Assisted dying bill will almost certainly fail due to a lack of time

Controversial legislation to permit assisted dying in England and Wales is set to fail because of a lack of parliamentary time, Sky News can reveal.

The Labour chief whip in the Lords, Roy Kennedy, said this week that the government would not give the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill more time before the May deadline, when all legislation must have passed or automatically falls. The team behind the bill also confirmed they now expected the legislation in its current form to fail.

There are six remaining sitting days left before May, when the King's Speech happens, and the government is not repeating what it did in December by giving more time. Politics latest - follow live Advocates for the bill did not blame the government, which it said had been helpful to date, and instead aimed their fire on a minority of peers who have been asking thousands of questions about the details of the bill.

Broadcaster and campaigner Esther Rantzen told Sky News: "This is absolute blatant sabotage. This is a handful of peers putting down 1,200 amendments not to scrutinise the bill, which is their job, but to block it.

"A few peers for their own reasons have decided that they're going to stop this going through parliament, and the only way to stop them would be to invoke the Parliament Act, which has happened before, or get rid of the House of Lords - they're clearly not fit for purpose." She said she was still hopeful the change would come, as there is a rising cry for reform all around the world. She paid tribute to Sir Keir Starmer, who favours a change in the law, and said he had done everything he promised her before the election.

Many members of the public and even MPs were unaware that the bill was likely to fail. Earlier this week, the Welsh Parliament approved a "legislative consent order.