16-05-2025
Politics latest: Esther Rantzen branded 'distasteful and disrespectful' as MPs debated assisted dying bill
Labour MP fears 'disproportionate impact' of assisted dying bill - and hits out at Rantzen
Labour MP Florence Eshalomi rises next to speak in opposition to the bill, as she did at second reading last year "on the grounds of inadequate safeguard against the coercion of minority communities".
She tells MPs that she has been following the detailed scrutiny of the bill at committee stage in the hopes that her "concerns would be addressed".
"But I am sad to say I'm even more worried now than I was then," she says.
Eshalomi also states that a Private Member's Bill is not "the appropriate mechanism for a national decision of this magnitude to be made", and the government should lead on such a change, rather than an MP "without an elected mandate" (a reference to Kim Leadbeater).
Eshalomi also argues that Leadbeater's amendment to ensure that medical professionals will not face any sanction for refusing to carry out an assisted death is not "comprehensive".
She quotes a palliative care consultant who works predominantly with ethnic minorities who told her, "we are scared".
They fear there will be a "disproportionate impact" on ethnic minority communities.
Eshalomi tells MPs: "Are we really prepared to sideline those unheard voices, and risk embedding further inequalities in healthcare as we legislate?"
She goes on: "If hospices are unable to opt out of providing assisted dying as a collective policy, then the people who already feel ignored by the healthcare systems are more likely to fear accessing the care that they need at the end of their lives."
The Labour MP also takes a swipe at Dame Esther Rantzen for suggesting that "undeclared religious beliefs" were behind some MPs' opposition to the legislation.
She says that is not the reason, but rather because "we recognise that if this bill passes, it may impact everyone, not just those who may wish to die".
Rantzen's statement was "frankly insulting to disabled people, hardworking professionals up and down the country who have raised many valid concerns about this bill to have it dismissed as 'religious beliefs'".
