Lords’ assisted dying debate transcript is longer than War and Peace – Filibuster clear and obvious

Humanists UK and My Death My Decision’s analysis of the Assisted Dying Bill’s House of Lords Committee Stage reveals:

• The transcript of the Committee Stage debate is longer than War and Peace
• Lord Harper has spoken more words than the contents of Orwell’s Animal Farm
• Baroness Finlay has spoken longer than the runtime of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Extended Edition
• Opponents of the Bill have spoken for 55 hours, and spoken 462,749 words, twice as long as Moby-Dick and three-quarters of the total debate
• 43 UK citizens have died at Dignitas since the first reading of the Assisted Dying Bill in the House of Lords on 23 June 2025.

The House of Lords Committee stage of the debate has surpassed the word count of Leo Tolstoy’s epic novel War and Peace. Over 75 hours of debate, totalling 607,077 words, have led to only three minor changes to the Bill. Coupled with an outrageous, record-breaking number of amendments, and peers explicitly mentioning they intend to sabotage the Bill through procedure, Humanists UK and My Death, My Decision are clear that this is an undemocratic filibuster of the Assisted Dying Bill that was passed by MPs in the House of Commons last summer.

Humanists UK and My Death, My Decision will be outside Parliament on Wednesday 22 April, protesting the filibuster, and the final debate will take place on Friday 24 April. As there are no more debates scheduled, this will signal the end of the Assisted Dying Bill. The Bill will officially fail when the parliamentary session ends, and Parliament is prorogued.

The Parliament Act can be used to bypass the Lords and enact the Bill.

Committee Stage Analysis:

The Committee Stage in the House of Lords is when peers go through a Bill line by line to debate and test it in detail, though they usually do not make many changes at that point. Peers introduce their amendments, the government and then the Bill sponsor, Lord Falconer, responds, and then the amendment is withdrawn and can be put forward again at the following Report Stage.

Known opponents to the Bill have spoken a combined 462,749 words at Committee so far, more than twice as long as Moby-Dick (213,357 words).

By comparison, the House of Lords Committee Stage debate of the Renters’ Rights Bill, which is over 200 pages longer than the Assisted Dying Bill, has a word count of 249,057.

Peer	Party	Words said
Lord Harper	Conservative Party	37,233
Baroness Grey-Thompson	Crossbencher	36,591
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff	Crossbencher	35,595
Baroness O’Loan	Crossbencher	28,287
Baroness Coffey	Conservative Party	23,059
Baroness Fox of Buckley	Non-affiliated	21,741
Baroness Berridge	Conservative Party	16,076

A similar picture is painted by totalling up the speaking time using the index of the parliament.tv livestream. Opponents of the Bill have spoken for over 55 hours, nearly three-quarters of the 75-hour-long Committee Stage debate.

Peer	Party	Speaking time (h:mm)	% of total debate
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff	Crossbench	4:42	6.3%
Baroness Grey-Thompson	Crossbench	3:45	5.0%
Lord Harper	Conservative	3:32	4.7%
Baroness O’Loan	Crossbench	2:56	3.9%
Baroness Coffey	Conservative	2:34	3.4%
Baroness Fox of Buckley	Non-affiliated	2:27	3.3%
Baroness Lawlor	Conservative	1:55	2.5%

Baroness Finlay has spoken for 4 hours and 41 minutes, longer than The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Extended Edition, which runs for 4 hours and 12 minutes. 

The caveat to the speaking times is that the index does not pause when a peer interrupts another, known as an intervention. For example, in responding to Amendment 142, Lord Falconer was intervened on by Lord Harper, Baroness Berger, Baroness Fox of Buckley, Baroness Berridge, and Baroness Coffey. In reality, this means that opponents of the Bill have likely spoken for longer than indicated above.

As the sponsor of the Bill in the House of Lords, Lord Falconer must respond to each group of amendments, addressing each of the nearly 1,300 amendments in turn. To that end, he has spoken the longest, at 8 hours and 42 minutes and 63,852 words. 

The filibuster:

43 UK citizens have died at the Swiss assisted dying centre Dignitas since the first reading of the Assisted Dying Bill in the House of Lords on 23 June 2025.

Since then, nearly 1,300 changes to the Bill have been proposed, with seven of the most vocal opponents putting forward nearly 700 amendments between them. Amendments have included a pregnancy test for all applicants, including men, a one-year holiday ban for applicants, and an unworkable requirement for half a dozen GP visits.

Peers spent nearly an hour debating a group of probing amendments from Lord Frost that would change the wording of ‘assistance to end their own life’ in the Bill to ‘medical help to commit suicide by provision of lethal drugs’. These amendments add nothing to the clarity, workability or safety of the Bill and replace neutral, clinically accurate language with stigmatising terminology. 

We have identified several instances of peers being explicitly clear that they are trying to block the Bill by means other than it being voted down.

Nathan Stilwell, spokesperson for Humanists UK, said:

‘We could not be clearer. This is an egregious and undemocratic filibuster of the Assisted Dying Bill. No matter what metric is used, the evidence shows that opponents of the Bill, who will never support it and never be satisfied with any safeguard, have deliberately run down the clock.

‘Every single MP who wrote back to constituents, held surgeries and engaged with the assisted dying debate respectfully and seriously, has been overruled without a vote by an unelected chamber. Horrendously, the voices of the terminally ill have been shamefully overlooked and ignored entirely.

‘The elected chamber must bring back this Bill.’

Dave Sowry, Board Member of My Death, My Decision, said:

‘I’m equal parts outraged and distraught. Dying people were made to wait while peers talked and talked.

We welcomed scrutiny of this Bill and serious debate, even when that debate was difficult, and opinions differed. That is how Parliament should work. 

‘When I listened to Baroness Finlay describing her failed attempts to resuscitate a little boy’s goldfish, it became obvious beyond all possible doubt that this was a filibuster. Instead of a good-faith effort to test and improve the Bill, we saw scaremongering and endless delay, while terminally ill people were ignored.’