blood cancer, polycythaemia vera, for almost half of her life. Her condition worsened significantly in 2024, the same year MPs debated the initial version of the Bill.
Ms Hazelgrove told Parliament: “For mum, it was not a choice of life or death; it was a question of what kind of death she would have.
“She was clear that she did not want a painful or undignified death. She wanted peace.
“For us, it will always be a tremendous personal sadness that the current law meant that she could not tell us her plan, and we could not say goodbye
to her. But more importantly than that, that she could not say goodbye at the end of her life, or be surrounded by her loved ones, which is what she would have wanted for her death.
“Instead, the harmful status quo meant that mum died alone, with photos of us around her. This was 11 months ago either today or tomorrow. We will never know whether she died late one evening or early the next morning, or whether we are ever marking the anniversary on the right day.
“This is the status quo. This needs to change. That is why our vote today and our work on this issue is so important now.”
The Bill was ultimately rejected, and will not proceed further.
Ms Hazelgrove voted in favour of the bill, and she described her position on the matter as “crystal clear”.
After the debate, Ms Hazelgrove wrote on Facebook: “I want to be clear that I fully respect and appreciate that there are different views on this issue. I’m grateful to every fellow resident who has been in touch to share theirs, and engaged with me and one another with care and consideration on this.
“But regardless of my experience, my job is to be a legislator. I would never vote for a Bill if I felt it were unsafe. Indeed, amendments of mine to the previous version of this Bill were accepted unanimously by MPs, with different viewpoints and from different political parties.
“The hardest part, though, is knowing that many more people will now have to go through this same experience as my Mum, me, and my whole family, before this next comes back to the Commons, and I truly wouldn’t wish this on anyone.”