Eight in 10 back assisted dying in Yorkshire, poll finds, as debate between MPs heats up

The Spen Valley MP’s legislation would make it legal for a terminally ill patient, with less than six months to live, to seek an assisted death.

They would have to be considered mentally sound, and would have to be approved by two independent doctors and a High Court judge.

Ms Leadbeater has claimed that this makes the legislation the “most robust” in the world. 

It will be a free vote, on Friday, November 29, so MPs will not be whipped by their parties.

The Yorkshire Post has spoken to Josh Cook, from Huddersfield, whose mother Lisa killed herself after her mental and physical condition deteriorated due to Huntington’s Disease.

The 33-year-old said: “If the law was changed it could have been so different …I could sit there and hold my mum’s hand and she wouldn’t have to die alone.” 

The poll by Opinium, commissioned by the campaign group Dignity in Dying, quizzed 967 people across the Yorkshire and the Humber region.

Of those, 39 per cent said they strongly supported “making it legal for someone to seek assisted dying”, while a further 39 per cent said they somewhat supported it.

One in 10 respondents said they didn’t know, while 11 per cent of people opposed this statement in some form.

The language around the debate has been controversial, as the campaign group Care Not Killing, which argues for better palliative care, uses the terms “assisted suicide” and “euthanasia”. 

While the poll appears to show broad public support, in Westminster MPs appear to be divided.

According to campaigners in favour of changing the law, 23 of the region’s 54 MPs are likely to vote for assisted dying.

This includes high-profile supporters like the Energy Secretary Ed Miliband and Shadow Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Secretary Kevin Hollinrake.

However, some MPs are vehemently opposed while others have called for more time to debate the proposal.

Rachael Maskell, the York Central MP, told The Yorkshire Post that she feels the safeguards are “almost like window dressing”.

“They’re almost gas lighting the nation that this is going to provide more safeguards, when I really don’t think it does.

“I just think the whole thing is completely unsafe when you dig into the detail of it.”

Wes Streeting has faced criticism for coming out against the bill, after a directive from the Cabinet Secretary that ministers “should not take part in the public debate”.

The Health and Social Care Secretary has asked his officials to carry out a cost analysis of any change, and said he was concerned that palliative care was not in a good enough state.

Harrogate and Knaresborough MP Tom Gordon described Mr Streeting’s concerns as “really rich”, saying: “We’ve just had a Budget where there was little to no funding for social care.”

“Already, this government isn’t trying to give people dignity in later life, so to rob people of dignity in their dying moments is a bit of a double whammy,” the Lib Dem added.

Labour grandees Harriet Harman and Margaret Hodge accused Mr Streeting of breaching the Government’s neutral stance on the issue.