Assisted dying debate LIVE: Protesters face-off as campaigner demands 'end this trauma'

MP Rebecca Paul is proposing an amendment to the legislation ensuring that nobody can be helped to die if their motivations include:

(a) not wanting to be a burden on others or on public services,

(b) a mental disorder (including depression),

(c) a disability (other than the terminal illness),

(d) financial considerations, including lack of adequate housing,

(e) lack of access, or delayed access, to treatment or other service which a public authority is required (or can reasonably be expected to) provide,

or

(f) suicidal thoughts

MP Rebecca Paul is calling for better palliative care. This is care to help people at the end of their life, such as pain relief.

She is explaining why she opposes the legislation.

In theory, today's debate is about specific amendments that could be added to the Bill making assisted dying legal (officially called the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill), not whether the Bill itself should be approved or not.

However, perhaps predictably, MPs are also talking about whether they support the principle of assisted dying.

The debate has begun. MPs will consider a series of amendments that would make changes to the Bill.

Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, who is championing the proposed new law, is moving an amendment that would make it clearer no medical professional is obliged to take part in the process of helping someone who wants to end their life (though they would have to help the patient find another medical professional who will help them).

As well as doctors, her amendment means this safeguard would apply to people such as pharmacists.

Maddie Cowey, 27, was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of cancer, sarcoma, aged 18.

She said: “It’s going to be the thing that kills me one day and I would really like the choice to have dignity in my death.”

Maddie is currently taking part in a clinical trial, but said her cancer is still growing slowly.

She added: “It’s not going away and it’s not going to be cured. I naturally have concerns about how my death is going to play out.

“I’ve had nine years to ruminate about this. It’s not something that I take lightly but I think a lot of people don’t think about their death until it’s coming and actually it’s going to happen to all of us. Who wouldn’t want a peaceful death?

“Even if I choose to take the assisted dying route, having the choice and the option there is really important to me.”

Jilly McKeane, 72, was diagnosed with renal cancer in 2019, which has now spread around her body.

She said: “I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that eventually this is going to kill me.

“I want the choice, when I have no quality of life, when I can’t enjoy the simple things in life…when that time comes I don’t want my life to be prolonged.

“If I can’t do it here, I will go to Switzerland or somewhere that will allow me to do that. But I shouldn’t have to.”

Jilly, of Cheshire, said she did not think the law would change in time for her.

But she added: “Perhaps us being here today will help people in the future have that choice that I haven’t got.”

Both supporters and opponents of the proposed Assisted Dying bill have gathered outside Parliament bright and early this morning.

The pro-AD side is in Parliament Square, wearing pink t-shirts and holding a banner reading: "We're connected by a dying wish: let us choose."

The anti side is just down the road, bearing protest signs shaped like gravestones.

Some read: "Kill the bill, not the ill", while others point to the rollout of assisted dying in other countries such as Canada.

Lewis Atkinson, a Labour MP who sat on the Bill’s committee and supports the change, insists momentum behind the Bill “is still there”, and reports of MPs wavering are not true.

He insisted the Bill has not been rushed, and any changes have come about due to six months of “detailed Parliamentary scrutiny… that will continue today.”

Mr Atkinson, a Sunderland MP, dismissed claims that the Bill’s process has been “chaotic”.

“What Kim has rightly done is work really constructively with MPs across the house, but also with officials from the government to make sure that anything that goes forward is absolutely workable, secure and safe.

“Some of the further amendments were specially called for by opponents, such as a ban on advertising…”

“Far from being ‘chaotic’, it just shows the willingness to get all of the details absolutely right.”

Speaking to the Daily Express, Catie Fenner said she is pleased the Bill has reached this stage.

Ms Fenner, who waved goodbye to her mum when she left in a taxi for Dignitas, said she is out demonstrating this morning “because I believe in terminally ill, mentally competent adults having choice over their deaths.”

“My mum was able to have that but she had to go to Dignitas and we couldn’t be there. I don’t want any family to go through what we did.”

The sun is shining in Westminster and dozens of campaigners are arriving to show their support for or opposition to the assisted dying bill.

In Parliament Square, Dignity in Dying campaigners are gathering in their signature pink.

Their banner reads: “We’re connected by a dying wish: let us choose.”

Sue Ryder, a national palliative care and bereavement charity, warns there are gaps in the provision of palliative care that need fixing to ensure no one feels forced to consider assisted dying because they can’t access the care they need.

A recent survey conducted by the charity found that 77% of respondents felt that either a few, some or most terminally ill, people would view assisted dying as their only option because the end-of-life care they need isn’t available.

Dame Esther, credited for her efforts in bringing the conversation on assisted dying to the fore in recent years, said she remains a strong backer of the Bill, which is being championed by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater.

The 84-year-old, who has stage four cancer, said in a statement to the PA news agency: “I continue to fully support Kim Leadbeater’s assisted dying Bill which will give patients, like me, with a terminal diagnosis, choice they need and deserve at the end of their lives.”

It is understood she will try to follow the debate remotely on Friday, having given an update last month that she is on a different treatment since her “wonder drug has stopped working” and faces an “extremely limited” future.

Amendments potentially set to be debated today include ensuring there is no obligation on anyone, such as medical staff, to take part in the assisted dying process; that no medical professional can raise the subject of assisted dying before a patient does; and that health professionals cannot broach the topic with someone under the age of 18.

Reform UK has smashed the Tories and Labour in a further two council by-elections overnight, just two weeks after their incredible local election results. Nigel Farage swept Labour away in the Stoke-on-Trent council seat of Birches Head & Northwood, with a mega 40 point swing to Reform.

He also won off the Tories in Norfolk, where the council's wider election was delayed until next year amid local government reforms.

In a third by-election, Reform pushed Labour into third place in West Dunbartonshire, giving the party further hope for next year's Holyrood elections.

Reform UK's new Runcorn MP Sarah Pochin has said she will vote for Kim Leadbeater's bill today, after her Labour predecessor Mike Amesbury voted against the legislation.

She told ITV last night: "It is a very emotive subject, and I know that not everyone in my constituency is going to agree....but we were elected to give our opinions. I've considered all the facts".

She insisted there are "enough checks and balances in place within the legislation."

MPs will today consider amendments to the legislation. These are proposed changes to the law, such as measures designed to add extra safeguards.

Some of the amendments have been proposed by supporters of assisted dying. Others have come from opponents of assisted dying, and might make it harder for people to request help to end their life.

What they won't do today is make a decision on whether to back assisted dying or not. The next vote on the principle of the Bill is likely to take place in June, probably on June 13. This is known as the third reading, and if MPs choose to back it then the Bill will move to the House of Lords for further discussion.