Legislation to allow assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia in the United Kingdom has moved one step closer to being implemented, with the publication of a House of Lords select committee report last week. The report on Joel Joffe's Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill called for the issue to be debated early in the next session of parliament. This bill will not go any further as parliament is being dissolved for the UK general election, to be held on 5 May.

Although the committee was divided on whether the law should be changed, it recommended that a future bill on the issue should be considered by a committee of the whole house. The new bill is likely to apply only in England and Wales, as Lord Joffe recommended. This is a step forward from the last …