The result of the assisted dying vote was announced – then silence
It was as though somebody had muted the sound in the Commons when the result of the assisted dying vote was read out.
A rare and complete silence settled on the chamber as MPs were informed of the momentous decision they had collectively taken.
Many appeared to be in a daze, still struggling to process the outcome of what may well prove to be the most consequential ballot they will ever cast.
It was a far cry from the cacophony of raucous cheering and pantomime braying that usually breaks out upon the conclusion of a vote.
The collective moment of introspection came at the end of a thoughtful debate which showcased Parliament as it is rarely seen by the public.
Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP behind the Bill, had started proceedings four and a half hours earlier with an impassioned final plea for support.
“I know this is not easy,” she told them. “It certainly has not been easy for me. But if any of us wanted an easy life, I am afraid we are in the wrong place.
“After nearly a decade since the subject was debated on the floor of the House, many would say that the debate is long overdue.”
She namechecked 11 cases, all uniquely heartbreaking, of families who had been forced to watch their loved ones go through unbearable suffering.
They included Warwick, whose wife of almost 40 years, Ann, had “begged” him to end her life as her terminal cancer led her to choke to death.
“As he stood over her with a pillow he could not do what she asked as he did not want that to be her final memory of him,” she told a silent Commons chamber.
“I struggle to see how it is fair or just to deny anyone the autonomy, dignity and personal choice of taking control of their final weeks.”
As she made her remarks supporters of the Bill watched on from the Commons gallery, including those who have terminal illnesses.
Ms Leadbeater, the sister of murdered MP Jo Cox, touched upon that tragedy as she praised the bravery of those families who had contacted her.
“I know from my own personal experience of grief that telling your story over and over again takes energy, courage and strength,” she said.
As she took her seat Danny Kruger, a stalwart of the Tory Right who has led the opposition to her Bill, rose from his seat on the opposite side of the chamber.
He began by evoking Ms Cox’s famous maiden parliamentary speech, saying both sides of the debate have “more in common than might appear today”.
“I bear heavily on my conscience the people whose lives will be prolonged beyond their wishes if I get my way and this Bill is defeated,” he said.
“If I voted for this Bill, I would have on my conscience many more people whose voices we cannot hear – the people who would be vulnerable as a consequence of the huge changes that this Bill would introduce in our society and in the NHS.”
Mr Kruger said backing a change in the law would be a crossing of the Rubicon, warning that “a worse world, with a very different idea of human value” lay on the other side.
He added: “The idea that our individual worth lies in our utility, valuable only for so long as we are useful – not a burden, not a cost, not making a mess. Let us not be the Parliament that authorises that idea.”
Some of the most impassioned speeches against the Bill came from the Labour benches as MPs cast off the shackles of party allegiance and spoke on conscience.
Florence Eshalomi, MP for Vauxhall, was almost overcome with emotion as she spoke about her late mother, who lived with chronic illness all her life.
Holding back tears, she said: “I knew that one day her pain would be too unbearable for her but she did not let that limit her. She wanted to live.
“I do not believe that the Bill would protect the wishes of people in her situation, because freedom in death is possible only if we have had freedom in life.”
Dame Meg Hillier, chairman of the Commons Treasury committee, told how she did not know whether her teenage daughter would die from acute pancreatitis.
Her voice shook as she recalled how “she was saved and her pain was managed” adding that it had shown her “what good medicine can do”.
“The principle at stake is that we would cross a Rubicon whereby someone who is terminally ill is assisted by the state to die,” she told the Commons.
“That is a fundamental change in the relationship between the state and the citizen and the patient and their doctor. If we have a scintilla of doubt about allowing the state that power, we should vote against the Bill today.”
Alison McGovern, her Labour colleague, was clearly moved by the speech as she appeared to well up on the benches behind her.
Many of those speaking on the Labour side expressed concerns that elderly people could feel “coerced” into agreeing to end their lives.
Jonathan Davies, MP for Mid Derbyshire, voiced fears that volunteering to die might even be seen as a duty in the event of another pandemic.
