Assisted dying bill - latest: Historic vote is ‘beginning not the end’ of debate, says MP Kim Leadbeater

Dr Ben Spencer, a Conservative, who would have qualified to be a medical assessor under the Bill before he became an MP, said there is limited scrutiny available for the legislation proposed.

“Why is this Bill limited to the terminally ill? What even comes within the scope of terminal illness?” he asked MPs. He said that if the Bill is passed for just the terminally ill then it will be discriminatory against others who are in suffering but who are not expected to die within six months.

“Where is the line, if there is one, between indirect coercion and the national human responses in a stressed family unit looking after a sick loved one?” he added.

Dr Spencer argued that MPs were not voting on the principle of assisted dying, saying: “In reality it is a vote on the implementation as put forward in this Bill.”

“This Bill risks placing implicit pressure on people who are already vulnerable,” he argued.

Dame Meg Hillier, Labour MP, agreed that MPs were not arguing on the principle but on the text of the Bill, but raised concerns that the Bill gives unprecedented new powers to the State.

She argued: “This is a fundamental change in the relationship between the State and the citizens, and the patient and their doctor. If we have a scintilla of doubt about allowing the State that power, we should vote against it today.”

Adverts promoting assisted dying have appeared at Westminster Tube station in central London ahead of a crucial parliamentary vote.

Some ads, from campaign group Dignity in Dying, have been covered up by posters from the Samaritans, a suicide prevention charity, in protest.

Labour MP Rachael Maskell, who is against the Bill, has argued that “evidence shows that disabled and ethnic minority people experience bias in healthcare. If you stand for equality, you will recognise the lack of safeguards in this Bill.”

She told MPs: “We must beyond reasonable doubt of error when voting on this Bill...Death as with life is too precious to get this wrong.”

Layla Moran, LibDem MP and chair of the health and social care select committee, said she will be voting for the Bill "because I want this conversation to continue."

She argued: “This is the second reading, the media is asking all of us - are you for or against this Bill?.. The question that I will be answering today is ‘do I want to keep talking about the issues in this Bill? Do I want to keep grappling with the detail until I get to third reading, when I reserve the right to vote no.’

James Cleverly, Tory MP, rose to argue that MPs were not debating the general question of assisted dying, but rather the specifics in the Bill in front of them.

He said: "We are speaking about the specifics of this Bill. This is not a general debate.. My honourable friend has highlighted numerous deficiencies."

He put to Ms Moran: "If it is positive, why are we denying it to children?"

Ms Moran said “that is something he might like to put to the Bill committee at later stages.”

Actress and disability rights campaigner Liz Carr has said there is a “fine line between terminal illness and disability” at a protest against the assisted dying Bill outside Parliament.

Speaking from Old Palace Yard, Ms Carr, 52, who has starred in TV shows Loki and Silent Witness said: “As disabled people, there’s a really fine line between terminal illness and disability.

“Our lives go in and out of the NHS and the medical system, and I think we are probably slightly less trusting than your average person.

“We know doctors are fallible, we know mistakes are made about prognosis, and we are concerned that the power that the medical profession wields in our lives will become more uncontrolled if this Bill goes through.”

Labour MP Andrew Slaughter has said that under the Bill a terminally ill person will need to consider their decision at least eight times, assuring MPs that there are safeguards in place.

“The decision for me is about human dignity, and it is about agency, and I would like to think that even at the end of life, especially at the end of life.. That they can still exercise that agency and make those decisions for themselves,” he argued.

Tory MP Kit Malthouse has said that the “death bed for far too many is a place of misery, torture and degradation”.

On the issue of the capacity of the High Court, Mr Malthouse said it was ridiculous to suggest that “I should drown in my own fecal vomit because it is too much for the judges to deal with… they will cope as they have done all these years.”

Mr Malthouse has said that if the Bill is not passed people will continue to take their lives in painful ways, saying: “I guarantee that there will be someone over the river in St Thomas’s now who will be starving themselves to death.”

High Court judges’ involvement in assisted dying “could just be a rubber stamp”, Mother of the House Diane Abbott has warned.

The long-serving Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington said: “I would recall to the House that in 1969, Parliament voted to abolish the death penalty for murder. Public opinion was actually against it but MPs believed on a point of principle that the state should not be involved in taking a life.

“It was a good principle in 1969 and it remains a good principle today. I am not against legalising assisted dying in any circumstance but I have many reservations about this Bill and in particular, I do not believe that the safeguards are sufficient.

“They are supposed to be the strongest in the world because of the involvement of a High Court judge, but the divisional court have said the intervention of a court would simply interpose an expensive and time consuming forensic procedure.”

Ms Abbott later added: “Is a judge supposed to second-guess doctors? Will the judge make a decision on the basis of paperwork? Or will there be a hearing in open court? And where will be the capacity in the criminal justice system to deal with all this?

“So far from being a genuine safeguard, the involvement of a judge could just be a rubber stamp.”

Read the full report from my colleague Tara Cobham below:

Watching on as MPs debate assisted dying are a number of terminally ill adults and bereaved family members who are campaigning for the law to be changed.

Sitting in the public gallery is Nat Dye, who has terminal bowel cancer, Sophie Blake, who has secondary breast cancer, and Laura Perkins, who watched her mother die of liver and mouth cancer.

The mood in the public gallery was sombre as Kim Leadbeater paid tribute to Sophie and Nat, saying they would like the right to die with “dignity and compassion”.

“Sophie, who is here today, was diagnosed with stage four secondary breast cancer, which has spread to her lungs, liver and pelvis”, Ms Leadbeater said.

“She is allergic to opioids, so she knows that her pain is very unlikely to be able to be managed. She has a 17-year-old daughter, and all she asks is to have the choice to say goodbye to her at a time of her choosing, in circumstances she can have some control over, and for her daughter to be able to remember her as the vibrant, positive woman she is.”

Nat, she said, says he doesn't know if he would choose an assist to death or not, but he “simply cannot understand why anyone would want to deny him the choice”.

Tory MP Andrew Mitchell has told MPs that he has completely changed his mind on assisted dying, and now supports people’s right to choose how they die.

He said that in the US state of Oregon, which has a similar law to the one being proposed in the UK, there has not been significant expansion of who can have an assisted death.

He argued: “Today we decide on a principle. If the Bill does not go through at second reading this will be the end of the Bill for many years.”

“There will not be a slippery slope unless this Parliament agrees to there being one,” he said.

“This Bill goes with the grain of our constituents’ views - something like 75% (in favour) according to recent polling.”

“Oregon shows us that less people take these steps once they know they’ve got this choice, this back up.”

Joann Taylor, 58, who has a condition called severe hypermobility syndrome, said she opposes the assisted dying Bill.

Speaking at a Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) protest outside Parliament, she said: “I’m against it because I don’t feel there should be assistance to kill disabled people before their natural deaths.

“Doctors can be wrong, cures can become available.”

Symptoms of severe hypermobility syndrome include frequently dislocating joints, frequent sprains and strains of muscles, poor balance and fatigue.

Ms Taylor, from Salford, added: “From my own experience, and many others too, of very prolonged miseries that the disabled endure in this country and beyond, our lived experiences aren’t understood by many.”

If the Bill is passed, Ms Taylor said she fears people who are vulnerable, disabled and depressed may make rash decisions.

She said: “Things change, your condition improves and you feel differently about life.”