Thank you for contacting me and advising me about the virtual meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Choice at the End of Life on 3rd November.
Unfortunately, I will be unable to attend due to prior commitments.
Coping with terminal illness is distressing and difficult both for the patient and their families and evoke the highest degree of compassion and emotion.
I fully accept that suicide, assisting or encouraging suicide, assisted dying and euthanasia are all subjects on which it is entirely possible for people to hold widely different but defensible opinions. This is why the substance of the law in this area is not a matter of party politics but of conscience, and any vote would be a free one should the law in this area ever be altered.