MPs with medical experience urge yes vote on assisted dying

A cross-party group of MPs who are practising medics and former NHS staff have written to MPs urging them to back the assisted dying bill, after the health secretary expressed doubt that the health service was fit to enact such a big change.

- Jessica Elgot

The six Labour and Conservative MPs, including two GPs and two surgeons, said they had extensive experience of working in and around palliative care and stressed that a tightly defined bill would give dying patients genuine choice.

Most of the medic MPs are from the new intake - where there is fierce lobbying from each viewpoint to win over more than 100 MPs who are said to be undecided. Both sides say they expect the vote to be incredibly tight, despite an initial belief that there would be majority support for the law change.

GP Simon Opher, the new Labour MP for Stroud, said he would only support a bill in the tight circumstances which he believes will be defined in Kim Leadbeater's bill - which he said would not include allowing it in the case of grave suffering and only for terminal illness.