PM Sir Keir Starmer was accused of “intimidating” Labour MPs into supporting the assisted dying Bill as it ran out of time in the Lords today.

Former Tory treasurer Lord Farmer made the revelation on the final day of speeches for and against the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill before the government legislation was due to fall without a vote.

He said: “I’ve spoken to a number of Labour MPs since, and what was not known, possibly, is that there was considerable pressure from No 10 [to] pass the Bill.

“It was known that the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer supported it, and indeed there were government party Bill supporters standing at the entrance to the lobbies taking note of who was going through.

“I’m just passing on what Labour MPs have said to me, that they felt intimidated.”

More than 1,200 amendments to the Bill, which twice passed votes by MPs in the Commons, had been tabled in the Lords.

Conservative former deputy prime minister Baroness Therese Coffey insisted safeguarding concerns remained key.

She told peers: “Being able to check against potential coercion, that is what has worried people concerned about this Bill the most, and that includes people who strongly support the principle.

“I do fear that many peers and many MPs are putting choice for some ahead of concern on coercion for others.”

Baroness Campbell of Surbiton, a former commissioner at Britain’s rights watchdog the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), added that disabled people had contacted her to say this “particular Bill frightens them, and they want me to explain to your Lordships why it is dangerous for them.”

The cross-bench peer, who has spinal muscular atrophy, and addressed the chamber remotely, said disabled people “fear unequal access to care shaping their choices, they fear subtle coercion that cannot be easily detected.”

Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullaly, who said that she opposed the Bill as a “priest but also as a nurse,” acknowledged that is likely to return to Parliament.

She said that there were things in common on both sides of the argument, including that people want to be able to die in a “dignified, pain-free, compassionate” way.