MPs break down in tears during assisted dying debate after Dame Esther Rantzen's campaign

MPs broke down in tears as they debated assisted dying for the first time in almost two years.

Tory MP Siobhan Baillie began to cry as she shared the testimony of a man who had written to her about his mum, who considered taking her own life after becoming deeply ill.

Ms Baillie said: "She also went on to plead for death in the final weeks, it took 16 weeks for her to die, effectively from starvation, and I mention this gentleman because he said that when my mum was dying..." She began crying, adding: "This is hard. We all get these." Ms Baillie said the man expressed his “bitter disagreement with the law” after his mum’s death.

Fellow Conservative Tory MP and former minister David Davis recalled his mum’s "miserable" death from brain and lung cancer compared to a constituent's father's death, which he said was described to him as a "beautiful death" at Dignitas, Switzerland’s assisted dying clinic. He said: "I have come to the conclusion that as long as extremely strict controls are put in place, so that no-one feels pressurised to end their life, I am supportive of the legalisation of assisted dying."

Former Tory minister Kit Malthouse hit out at critics’ arguments against assisted dying that made out the country was a place "teeming with granny-killers". He added: "They don't understand that the vast majority of the British people, they love their parents, they love their grandparents, they want the best for them. They agonise when they die. Go to the funerals, see them greeting each other at airport terminals. You'll see the love there. He said no law would make assisted dying mandatory and that anti-change campaigners should not stand in someone else's way.

Every eight days a Brit travels to Dignitas for help to die. Green MP Caroline Lucas claimed the current law "drives practices overseas or behind closed doors where there are no safeguards in place to protect people".

Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi, who opened the debate, said: "My own personal view is that if you do have a terminal diagnosis, and are mentally sound, shouldn't you have the choice to take yourself out of suffering? That is the choice that Dame Esther Rantzen talks about. So, whatever comes from today's debate I would like everyone to consider bringing up the subject of their death with their loved ones now, not before it is too late, because there are two things that are certain in this world: we are born and then we die."

Justice minister Laura Farris said changing the law on assisted dying would be a matter of conscience for MPs. Ms Farris said: "Our view remains that any relaxation of the law is an issue of conscience for individual parliamentarians rather than one for Government policy. In the tradition of all conscience matters where the Government maintains a neutral stance, that is typically achieved through a private member's Bill."

Keir Starmer has pledged to give MPs a free vote on legalising assisted dying in England if Labour wins the general election. The Westminster Hall debate, which lasted around three hours, came after a petition backed by Dame Esther secured more than 200,000 signatures.

Dame Esther Rantzen, who has been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer, said a change in the law “would mean that I could look forward in confidence to a death which is pain-free surrounded by people I love”. The TV legend, who was unable to attend the debate because of her illness, told BBC Radio 4: "Isn't it typically British that we give the pets we love a pain-free, dignified, private death but we can't offer it to the people we love."

Campaigners gathered outside Parliament as they chanted for a change in the law. Some 75% of the public support making it lawful for dying adults to access assisted dying in the UK, according to recent polling of more than 10,000 people, conducted by Opinium Research on behalf of Dignity in Dying.

Those who oppose a change in the law have voiced concerns that legalising assisted dying could put pressure on vulnerable people to end their lives for fear of being a burden on others, and argue the disabled, elderly, sick or depressed could be especially at risk. Assisted suicide is banned in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, with a maximum prison sentence of 14 years.

A Bill was introduced in Scotland in March - the third time members of the Scottish parliament will have considered the issue - with two previous attempts to change the law defeated. The issue was last voted on in the Commons in 2015, when it was defeated at second reading stage by 330 votes to 118. But it has been less than two years since a Westminster Hall debate on assisted dying took place, with one held in July 2022.

A report by MPs at Westminster in February warned that the Government must consider what to do if the law is changed in part of the UK or on the Isle of Man or Jersey, both of which are crown dependencies and both of which are currently considering the issue.

'Did my wife have to go to Switzerland to die?'

Dave Sowry, 67, accompanied his wife Christy Barry, 62, to assisted-dying clinic Dignitas in Switzerland in September 2022 after her years-long battle with Multiple sclerosis. In a final letter for her friends and family, which Dave posted for her on his way home, Christy said: “I've had a very rich and full life but my MS has been rapidly and frighteningly worsening of late, I cannot go on. My MS has crept up slowly on me over the past 10 years bit by bit removing more of my bodily functions… So please don't judge me harshly for making this decision to bring the curtain down.” Dave added: “I think she felt that life was closing in with no future other than the knowledge that however bad things were, they were only going to get worse.” Dave said they had to be secretive about going to Switzerland because of current laws banning assisted dying in this country. He had to have a formal interview with police when he came home but they decided not to take further action in the end. “I’m here today [at the rally] because thankfully there does seem to be some momentum around having a proper, full and open discussion and debate in this country about what we as a society want,” Dave added.

'Nobody has the right to tell me that I have to suffer'

Jean Eveleigh, 44, who has an incurable progressive degenerative disorder Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, said all she knows about her condition is “as I get older, I get worse”. Jean, who uses a wheelchair, said: “I could end up needing to have a breathing tube, a feeding tube and tubes to be able to go to the toilet. I’ll have a fully functioning brain in a body that can’t do anything for me. I could be like that for 20 or 30 years. That’s no quality of life.” She said the current law is “very discriminatory” as those who are physically and financially able can go to Dignitas in Switzerland. Addressing MPs, Jean said: “Nobody has the right to tell me that I have to suffer. I am not telling anybody else that because I want to have an assisted death, they have to have one. But everybody that is against it is telling me that they have decided that I have to suffer for an unknown amount of years just because they don't want a law that says that they may be allowed to choose to die if they want to.”