A Christian Labour peer has said that legalising assisted dying is too complex an issue to be put to a national referendum.

Lord Marvin Rees was speaking to Premier Christian News ahead of the Assisted Dying Bill’s final sitting in the House of Lords on Friday, where it is set to run out of time to gain Royal Assent.

Some proponents of legalising assisted dying have suggested that the issue should be put to a national vote. A petition for a referendum has been launched on the government’s website – but so far has garnered less than 50 votes of the 10,000 needed to warrant a government response.

“There’s the principle of the bill, but then there’s how you build a health system around it, so that it doesn’t have a negative effect on the most vulnerable,” Lord Rees told Premier. 

“I sympathise with the arguments for assisted dying… but we had a referendum before on an issue of huge complexity and incredible significance,” he added, in reference to Brexit. “It’s left the country poorer and more divided.”

Lord Rees warned of the issue becoming a “social media war”.

“The level of nuance that has to be considered wouldn’t be served with a referendum,” he said.

Rebecca Wilcox, campaigner for Dying in Dignity and the daughter of Dame Esther Rantzen, said she saw a "real human cost" to the bill's failure.

“This delay, this lack of a vote... I can’t help feeling unbelievably furious that we are here again when we should be celebrating a vote," she told reporters outside parliament, adding that she felt "incredibly disappointed by some peers”.

Christian voices in parliament have been active in the bill's oppositon, with the Archbishop of Canterbury stating that the draft presented to the Lords "makes for chilling reading".