'Parliament is out of step': Telford MP calls for assisted dying to be made legal - with poll

Lucy Allan, MP for Telford, cited the cased of Noel Conway from Shrewsbury who last year lost his case in the Supreme Court where he asked for the right to medical assistance when he chose to die.

The subject was in the news again last month when 80-year-old Mavis Eccleston from Cannock was cleared of murder after fetching medicine which her terminally ill husband Dennis took as a fatal overdose.

Ms Allan asked Justice Secretary Robert Buckland whether he thought the matter should be brought before Parliament.

She said: "Parliament is out of step with the people on this issue, 90 per cent of the UK population believe that assisted dying should be legalised.

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"Shropshire man Noel Conway recently had his case turned down in the Supreme Court, which believed that it was a matter for Parliament to decide.

"Does the Minister agree that Parliament must look at this issue once again, because it is not right for us to decide that terminally ill people, who are enduring great suffering, have no right over how they choose to die?"

Mr Buckland it was a matter for MPs to raise that issue, either through a private Member’s Bill, or in general debate.

"My honourable friend raises the Noel Conway case, in which the Court found that Parliament’s decision not to change the law did indeed strike a fair balance between the interests of the wider community and the interests of people who were in that tragic position. That was upheld by the Court of Appeal."

Mr Conway, a 69-year-old retired lecturer, suffers from motor neurone disease, and only has movement in his right hand, head and neck.

He said after losing his appeal last year: "The only option I currently have is to remove my ventilator and effectively suffocate to death under sedation. To me this is not acceptable."

Mr Conway said he wanted medical assistance to die when he had less than six months to live, while he still had the mental capacity to make a "voluntary, clear, settled and informed" choice.

His case has also been raised in Parliament by Shrewsbury and Atcham MP Daniel Kawczynski.

Mr Kawczynski said he had an 'extraordinarily emotional' meeting with Mr Conway at his home earlier this year.

He said: "I spoke to Mr Conway about the possibility of him travelling to Switzerland, and his answer will stay with me forever. He said, ‘No, I am an Englishman and I want to die in England’.”

Mr Kawczynski added: “I think that is extremely important, because although some constituents have the wherewithal, financial means and opportunities to travel to Switzerland to take things into their own hands, that is not always the case for all our constituents bearing in mind financial restrictions, but also the fact that some people do not want to leave our country to be able to die. This is their home; this where their families live; and this is where they want to die.”

Mr Kawczynski said that although he is a Roman Catholic, he did not agree the church got everything right.