Keir Starmer backs Esther Rantzen's calls for law change on assisted dying

21 December 2023 , 10:13

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Keir Starmer said there are 'grounds for changing the law' (Image: PA)

Keir Starmer has backed Dame Esther Rantzen's calls for a change in the law on assisted dying.

The Labour leader said there are "grounds for changing the law" on assisted dying. Mr Starmer, who backed a change in the law the last time the issue was considered in the Commons in 2015, acknowledged it would have to be addressed carefully. He has said a free vote in parliament "seems appropriate".

"On the question of assisted dying, there are obviously strong views both ways on this, which I respect," he told reporters during a visit to Estonia. "And that's why traditionally, this has always been dealt with with a private member's bill and a free vote and that seems appropriate to me. I personally do think there are grounds for changing the law, we have to be careful, but it would have to be, I think, a free vote on an issue where there are such divided and strong views."

It comes after TV veteran Dame Esther said she was considering ending her life at the Swiss clinic Dignitas if her treatment for stage four lung cancer fails to work. She told the BBC's Today podcast: "I thought, well, if the next scan says nothing’s working I might buzz off to Zurich but it puts my family and friends in a difficult position as they would want to go with me. The police might prosecute them.

"My family say it’s my choice. I explained to them that I don’t want their last memories of me to be painful. If you watch someone you love having a bad death, that memory obliterates all the happy times." She also called for MPs to get a free vote on the issue, saying: "It’s important the law catches up with what the country wants."

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Michael Gove said earlier this week Parliament should hold a fresh vote on assisted dying following Dame Esther's call for a free vote on allowing terminally ill people to die with dignity. The Levelling Up Secretary said he was "not yet persuaded" of the case for assisted dying but said he would listen to representations from others on whether the law needed to change. And he said it would be "appropriate" for the Commons to look at it again.

A free vote - or unwhipped vote - in Parliament is one in which MPs or members of the Lords are not put under pressure to vote a certain way by their party leaders. Free votes have traditionally been allowed on ethical issues that are seen as a matter of conscience.

Assisted dying is illegal in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and carries a maximum prison sentence of 14 years. MPs overwhelmingly voted against changing the law to let doctors help terminally ill people end their lives in 2015.

Sophie Huskisson