Warning: this article contains references to suicide.

The case for: I want a good death under the oak tree in my garden

Clare Turner, 59, Devon

I want a good death underneath the oak tree in my garden, with my daughters playing guitar and people chatting in the background. I want to look up at the tree, see birds and insects and feel part of nature.

I live on a farm in Devon where right now the sunflowers are blackened by winter, drooping over in a field where birds feast on their oily seeds. Next year’s vegetables sleep in the soil below – everything that lives ends up dying.

Finding out I have stage four cancer was a shock but I have found acceptance. I hope my energy, my “Clare-ness”, will be released into the natural world to mingle with all those who have gone ahead of me, and all the living things which came before.

When I first told my daughters about my illness, Chloe, my eldest, was terrified about the type of death I would have. She works in a hospital and really wants people to have assisted dying as an option. My other daughter Izzy is fully supportive of that too.

I’ve done a straw poll of friends. One is absolutely against it because of his religious beliefs but others are overwhelmingly in favour of assisted dying.

My grandfather, Arthur Turner, was a campaigner who at the end of his life battled for safe, affordable housing. I don’t have the energy to fight due to my cancer, but I wanted to speak out now because it means a lot to me.

It is extraordinary to me that under our current laws, if we allowed one of the animals on this farm to suffer, a farmer would be prosecuted.

But assisted dying isn’t just about avoiding suffering. I used to be a counsellor working with adolescents around bereavement. There is a difference between the normal, natural process of death and situations where people become traumatised by the manner of it. That affects the brain in a different way.

My oncologist told me that without chemotherapy I have months to live. I’m just hanging on for my daughter to get through university but I’ve got no intention of eking out every single second. If the law doesn’t change, I plan to take my own life.

I wouldn’t want to get anyone in trouble, so I would choose to have a lonely death. I don’t think I deserve that. I’d be at home, but the idea of being surrounded by my loved ones and nature and then contrasting that to aloneness… I find that sad.

The case against: ‘Death isn’t like a video game where you pop back up’

Philip, Midlands.

I want to live until God wants me to die. He will sort that out, not me. I have no idea how it’s going to happen and I don’t want to know.

This world is temporary, and I have a better one coming. I have pancreatic cancer which not only affects my pancreas, but also my lungs. When we were told I had less than six months to live, my wife Pauline couldn’t stop crying. Sitting in the hospital we sung praises to God. It’s now five months, and I’m grateful for this time.

I don’t think people realise death is a one-way journey. It’s not like games that kids have on their consoles where you get killed then pop back up again.

These days, it seems like people are talking more openly about suicide, which because of my beliefs I see as a sin. Thirty-five years ago, one of my neighbours had lymphoma cancer and was given six months to live. He’s now 67 – imagine if he had taken his own life back then.

When I was 15, my mother suffered a slow and painful death from breast cancer. I would sit by her bed and pretend to wipe rats off her chest because she thought they were gnawing at her breasts. Two days before she died she prayed, “God, I want you to either heal me or take me”. She died naturally, with dignity.

Medical science has moved on since then. There is no reason why somebody with cancer should die in excruciating pain. Doctors can manage the pain, but the bigger problem is the lack of services in end of life or palliative care. I’ve paid taxes all my life so I see no reason why that care shouldn’t be available for me.

We all feel for those who want assisted dying but if you allow the law to be changed for just a few people, in a short time it becomes wider to include others.

We can see this in Canada and the Netherlands, where it started off with just people who were terminally ill and now there’s talk of allowing it for people with mental illness, children and even the homeless.

So you start to have a society where life’s value is lessened, where the state gets to decide who has had enough. That is horrendous. It’s not the sort of society I want to live in, or leave behind.

Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK

David Cameron has become the first former prime minister to come out in support of the assisted dying bill.

The former Tory leader has written a piece in The Times explaining his decision, and saying that in the past he opposed moves to introduce measures allowing terminally ill people to end their own life.

Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton wrote: “My main concern and reason for not supporting proposals before now has always been the worry that vulnerable people could be pressured into hastening their own deaths.”

However, he says he has now been reassured by those arguing in favour of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.

Labour MP Kim Leadbeater will put the bill forward for a vote in the House of Commons on Friday.

“As campaigners have convincingly argued, this proposal is not about ending life, it is about shortening death,” Lord Cameron wrote in The Times.

His intervention comes after Gordon Brown, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss all came out in opposition to the bill.

None of Sir John Major, Sir Tony Blair or Rishi Sunak have made their positions public.

In his article, Lord Cameron says he asked four questions before reaching his conclusion – whether there are sufficient safeguards to protect vulnerable people, whether this is a “slippery slope”, whether it would put unnecessary pressure on the NHS and will the proposed law lead to a meaningful reduction in human suffering?

On the first point, Lord Cameron says protections like two doctors needing to give approval as well as a judge, alongside the requirement of self-administration of the fatal drugs, are enough.

He also highlights the criminalisation of coercing someone to end their own life.

On whether the bill is a “slippery slope” – as Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood claimed – he says such an argument can be made for any social change.

The former prime minister writes that the bill is in “a sensible and practical resting place for public policy in this area”, and is explicitly only for the terminally ill, rather than those with mental illnesses and disabilities.

