Parliament faces a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to give terminally ill people the choice to end their lives, the Labour MP pushing for a change in the law has said.
Charlie Falconer, the former Lord Chancellor whose bill was introduced to the House of Lords last month, said Downing Street had assured him the bill would not prevent a historic Commons vote on euthanasia if its proponents secured that vote.
In an interview with the Observerhe said that some of the tragic stories that politicians had already expressed on the issue were “just the tip of a parliamentary iceberg” in terms of the strength of feeling that some colleagues and MPs had expressed to him. He proposes to allow euthanasia for terminally ill adults.
Lord Falconer said the best chance of securing a vote would be through a private member’s bill in the Commons. A bid to secure one will be launched as soon as MPs return from their summer recess. If successful, the law could be changed before the end of next year.
He warned that history had shown that every vote represents a rare window to bring about change. “If we lose the vote, it will be off the agenda for who knows how long,” he said. “Everything hinges on that vote in the House of Commons.
“This is such an opportunity. The last time this was voted on, there was a clear no vote in the House of Commons. But of the 650 MPs who were there in 2015, 477 have left. It is a completely new House of Commons with a completely new atmosphere, with a Prime Minister saying: ‘You must decide as a free vote – and if you decide yes, the Government will make sure that procedural strategies do not kill the bill.’
“In the decade or so that has passed, there has been a lot more attention to the problem. Much of the rest of the world has addressed the problem and changed their laws. But there is also a growing awareness in this country of the mess that is the law. And people have become more and more interested in the quality of their lives and the quality of their deaths.”
The issue of euthanasia came into the spotlight in December 2023 when the Observer revealed that actress Diana Rigg had recorded a message shortly before her death in 2020 calling for a law that would “give people real control over their own bodies at the end of their lives”.
To Esther Rantzen, the television presenter who has terminal cancerjoined the call for change, Keir Starmer said he was also in favour.
Before the elections he promised Rantzen that he guarantee parliamentary time to discuss the issue and allow for a free vote.
Falconer said that while his bill faced procedural challenges in the Lords to reach a vote in the Commons, an identical bill introduced by an MP could succeed. “No 10 has made it absolutely clear to me that they stand behind what Keir has said,” he said. “There is no doubt that Keir stands behind that promise.”
The Labour peer said his personal experience had led him to apply his legal mind to the issue years ago. “I, like many people, have had the experience of a loved one dying,” he said. “And the last few weeks and the last few months are a period when there is clearly nothing but imminent death – the person becomes increasingly withdrawn. And all they can look forward to is more humiliation, more pain, more struggle.
“The option, in the context of someone who is terminally ill, to have help to end the process, I think is a compassionate and necessary thing that they should be able to do. Having had personal experience and looking at the issue more and more, I saw how unfair the law is. Esther Rantzen has really brought the issue into the spotlight recently with tremendous effectiveness. And that is partly the product of a 10-year period of people really talking about it.”
after newsletter promotion
He said he had limited his proposals to only people with terminal illnesses who had six months or less to live, to ensure the bill was not the “thin end of the wedge” some opponents fear. He also said he was against the idea of applying it to everyone living with “unbearable suffering”, as some other countries have done, because he thought it could lead to unintended cases.
“In general, I don’t think the state should help people commit suicide,” he said. “I do think the state should give people options in their terminal illness about how they die. And I think the two situations are very different.
“If the law starts out as a law for terminal illness, not a law for unbearable suffering, that is where it has remained in every jurisdiction in the world. It is not the thin end of the wedge.
“The first of these was in Oregon. It started as a terminal illness bill, and it’s remained a terminal illness bill. Sometimes people say they’re very concerned about Oregon. But there are a lot of people who were against it and now say it’s clearly the right thing to do — that people should have this option.
“The result of the option is that it makes the last months of terminally ill people more bearable. They know it is there.”