Cable: Legalise assisted dying

Vince Cable has called for assisted dying to be legalised, becoming the first party leader to back the move.

In a moving article that will reopen the debate around the emotive subject, the Liberal Democrat leader called for Parliament to introduce new laws.

His change of heart emerged as Geoffrey Whaley, a terminally ill man who ended his life at Dignitas in Switzerland on Thursday, said police inquiries about his wife’s role had marred his final weeks.

Writing for the Mail, Sir Vince said nursing his first wife Olympia as she died of breast cancer had strengthened his opposition to assisted dying. But a decade on, he had been convinced by the moving stories of constituents who chose to end their lives that a change in the law was needed.

‘When Parliament finally lifts its gaze beyond the all-consuming Brexit debate, it will have to think about some of the big ethical and political issues out there,’ he writes.

‘Assisted dying is one of them. Government should take the lead but, failing that, I am one of a growing number of MPs willing to support private members’ legislation in Parliament.’ Sir Vince said his previous objections had been based on fears that ‘greedy relatives’ could take advantage of lax laws to force people to end their lives.

He warned that there would need to be ‘strict safeguards’ built in to protect the patient and the doctors involved and to prevent a ‘slippery slope’.

He said he and his current wife Rachel had decided that they would both support assisted dying if they were suffering.

euthanasia and assisted suicide are illegal in the UK. Parliament has consistently voted against changing the law. In 2015, MSPs voted against an Assisted Suicide Bill for Scotland, brought forward by the late independent MSP Margo MacDonald, who died after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. The Bill would have allowed the terminally ill to seek the help of a doctor to end their life.

Mr Whaley, 80, a retired accountant from Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire, wrote a letter to MPs describing his anguish at police inquiries into his case.

The motor neurone disease sufferer said his final weeks had been blighted by officers questioning his wife Ann over her involvement in his plan to end his life at Dignitas.