Kit Malthouse appeared at a fringe event during the Tory Party Conference (Image: Getty)
Kit Malthouse has called for new assisted dying laws that end the current “horror show” of people painfully taking their own lives.
The Tory MP has backed calls for a change in the law to allow assisted dying in England and Wales in a bid to help people avoid “pain, agony and degradation”.
Speaking at a fringe event during the Tory Party Conference, he said: “The status quo is also a choice and the status quo is a horror show of people taking their own lives in horrible circumstances well before they often need to.”
Up to 650 dying people take their own life every year and often through dangerous ways.
But MPs and campaigners want a change in the law which gives dying people a choice and improves protections for everyone.
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Mr Malthouse said: “Doing nothing is consigning people to pain, agony and degradation. Doing nothing also means there are no protections.”
He added that choosing when to die is the “most profound and personal choice we will ever make”.
The Daily Express Give Us Our Last Rights crusade has for more than two years amplified the voices of terminally ill people and others affected by the blanket ban on assisted dying.
Tory leadership hopeful Tom Tugendhat said that he is “deeply, deeply, deeply uncomfortable” with assisted dying.
Speaking at a separate event at the conference in Birmingham, he said it was “immensely unlikely” that he would support any assisted dying policy.
A petition launched by this newspaper quickly gathered more than 200,000 signatures and triggered a three-hour Westminster Hall debate in April.
Labour MP Jake Richards indicated he hoped to introduce a Bill on the issue after being drawn 11th out of 20 in the recent Private Members’ Bill ballot.
But his position means it would not be guaranteed sufficient time for consideration.
Reports have suggested that it had been “made clear to the MPs at the top of the ballot that Prime Minister Sir backs a change in the law” and that one MP drawn higher up claimed to have been offered extra staff if he drafted a Bill on assisted dying.
Labour former justice secretary Lord Falconer of Thoroton has introduced the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults Bill in the House of Lords, which is expected to be the subject of a debate in mid-November.