“I invite the House to reflect on the Covid pandemic, when a lot of safeguards around a lot of things were relaxed,” he said.
“I worry that if we were to see another pandemic on the scale that we saw in 2020, people might feel that they were doing something patriotic by getting out of the way and freeing up a bed for a younger person.”
Tim Farron, the former Liberal Democrat leader, said there was “truly disturbing” evidence from other countries which have legalised assisted dying.
He warned that for many taking the decision to die would not be “a sovereign choice but it will be a choice born out of coercion”.
“Here we are, on the precipice of agreeing to sanction and support the deaths of people in despair,” he told the Commons.
“Our society has chosen a dystopian and contagious path if it chooses to facilitate the death of those who have a terminal illness rather than standing with them, weeping with them, valuing them and loving them against the desolation that any of us would feel if we were given a diagnosis of that sort.”
Others on the Conservative benches warned that the safeguards written into the proposals would not withstand a flurry of legal challenges.
Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, said the new law would be “woefully open to abuse” by the European Court of Human Rights.
Promoting rare groans from the Labour side, he told MPs: “I’m certain that as night follows day this law, if passed, will change, as a result of judges in other places.
“This Act, if passed, will be subject to activist judges in Strasbourg. They will change it fundamentally and we have to be prepared for that.”
Oliver Dowden, the former deputy prime minister, also voiced fears that “we will find ourselves in a decade’s time in a totally different place”.
“We have seen, time and again, excessive judicial activism taking the words in this House and expanding their meaning into places we had not foreseen,” he warned.
Others on the blue benches spoke up passionately in favour of assisted dying, including two former Cabinet ministers who said they wanted the choice themselves.
Kit Malthouse, a previous education secretary, said there was “no compassion and beauty” in death, but “only profound human suffering”.
“The deathbed for far too many is a place of misery, torture and degradation, a reign of blood and vomit and tears,” he told the Commons.
He visibly bristled at the argument from some of his colleagues that the requirement for two doctors to sign off on assisted dying decisions would overload the NHS.
“Are people seriously telling me that my death, my agony, is too much for the NHS to have time for, or too much hassle?” he demanded.
Andrew Mitchell, a former deputy foreign secretary, said he had completely changed his mind on this subject since first becoming an MP in 1987.
“I have sat in my advice surgery with tears pouring down my face listening to constituents who have set out so clearly, speaking with such emotion, about how their mother, brother, father or child had died in great pain and great indignity,” he said.
“I want this choice for my constituents, I want it for those whom I love and I want it, perhaps one day, for myself.”
As the debate wound up, Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves darted for the ayes lobby, where they were joined by Rishi Sunak.
Kemi Badenoch, Nigel Farage and Diane Abbott were amongst those who headed in the other direction to cast their votes against the Bill.
When the moment came it fell to Bambos Charalambous, Labour MP for Southgate and Wood Green,who was keeping tabs for the “yes” camp, to read out the historic result.
You could hear a pin drop in the chamber as, clutching a small scrap of paper, he declared: “The ayes to the right, 330. The noes to the left, 275.”
Behind him Christine Jardine, a Liberal Democrat who supported the Bill, threw back her head and puffed her cheeks in an emotional sigh of relief.
A hushed daze then fell with MPs continuing to sit in silence as Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons Speaker, read out confirmation of the result.
The quiet was only punctured when he announced, to laughs, that the business in the chamber was moving on to a debate about ferrets.
As hundreds of MPs filed out of the chamber Ms Leadbeater was mobbed by her supporters.
Meanwhile, in a rare moment of rapprochement, Sir Keir was spotted crossing the floor to shake hands and share a quiet chat with Mr Farage.
It was one of many small moments which encapsulated a day where Parliament threw off its confrontational image and showed off a softer, deeper side.
After the debate Mr Kruger vowed that he and other opponents to the Bill, which has several Commons hurdles yet to pass, would carry on their fight.
As the discussion rumbles on, MPs have demonstrated it is one they will handle with dignity.