David Cameron has become the first former prime minister to come out in support of the assisted dying bill.
The former Tory leader has written a piece in The Times explaining his decision, and saying that in the past he opposed moves to introduce measures allowing terminally ill people to end their own life.
Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton wrote: “My main concern and reason for not supporting proposals before now has always been the worry that vulnerable people could be pressured into hastening their own deaths.”
However, he says he has now been reassured by those arguing in favour of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.
Labour MP Kim Leadbeater will put the bill forward for a vote in the House of Commons on Friday.
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MP has ‘no doubts’ about assisted dying bill
“As campaigners have convincingly argued, this proposal is not about ending life, it is about shortening death,” Lord Cameron wrote in The Times.
His intervention comes after Gordon Brown, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss all came out in opposition to the bill.
None of Sir John Major, Sir Tony Blair or Rishi Sunak have made their positions public.
Gordon Brown. File pic: PA
In his article, Lord Cameron says he asked four questions before reaching his conclusion – whether there are sufficient safeguards to protect vulnerable people, whether this is a “slippery slope”, whether it would put unnecessary pressure on the NHS and will the proposed law lead to a meaningful reduction in human suffering?
On the first point, Lord Cameron says protections like two doctors needing to give approval as well as a judge, alongside the requirement of self-administration of the fatal drugs, are enough.
He also highlights the criminalisation of coercing someone to end their own life.
On whether the bill is a “slippery slope” – as Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood claimed – he says such an argument can be made for any social change.
The former prime minister writes that the bill is in “a sensible and practical resting place for public policy in this area”, and is explicitly only for the terminally ill, rather than those with mental illnesses and disabilities.
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Former prime ministers David Cameron and Gordon Brown both lost a child in tragic circumstances. But they’ve now come to a different conclusion about assisted dying.
Lord Cameron lost son Ivan, aged six, who was severely disabled and suffered from epilepsy and cerebral palsy, in February 2009. Mr Brown, the then prime minister, cancelled PMQs out of respect.
When assisted dying was last debated in the Commons in 2015 – when he was prime minister – Mr Cameron voted against it. But now, in a major and potentially influential intervention, he’s changed his mind.
“When we know that there’s no cure, when we know death is imminent, when patients enter a final and acute period of agony, then surely, if they can prevent it and – crucially – want to prevent it, we should let them make that choice,” Lord Cameron writes in The Times.
But the former premier is in a minority of Conservatives who back the bill and most senior Tory MPs, including Kemi Badenoch, Priti Patel and former leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith, are opposed.
Lord Cameron is also the first of all the UK’s living former prime ministers to back Kim Leadbeater’s controversial bill, which is being debated in the Commons on Friday.
This week three former Conservative PMs – Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss – let it be known that they oppose the bill. Baroness May, like Lord Cameron, will have a vote if the bill reaches the Lords.
Mr Brown’s daughter Jennifer, born seven weeks prematurely weighing 2lb 4oz, died after just 11 days in January 2002 following a brain haemorrhage on day four of her short life.
A son of the manse who was strongly influenced by his father, a Church of Scotland minister, Mr Brown says the tragedy convinced him of the value and imperative of good end-of-life care, not the case for assisted dying.
On whether it put undue pressure on the NHS, Lord Cameron dismisses the argument.
“It’s not just that the bill would be applicable in only a very small number of cases, it is that the NHS exists to serve patients and the public, not the other way around,” he writes.
On the fourth point – whether it will reduce human suffering – the former prime minister says: “I find it very hard to argue that the answer to this question is anything other than ‘yes’.”
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Lord Cameron adds that, as a member of the House of Lords, he gets letters from terminally ill patients and that poses questions.
He wrote: “When we know that there’s no cure, when we know death is imminent, when patients enter a final and acute period of agony, then surely, if they can prevent it and – crucially – want to prevent it, we should let them make that choice.
“It’s right that MPs are having a free vote on this issue – and our tradition of free votes on such moral issues should be maintained.
“The fact it is a free vote gives legislators the chance to think afresh and, if the evidence convinces them, to change their mind. That’s what I have done. And, if this bill makes it to the House of Lords, I will be voting for it.”