Kim Leadbeater

I have nearly finished. I have had many such conversations over recent months with those who support the amendment, including with palliative care doctors, nurses, hospice staff, GPs, Hospice UK and Marie Curie. I thank them all for their constructive engagement with the Bill. I cannot imagine that anyone in this place is not truly grateful for the outstanding work done every day by the wonderful people working in palliative and end-of-life care in every one of our constituencies. Many of us, if not most of us, will have personal experience of the kindness and compassion that those people have shown to our own families and friends. But this is not an either/or conversation. Palliative and end-of-life care and assisted dying can and do work side by side to give terminally ill patients the care and choice that they deserve in their final days. Just as there should not be an either/or for dying people, there should also not be an either/or for us as legislators in having to choose between supporting assisted dying or other end-of-life choices. That is why I am supporting amendment 21: to ensure that in this place we channel our energies into supporting all options available to terminally ill people—something that I have always committed to do.