Labour urged to take immediate action on palliative care after MPs back assisted dying – UK politics live | Politics
Labor must take immediate action on palliative care, a senior Liberal Democrat says
Lib Dem Leila Moran, Chair of the Health and Social Care Select Committee, voted yesterday in the House of Commons on the Assisted Dying Bill.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, she said she had “long believed, particularly in the case of terminally ill adults, that they should have that choice at the end of their life”.
she said:
I was moved by personal experiences, my best friend’s mother got cancer about 20 years ago and we were living in Belgium at the time.
She started the process but actually died before she could complete the legal part of the process because the cancer was so aggressive. I saw how important it was for her to get that little bit of control back in her life.
Parliament should take arguments against the bill “seriously”, she added, while saying Health Secretary Wes Streeting should take a more proactive approach to palliative care.
she said:
I was disappointed. I was expecting an announcement from Wes Streeting yesterday to say “look, we’ve heard and we’re going to do something” … immediate funding commitments and a view to ensuring this is resolved in the next year or two.
I would say that whether it passes or not, that’s one of the key messages that came out of the debate.
Key events
MPs back landmark Assisted Dying Bill to give some terminally ill people the right to end their lives
Good morning and welcome to the UK Live Politics Blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you all the latest news and opinion from Westminster over the next few hours.
The MPs took a historic step towards legalizing assisted death England and Wales by backing a bill that would give some terminally ill people the right to end their lives.
Campaign in favor of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. said it was a significant step towards giving people more choice about how they die after the House of Commons backed the bill by 330 votes to 275.
Introduced by Labor MP Kim Ledbeater, the bill would give terminally ill adults with less than six months to live the right to die after the request is signed off by two doctors and a High Court judge.
It still has to go through additional steps before becoming law, and supporters believe assisted dying will not be an option for those with a terminal diagnosis for at least three years.
The vote, the first on the issue in almost a decade, divided political parties and the cabinet. Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves voted in favor alongside prominent opposition MPs such as Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt. Among those voting against were Angela Rayner, Deputy Prime Minister; Wes Streeting, Health Secretary; Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats; and Nigel Farage, leader of the reforms.
During the five-hour debate, the House of Commons heard impassioned pleas from both sides. MPs recounted personal experiences of illness and death and calls they heard from their constituents for assisted dying.
Esther Rantzen, which spurred the debate on assisted dying last December, after revealing he had lung cancer, said the bill offered everyone an “equal choice.”
she said:
Those who don’t want assisted dying and don’t want to participate in providing assisted death can opt out, they don’t have to, they don’t choose to end their lives that way. So it offers everyone an equal choice regardless of their religion.
Keith Malthouse, who made an impassioned speech in support of the legislation, said parliament had taken a “significant first step” and called on the government to now spend more parliamentary time considering the bill.
According to a recent poll, three quarters of the public support a change in the law.
See the full report on yesterday’s historic vote here:
