Kim Leadbeater has made a last-minute plea to MPs to support her assisted dying bill, warning that if it is rejected on Friday, terminally ill adults could face a ten-year wait before the issue is debated again.
In an emotional plea ahead of Friday’s final Commons vote on the Terminally Ill Adults bill, the Labour MP asked how many more would suffer dying without dignity if MPs reject her plans.
“If we don’t pass this law tomorrow, it could be another decade before this issue was brought back to parliament,” she told a press conference in Westminster.
Flanked by MPs from across party lines, as well as a group of assisted dying campaigners, Ms Leadbeater added: “It’s 10 years since we last had a vote. If we leave it now, I worry it could be a heck of a long time.
“And in that time, how many more stories will we hear like Katie, Pamela, Anil and Sophie.”
The four campaigners had shared stories of their own experiences with terminal illness or of the anguish around the deaths of loved ones who could have benefitted from assisted dying.
One of the campaigners at the press conference, Sophie Blake, who has been living with stage four secondary breast cancer for three years, said: “I have come to terms with the fact my life has been shortened and I do not fear death. But I do fear how I will die.”
She is allergic to most opioids, and said: “The thought of not being able to control my pain and suffering hangs over me”.
“I want my daughter and my family’s last memories of me to be happy and wonderful times, not being left traumatized by seeing me in agony,” she added.
The assisted dying vote is on a knife-edge, with expectations there could be decided by just 10 to 15 votes. Campaigners against the legislation called at the last minute for a delay to the crunch final vote, with 52 Labour backbenchers asking Sir Keir Starmer to step in and give MPs more time to scrutinise the bill.
But the prime minister rejected the call, saying there “has been a lot of time discussing it, both in parliament and beyond parliament”.
Asked whether she is confident the bill will pass, Ms Leadbeater said she expects MPs to back it comfortably.
She said: “We had a good majority of 55 at second reading, there may be some small movement in the middle, some people may change their mind one way, others may change their minds the other way.
“But fundamentally, I do not anticipate that the majority will be heavily eroded. I feel confident we can get through tomorrow successfully.”
It came after the last minute letter from 52 MPs warned: “This is not a normal Bill. It alters the foundations of our NHS, the relationship between doctor and patient, and it strips power away from Parliament, concentrating it in the hands of future Health Secretaries.
“MPs will be arriving at Westminster on Friday morning without sight of the final version of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.”
If, as expected, the Bill passes its final stage on Friday it will then go to the Lords where peers have warned that they intend to heavily scrutinise the legislation.
Among the issues still facing questions is the problem of potential impacts on those with disabilities and coercion to end lives early among the vulnerable.
The Whitestone polling was commissioned by the disability group Not Dead Yet UK and also found that six in ten agree that some disabled people could be coerced into assisted suicide by others who do not have their best interests at heart. This rises to 64 per cent for people polled who are disabled.
It also found 57 per cent agree that disabled people who struggle to access the support they need, given the current state of the NHS and social care funding, may be more likely to seek assisted suicide instead while only 17 per cent disagree.