Read more:
What is in the assisted dying legislation?
Lawyer says Canada’s assisted dying has gone too far

The most senior Conservative to back the bill

Jon Craig

Chief political correspondent

@joncraig

Former prime ministers David Cameron and Gordon Brown both lost a child in tragic circumstances. But they’ve now come to a different conclusion about assisted dying.

Lord Cameron lost son Ivan, aged six, who was severely disabled and suffered from epilepsy and cerebral palsy, in February 2009. Mr Brown, the then prime minister, cancelled PMQs out of respect.

When assisted dying was last debated in the Commons in 2015 – when he was prime minister – Mr Cameron voted against it. But now, in a major and potentially influential intervention, he’s changed his mind.

“When we know that there’s no cure, when we know death is imminent, when patients enter a final and acute period of agony, then surely, if they can prevent it and – crucially – want to prevent it, we should let them make that choice,” Lord Cameron writes in The Times.

But the former premier is in a minority of Conservatives who back the bill and most senior Tory MPs, including Kemi Badenoch, Priti Patel and former leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith, are opposed.

Lord Cameron is also the first of all the UK’s living former prime ministers to back Kim Leadbeater’s controversial bill, which is being debated in the Commons on Friday.

This week three former Conservative PMs – Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss – let it be known that they oppose the bill. Baroness May, like Lord Cameron, will have a vote if the bill reaches the Lords.

Mr Brown’s daughter Jennifer, born seven weeks prematurely weighing 2lb 4oz, died after just 11 days in January 2002 following a brain haemorrhage on day four of her short life.

A son of the manse who was strongly influenced by his father, a Church of Scotland minister, Mr Brown says the tragedy convinced him of the value and imperative of good end-of-life care, not the case for assisted dying.

On whether it put undue pressure on the NHS, Lord Cameron dismisses the argument.

“It’s not just that the bill would be applicable in only a very small number of cases, it is that the NHS exists to serve patients and the public, not the other way around,” he writes.

On the fourth point – whether it will reduce human suffering – the former prime minister says: “I find it very hard to argue that the answer to this question is anything other than ‘yes’.”

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Lord Cameron adds that, as a member of the House of Lords, he gets letters from terminally ill patients and that poses questions.

He wrote: “When we know that there’s no cure, when we know death is imminent, when patients enter a final and acute period of agony, then surely, if they can prevent it and – crucially – want to prevent it, we should let them make that choice.

“It’s right that MPs are having a free vote on this issue – and our tradition of free votes on such moral issues should be maintained.

“The fact it is a free vote gives legislators the chance to think afresh and, if the evidence convinces them, to change their mind. That’s what I have done. And, if this bill makes it to the House of Lords, I will be voting for it.”

Detectives have launched a new investigation into more than five people suspected of helping Mohamed al Fayed commit widespread sexual abuse over almost 40 years.

The fresh allegations against the former Harrods and Fulham FC boss, including rape and sexual assault, span the years between 1977 and 2014, with the youngest victim aged just 13 at the time she was allegedly targeted.

The Metropolitan Police were previously contacted by 21 women, who made similar allegations about incidents between 2005 and 2023, but the billionaire businessman was never charged before his death aged 94 last August.

Some 150 people have since contacted the force, 90 of whom have been identified as potential victims, and officers are now looking at Fayed’s associates who are suspected of facilitating or enabling abuse.

More than five people are under investigation so far, the force said, although no arrests have yet been made.

Commander Stephen Clayman said: “I recognise the bravery of every victim-survivor who has come forward to share their experiences, often after years of silence.

“This investigation is about giving survivors a voice, despite the fact that Mohamed al Fayed is no longer alive to face prosecution.

“However, we are now pursuing any individuals suspected to have been complicit in his offending, and we are committed to seeking justice.”

In response to the new probes into associates of Fayed, Harrods said in a statement: “We are aware of and wholeheartedly support the Met police’s investigation. We have an open, direct and ongoing line of communication with the Met police for the benefit of the survivors.

“We continue to encourage all survivors to engage with the Met police and we welcome the investigation in supporting survivors in their wider pursuit of justice.”

Detectives are also reviewing the Met’s previous investigations, including 50,000 pages of evidence, to identify any missed chances or misconduct.

The force said previous investigations were “extensive and conducted by specialist teams” but accepts “contact with and support for some victims at the time could have been improved”.

Two files – the first in 2008 and the second in 2015 – were passed to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for a charging decision, but the CPS has said no charges were brought because there wasn’t a realistic prospect of conviction.

The Met already referred two cases to the police watchdog the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) after receiving complaints from two women about investigations in 2008 and 2013.

Commander Clayman said: “We are aware that past events may have impacted the public’s trust and confidence in our approach, and we are determined to rebuild that trust by addressing these allegations with integrity and thoroughness.

“We encourage anyone who has information or was affected by Fayed’s actions to reach out to us. Your voice matters, and we are here to listen and to help.”

Hundreds of women – many of whom worked for Fayed – have contacted lawyers alleging abuse following a BBC documentary about his behaviour.

Harrods has previously said it is “utterly appalled” by the claims and said it is a “very different organisation to the one owned and controlled by Fayed between 1985 and 2010”.

Fulham previously said they were trying to establish whether anyone at the club had been affected, and were encouraging people to come forward to the club’s safeguarding department or the police.