Cabinet ministers should not impose their religious beliefs on others in their objections to assisted dying, a leading proponent of changing the law has said.
In response to an intervention from Shabana Mahmood, Charlie Falconer, a Labour peer and ally of Keir Starmer, said the justice secretary had “religious and spiritual reasons” for being opposed to assisted dying.
“I think she’s motivated – and I respect this – by her religious beliefs. They shouldn’t be imposed on everybody else,” Lord Falconer told Sky News.
Mahmood had said there was a risk of going down a “slippery slope towards death on demand”, as MPs prepare to vote on a bill to legalise assisted dying for terminally ill people in England and Wales this week.
In a letter to her constituents, Mahmood, who is the most senior Muslim politician in Britain, said she was “profoundly concerned” by the legislation and that “the state should never offer death as a service”.
Falconer said Mahmood’s argument was “completely wrong”, although she had “religious and spiritual reasons why she believes completely in the sanctity of life”.
His intervention turns the heat up on what has become an increasingly acrimonious debate between senior Labour figures over the legislation.
Falconer said Mahmood was “completely wrong” to say the bill was a slippery slope because “if you look all the way around the world wherever a terminally ill assisted dying bill has been introduced, as opposed to an undue suffering-type bill … it doesn’t expand to anything else”.
Kim Leadbeater, the Labour backbencher who has brought forward the bill, said she had “a huge amount of respect” for Mahmood and that it was right to have “a very robust debate on this hugely important subject”.
She said: “The point about religion does come into this debate. We have to be honest about that. There are people who would never support a change in the law because of their religious beliefs.
“Equally, within faith communities there are a range of opinions,” she added, pointing out that George Carey, a former archbishop of Canterbury, and Jonathan Romain, a prominent rabbi, supported a change in the law.
Polling by More in Common published by the Sunday Times showed that Mahmood’s seat, Birmingham Ladywood, is one of only seven constituencies in the country where a majority of voters do not support assisted dying.
All seven seats identified by the poll have a higher-than-average proportion of residents with religious views, predominantly Muslim.
Leadbeater said she did not have “any doubts whatsoever” about her position. “I wouldn’t put the bill forward if I did. What I’m very clear about is we have got people now who the law is failing. We have got people taking their own lives. We have got families losing loved ones in very harrowing circumstances and we have got people having very painful deaths … By creating a legal framework, we will improve the situation.”
Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, said she would be voting in favour of Leadbeater’s bill on Friday. “I believe in giving people as much power, say and control as possible over the things that matter to them most. And I believe the bill has the right safeguards to make sure that that can be done properly,” Kendall told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg.
“I think it is really important as a society we talk about what makes for a good death … Many of us in our own families see people who take more time to die, and we really need to wake up to that question and face it.”
