Dame Esther Rantzen has said she is “making arrangements” to travel to Dignitas, as she urged the House of Lords to back the assisted dying bill. The TV legend, 85, who is terminally ill with lung cancer, revealed in December 2023 that she had registered with the Swiss clinic and feared she would have to travel alone to shield her family from police investigation.
She told ITV’s Good Morning Britain on Friday: “I’m making arrangements because it’s the only way I can have an assisted death, to go by myself to Zurich, to Dignitas. I just wish that I was allowed to say goodbye to my family and for them to see that I have a good death.” Dame Esther has been a leading supporter of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which faced a second reading debate in the House of Lords on Friday.
In a plea to peers, she said: “Please, House of Lords, give us terminally ill patients the hope, the confidence, the choice that if life gets unbearable, they can ask for help.”
The Chamber was packed as Lord Charlie Falconer, the Bill’s sponsor in parliament’s upper house, opened proceedings. He told colleagues: “The current law is confused, causes terrible suffering and lacks compassion and safeguards. People must be at the heart of this debate.”
Recounting the horrific story of a woman who watched her cancer-stricken husband choke to death on faecal vomit, Lord Falconer said it was “right and possible” to pass a law that grants terminally ill people dignity and choice at the end of life with appropriate safeguards.
He urged peers to respect the will of the country and MPs, adding: “We must do our job in this House and our job is not to frustrate, it is to scrutinise.
“The Bill has been passed by the Commons. The decision on whether to change the law in our democracy should be with the elected representatives. We should improve where we can, but we should respect the primacy of the Commons.”
Lord Falconer also spoke against an amendment tabled by Baroness Berger which would require a select committee to consider the Bill before a Committee of the Whole House. He warned this delay would make it impossible for the Bill to complete its remaining stages before the end of the parliamentary session in the spring.
The seven-hour debate saw several peers share deeply personal stories. Lord Alderdice recalled the experience of a close friend who smothered his ill wife with a pillow after she asked for his help to die, then drowned himself in a lake.
Baroness Murphy described how her 100-year-old mother “decided to starve herself to death when her pain was excessive” despite having good palliative care.
She said: “Those three weeks that she was determined to die, fully mentally competent, were of course the worst three weeks of my life.”
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath said his mother’s death aged 99, three years after suffering a stroke, had shown “the urgent need for huge improvement in end of life care”. He added: “But for me, this is very different from assisting suicide at a person’s most vulnerable moment.”
Two thirds of peers who spoke opposed the Bill, however supporters believe that ratio does not necessarily reflect the views of the whole House.
Opponents included former prime minister Theresa May. She expressed doubts that the safeguards would be enough to stop people feeling pressured to end their lives and raised concerns about the impact on those with disabilities.
Baroness May of Maidenhead added: “I have a friend who calls it the ‘License to Kill Bill’. It is not an assisted dying bill, it is an assisted suicide bill.”
Challenging the idea that people would be at risk of coercion, Lord Dobbs asked whether it was true that “there are ruffians waiting to pounce from the shadows upon their own families”.
Lord Baker of Dorking, 90, described himself as “one of the older members” of the House and “much closer to death than any of you”. He challenged the argument that palliative care should be fixed before assisted dying is legalised, saying: “It will cost billions. Which party…is going to say in their next manifesto, we will spend billions on palliative care? I don’t think even [Nigel] Farage is mad enough to do that, and it just won’t happen.”
Lord Purvis of Tweed also cited the Daily Express’s Give Us Our Last Rights crusade as an example of how support for assisted dying had grown in recent years.
The debate was adjourned and will conclude next Friday. Around 180 peers are now expected to speak across the two days — a record for an assisted dying debate in Westminster and the second highest for any Bill before the Lords.
Sarah Wootton, chief executive of campaign group Dignity in Dying, said: “That such detailed consideration is being given to how this Bill can be safely and effectively implemented demonstrates just how far this movement has come.
“It is a testament to the countless families who have shared the most painful experiences of their lives to call for change, many of whom were referenced in the Chamber today or gathered on Parliament Square outside.
“With every day that passes, more dying people and their families are suffering under the status quo. We stand firmly alongside them in urging Peers to remain focused on their voices and to continue the serious, respectful scrutiny that this issue demands.”