York Central MP urges government to set up commission on palliative and end-of-life care

She said: “Had palliative care been available alongside an end-of-life plan, their experiences could have been so different.”

The Labour MP asked Angela Rayner, who was standing in for Sir Keir Starmer while the Prime Minister is in Samoa, if the government would set up a commission.

Ms Maskell said this would mean “everyone can access the very best support when terminally ill and have a peaceful and dignified death”.

In the last week, the government has set up a independent water commission, launched a major consultation on the NHS and started a sentencing review into the prisons crisis.

Ms Rayner, who was a carer before becoming an MP, said she would arrange a meeting with a minister for the York Central MP.

The Deputy Prime Minister told the Commons: “From my work in this area before I was in this place, I know what incredible work this is, and what an honour it is to be there for somebody at the end of their life.”

She added that “discussions have begun on how to improve access to palliative and end-of-life care”.

It comes as Health Secretary Wes Streeting has said he will vote against the assisted dying bill amid fears around coercion and people feeling a “duty to die”.

MPs will debate Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill on November 29 and an initial vote is expected that day.

The Spen Valley MP has brought forward the assisted dying vote after winning the private members’ ballot.

Mr Streeting’s decision, first reported by The Times newspaper, is understood to have been made amid concerns around people feeling pressured to end their lives.

Earlier this month, Cabinet Secretary Simon Case wrote to ministers to say that, while they “need not resile from previously stated views when directly asked about them, they should exercise discretion and should not take part in the public debate”.

Mr Streeting is reported to have given his view when asked about assisted dying at a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party this week.

Some Labour MPs who are in favour of a change in the law are understood to have since expressed surprise that Mr Streeting has made his view known in light of Mr Case’s letter to ministers.

The Health Secretary had spoken recently about his concern that palliative care is not good enough “to give people a real choice”.

In comments reported by The Sun at the weekend, he said: “The challenge is, I do not think palliative care, end-of-life care, in this country is good enough to give people a real choice.

“I worry about coercion and the risk that the right to die feels like a duty to die on the part of, particularly, older people.”