Dame Esther Rantzen has appealed to the House of Lords not to block a bill giving terminally ill adults in England and Wales the right to an assisted death, after it was backed by MPs on Friday.
The Terminally Ill Adults Bill was passed by 314 votes to 291 in the House of Commons – but will need to go through the Lords before becoming law.
Broadcaster Dame Esther, who joined the Swiss assisted dying clinic Dignitas after being diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in 2023, told Radio 4’s Today programme: “Their job is to scrutinise, to ask questions, but not to oppose.”
Critics of the bill, including Conservative peer Lord Shinkwin, say it could see disabled and vulnerable people being coerced into ending their lives.
This bill puts a price “on my head” and “the heads of so many disabled people” and older people, the prominent disability rights campaigner, who will get a vote in the Lords, told Today.
Some peers, including Lord Shinkwin, have indicated they will attempt to amend the legislation to introduce more safeguards.
Dame Esther, a prominent supporter of the bill, said she did not “need to teach the House of Lords how to do their job”.
“People who are adamantly opposed to this bill – and they have the perfect right to oppose it – will try and stop it going through the Lords.”
But she said the duty of peers was to make sure “law is actually created by the elected chamber, which is the House of Commons, who have voted this through”.
Even though MPs have approved the bill, peers in the Lords could stop it from becoming law by voting against it or not approving it quickly enough.
