Esther Rantzen accuses peers of ‘sabotage’ as assisted dying bill looks set to fail
Dame Esther Rantzen has accused her colleagues of “blatant sabotage” after it emerged the assisted dying bill is unlikely to become law.
The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill will fail in May unless it completes all parliamentary stages before the end of the current session.
Opponents of the proposal have been accused of trying to “talk” the legislation through the House of Lords but insist they are examining a dangerous proposal amid concerns about coercion, disability rights and other issues.
The bill was opposed by health secretary Wes Streeting and home secretary Shabana Mahmood, but had the support of prime minister Sir Keir Starmer.
Dame Esther Rantzen, one of the group’s best-known supporters, accused some of her colleagues of “blatant sabotage” in a statement to Sky News.
He accused “a handful of colleagues” of drafting 1,200 amendments, “not to review the bill, which was their job, but to block it. That’s what they wanted. A few colleagues, for their own reasons, decided to stop this issue from going through the House.”
He said he felt “very sad because so many countries around the world… have reached the same logical and correct conclusion: If you are terminally ill, an adult, and fully capable of making your own decisions, you should have the right to die painlessly and with dignity if life becomes unbearable.”
“So I say to the House of Lords, how can you be so cruel, so inhumane and so undemocratic?”
He has previously written to members of the Lords urging them to “stop making up excuses” to block the legislation.
No. 10 remains to be determined on whether the Government will support giving extra time for the bill to be considered in the Lords.
Lord Falconer is another leading supporter. He described the current situation as a “tragedy”. But he claimed it was not the end of the road for the bill and could be brought back using a rare parliamentary procedure.
The Parliament Act allows bills supported by MPs in two consecutive sessions but rejected by their colleagues to become law without approval from the House of Lords.
Only seven bills have had the Lords overruled in this way, including the hunting ban in 2004.
If the bill is passed, adults in England and Wales with terminal illnesses who have less than six months to live will be allowed to apply for assisted dying.
MPs passed the legislation in the House of Commons last June, but only with a narrow majority of 24 votes.
Lord Falconer told the Press Association: “The Lords pride themselves on focusing on the things that matter and that is certainly not what is going on here. The tragedy is that a small number of people in the Lords are blocking a bill passing the Commons.”
He continued: “This is not the end of the road, because the Act of Parliament allows this to move to the next session and I’m sure it will.”
Meanwhile, the Jersey State Assembly has voted on legislation that would legalize assisted dying.
The legislation will now be submitted for royal assent so it can officially become law on the island.
To qualify, a person must have resided in Jersey for at least 12 months, have a voluntary, established and informed desire to take their own life, and be terminally ill with a life expectancy of six months, or 12 months if they have a neurodegenerative disease.
Unlike the bill being tabled in Westminster, which states that terminally ill adults must take an approved substance themselves, Jersey’s legislation allows a doctor or registered nurse to administer lethal drugs.
Campaigners advocating the legalization of assisted dying hope a service could be in place in Jersey by the end of next summer.
