Rantzen: Some peers condemning generations of terminally ill to die in agony

Peers opposed to the assisted dying Bill are “condemning generations of terminally ill patients to die in agony”, Dame Esther Rantzen said ahead of the fall of proposed legislation this week.

The broadcaster and Childline founder, who is terminally ill and has been a leading voice in the campaign to legalise assisted dying, said she is “bitterly disappointed” that some of those sitting in the House of Lords “have conspired to sabotage our democracy”.

The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which has been making its way through Parliament for the past year-and-a-half, is likely to fall without a vote at the end of a debate in the House of Lords on Friday.

It had proposed allowing adults in England and Wales, with fewer than six months to live, to apply for an assisted death subject to the approval of two doctors and an expert panel.

More than 1,200 suggested changes – believed to be a record high number for a piece of backbench legislation – were tabled in the Lords to the Bill and it has now run out of time to complete its journey through Parliament before the end of this session.

Kim Leadbeater, who introduced the Bill to the Commons in late 2024 and celebrated it passing two votes by MPs, albeit with a narrower majority second time around, has vowed to enter a ballot to bring it back in the next parliamentary session.

Baroness Luciana Berger, a staunch opponent, said it was “an absurd proposition” for campaigners to try to bring the same Bill back, saying this would set a “very dangerous precedent”.

Opponents have repeatedly argued that they have tabled changes to the Bill in an attempt to make it safer on issues such as coercion of vulnerable people, and have been undertaking necessary scrutiny rather than simply trying to “talk it out”.

But Dame Esther told the Press Association she was “bitterly disappointed” that some peers “have conspired to sabotage our democracy”.

She added: “The public know and want the messy, cruel criminal law to be reformed.”

She accused a “handful” of peers of having put forward a large number of amendments “to block it, pretending to scrutinise the Bill when in fact they were all just totally hostile to any reform”.

She added: “So they are condemning generations of terminally ill patients to die in agony.”

Asked if she felt this was the end of the line for such a law, she said: “I hope and pray that this is not the end of the process. I hope and pray that the members of the House of Commons will send the Bill back to the House of Lords under the Parliament Act which will prevent the tiny majority of Lords from sabotaging it again.”

That Act, a rarely-used piece of legislation, allows for Bills that have been backed by the Commons in two successive sessions but rejected by peers to pass into law without Lords approval.

Dame Esther said there is a need for a “humane, compassionate law our democracy voted for”.

She added: “Too late for me.  But in time for future generations, not to shorten their lives, to shorten their deaths.”

Her daughter Rebecca Wilcox, who has also been a campaigner in the debate, recently confirmed it remains her mother’s intention to go to the Swiss assisted dying clinic Dignitas, something Dame Esther first revealed she had joined at the end of 2023.