A controversial Bill which would have given terminally ill patients the right to end their lives was dispatched by the Lords this evening after an impassioned seven-hour debate which exposed the unbridgeable divide between religious and humanist leaders.

Peers voted by 148 to 100, a majority of 48, to delay the Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill’s second reading for six months. The move effectively kicks the legislation into the long grass: Lords have not voted on the second reading of any Bill since 1998.

This evening's result will be welcomed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, who sent an unprecedented letter to this morning's Times co-signed by the leaders of the UK's Catholic and Jewish communities.

Lord Joffe, who proposed the measure, denounced "scaremongering" by campaigners outside the House and warned that he would re-introduce the Bill in the next Parliamentary session.

Liberal Democrat Lord Carlile of Berriew, who moved the amendment blocking the Bill, retorted: "The threat that this issue will be brought back ... intimidates neither me nor anyone of my view not one jot and I would urge the House to ignore it."

Dr Williams was the fifth of 90 to speak during the debate over the Bill, under which terminal patients suffering "unbearable" pain could ask for drugs to end their life.

Although the Archbishop agreed that his opposition was fundamentally tied to his faith, he said that the argument against the private members' Bill was not "an abstract matter concocted by sinister prelates", but a question of practical, legal and moral concern.

"Opposition to the principle of this Bill is not confined to people of religious conviction," Dr Williams said.

"Whether or not you believe that God enters into the consideration, it remains true that to specify even in the fairly broad terms of this Bill conditions under which it would be both reasonable and legal to end your life, is to say that certain kinds of life are not worth living.

"We would also jeopardise the security of the vulnerable by radically changing the relationship between patient and physician."

The debate was kicked off by the former human rights lawyer Lord Joffe, who told peers: "As a caring society we cannot sit back and complacently accept that terminally ill patients suffering unbearably should just continue to suffer for the good of society as a whole.

"We must find a solution to the unbearable suffering of patients whose needs cannot be met by palliative care. This Bill provides that solution in the absence of any other."

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