THE assisted dying Bill will “deepen and exacerbate inequalities,” a Labour MP warned during a Commons debate on legislation today.

Battersea MP Marsha De Cordova highlighted that medical experts have warned that drugs used in assisted deaths should undergo “rigorous testing and approval,” and that the Bill neglects to inform patients about the risks involved, such as prolonged dying.

The Bill is not safe, she warned: “I know that I speak for tens of thousands of disabled people who rightly say, ‘we need assistance to live, not to die’.”

Ealing Central and Acton MP Rupa Huq told the Commons: “A younger me would have been 100 per cent behind this Bill, I’m very pro-body autonomy on abortion, but 10 years of being an MP has exposed me to coercion, duress, the millionaire price of London property and elder abuse.

She said that it was “no coincidence” that most London and BME MPs oppose the Bill. 

Ms Huq later added: “We know that in a cost-of-living crisis, assisted dying could be quite attractive.”

“We know that BAME communities have lower disposable household income than standard households, and you can just imagine relatives in a housing crisis wanting to speed up grandad’s probate to get a foot on the ladder, or granny…convincing themselves that, ‘look, they’d be better off out of the way given the cost of care,’ to get the younger generation on the ladder.”

Among the amendments MPs agreed to was clause 10, which sets out that no health worker is under any duty to participate in the process. 

Lawmakers also approved clause 12, which stipulates that doctors who deny a patient an assisted death would have to produce a report setting out their decision and file it with a GP and the voluntary assisted dying commissioner.

MPs voted to ban assisted dying advertisements, but against a clause by Labour MP Paul Waugh which pushed for tighter regulations which would have limited exceptions.

Labour MP Adam Jogee called for the lifting of a proposed four-year deadline for assisted dying to roll out in England, telling MPs that they should not be rushing the process.

Amendments were passed which would mean deaths through assisted dying are not automatically referred to a coroner, and that health professionals would not be able to raise assisted dying with child patients.

Report stage will continue on June 20. Since its first reading in November,14 MPs who supported it or abstained have indicated they now plan to oppose it.

Linda Burnip from Disabled People Against Cuts said: “Together with the planned cuts to social security payments, disabled people feel that as in Canada, they’re being propelled towards killing themselves and with few safeguards in place in the Bill that seems quite a likely scenario.”