Wes Streeting risked inflaming Cabinet tensions after warning that legalising assisted dying would take “time and money” away from other parts of the NHS. The Health Secretary, who opposed the legislation in the Commons, said better end-of-life care was needed to prevent terminally ill people feeling they had no alternative but to end their own life.
The Labour MP, writing on his Facebook page, said he could not ignore the concerns “about the risks that come with this Bill” raised by the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Royal College of Physicians, the Association for Palliative Medicine and charities representing under-privileged groups.
The Government is neutral on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill which cleared the Commons with a majority of 23 votes on Friday.
It was a major victory for the Daily Express following a three-year crusade for a change in the law.
But Mr Streeting’s remarks put him at odds with the majority of his Cabinet colleagues, including Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who backed the Bill.
Labour tensions are already high over Sir Keir’s welfare cuts, with a major rebellion gathering ahead of a crunch vote next week.
In his social media posting, Mr Streeting said: “Gordon Brown wrote this week that ‘there is no effective freedom to choose if the alternative option, the freedom to draw on high-quality end-of-life care, is not available. Neither is there real freedom to choose if, as many fear, patients will feel under pressure to relieve their relatives of the burden of caring for them, a form of coercion that prioritising good end-of-life care would diminish.’ He is right.
“The truth is that creating those conditions will take time and money.
“Even with the savings that might come from assisted dying if people take up the service – and it feels uncomfortable talking about savings in this context to be honest – setting up this service will also take time and money that is in short supply.
“There isn’t a budget for this. Politics is about prioritising. It is a daily series of choices and trade-offs. I fear we’ve made the wrong one.”
Mr Streeting said his Department of Health and Social Care “will continue to work constructively with Parliament to assist on technical aspects of the Bill” as it goes through the House of Lords.
Assisted dying campaigner Dame Esther Rantzen urged peers not to block the landmark legislation.
Dame Esther, who celebrated her 85th birthday on Sunday and has terminal cancer told the BBC: “I don’t need to teach the House of Lords how to do their job.
“They know it very well, and they know that laws are produced by the elected chamber.
“Their job is to scrutinise, to ask questions, but not to oppose.”
Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, who steered the Bill through the Commons, said she hoped peers would not seek to derail the legislation, which could run out of parliamentary time if it is held up in the Lords.
She said: “I would be upset to think that anybody was playing games with such an important and such an emotional issue.”