MPs debate assisted dying after Dame Esther Rantzen campaign

The campaign for assisted dying has been gathering momentum in recent years but politicians are still cautious, ITV News Correspondent Neil Connery reports

MPs have debated assisted dying after a petition backed by journalist and campaigner Dame Esther Rantzen gained more than 200,000 signatures.

Some argued changing the law to legalise assisted dying could see people killed because they are old, while others rejected a picture painted of a country “teeming with granny killers”.

Ms Rantzen, 83, has stage four lung cancer and supports assisted dying in order to protect her family from a "terrible memory."

Westminster Hall was packed for a debate on Monday afternoon which saw MPs give impassioned speeches for and against legislative change.

Speaking to Good Morning Britain on Monday Dame Esther said: "I had three deaths that happened very soon after each other, there was my husband, there was my mother and there was our dog and there's no question that our dog had the best death.

"We discovered he cancer and before the symptoms got painful we put him to sleep.

"We can offer our beloved pets a pain-free death but we can't offer it to our beloved family."

Dame Esther Rantzen said she had signed up to an assisted dying clinic in Switzerland but she worries she will have to do it without her family.

She said if her family travelled with her they may be interrogated by police when they returned to the UK.

Assisted suicide is banned in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, with a maximum prison sentence of 14 years.

Jonathan Dimbleby was among those to join the demonstration outside Parliament later on Monday.

Pro-change campaign group Dignity in Dying said terminally ill people and bereaved relatives will also be among those gathered, while the organisation My Death, My Decision described it as a “significant moment in the campaign for a compassionate assisted dying law”.

Dame Prue Leith, another pro-change campaigner, hailed Dame Esther’s efforts in speaking out, thanking her for "everything she has done to make our politicians sit up and pay attention."

In a statement, the Great British Bake Off judge, who is also unable to attend Monday’s debate due to filming commitments, said: "What is needed is less pearl-clutching about whether this reform should happen, and more serious, constructive debate about how to craft the best possible law for our dying people."

One of the biggest reservations about legalising assisted dying is the fear severely disabled people may feel like they have no option but to end their life.

Paralympian and peer Tanni Grey Thompson told GMB: "People tell me that if their life was like mine they would want to end their life.

"I worry about how the disability community will be perceived and how they will have no value."

Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi, a member of the Petitions Committee, opened the debate stating public opinion on assisted dying “has shifted in one direction”, citing polls by Dignity in Dying showing “overwhelming support for law changes with safeguards in place” and a rise in UK members of Dignitas.

Tory Kit Malthouse rejected a view he said was being presented of a country “teeming with granny killers, all of us waiting just to bump off a wealthy relative so we can pocket the cash, like we’re some kind of nation of Jeremy Bambers, intent on remunerating ourselves”.

He insisted “the vast majority of the British people, they love their parents, they love their grandparents, they want the best for them” and said any new law should have safeguards.

He also warned there is the “business class” option where someone who has the money “can have what the law denies to everybody else”, branding it “an outrage”.

The issue was last voted on in the Commons in 2015, when it was defeated at second reading stage by 330 votes to 118.

Conservative MP Siobhan Baillie began to cry as she shared the testimony of a man who had written to her about his mother’s death.

She said the man’s mother had “considered taking her own life as her best friend had actually done”, but did not, despite being deeply unwell, and had then taken 16 weeks to die “effectively from starvation”.

Conservative former minister Sir Desmond Swayne likened the situation to 1970s science fiction film Logan’s Run, saying a law change could lead to people being killed simply because they are old.

Sir Keir Starmer has said he is "committed" to allowing a vote on legalising assisted dying should Labour win the general election, while Downing Street has previously said it would be up to Parliament whether to debate legalising assisted dying again.

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