LIVE: MPs take to the Commons for assisted dying debate as key vote remains on a knife-edge

Conservative MP Kit Malthouse is a co-sponsor of the bill, and has been supporting this campaign for years.

"When I was a child, my parents shielded me from death, and centuries of art and literature and religion taught me that death was something noble or even slightly romantic.

When I became an adult, I learned quickly that that was not the case. For far too many, it is anything, but certainly not noble. The death bed for far too many is a place of misery, torture and degradation, a rain of blood and vomit and tears."

Malthouse says he wants to address some objections to the bill. He refers to other jurisdictions that have assisted dying laws:

"I’m married to a Canadian, and I can tell you, they love their children just as much as we do. 

The idea that they, the Australians, the New Zealanders, the Spanish the Austrians, care little for their relatives, or indeed for the wider society in which they live, is offensive, and we should not pretend that somehow here we are special or different."

Malthouse also responds to claims that the bill would cause the NHS or the court system to be overwhelmed. He adds:

"These people are already dying. They are already in the National Health Service. They already are entitled to care. And even if you think there is an impact, are you seriously telling me that my death, my agony, is too much for the NHS to have time for?

Even the claim that it would overload the judges – that I should drown in my own fecal vomit because it’s too much hassle for the judges to deal with. We send things to the NHS and the judges from this house, all the time. Is anyone suggesting that we should be creating new offense of spiking because the judges are overworked? Just come through this week? Of course not."

Malthouse says MPs have a duty to their constituents, and to those who want to end their lives. Referring to supporters of the bill in the public gallery, he says:

"We are 1,000-year-old democracy. It’s not beyond us to design legislation that gives them what they want and protects those who we feel need to be protected.

I want this choice for my constituents, but profoundly, I want it for myself, and I want it for those people in the gallery who have been working so hard over the last decade to get us to change our minds.

Please be clear that, whatever happens today, terminal people will still take their own lives. All we are deciding today is how."

Andrew Slaughter, Labour MP for Hammersmith and Chiswick, tells MPs that people who are terminally ill and wish to end their life have three options; they can go to Dignitas, which would be expensive and means dying alone; they could try to kill themselves, which might be unsuccessful and dangerous; or they could ask a friend or relative to help, which means those people would risk prosecution.

If the bill is passed, Slaughter says, a terminally ill person would have to consider and confirm their decision to die at least eight times.

He says the safeguards in the bill are strong enough, and urges the House to support it.

He says he has completely changed his mind on this subject in the last decade, and now supports assisted dying.

he said: "I’ve sat in my advice surgery, and I have had tears pouring down my face listening to listening to constituents who have set out so clearly speaking with such emotion about how their mother, brother, father or child has died in great pain and great indignity. And I strongly support this bill …

"I believe that we should give our constituents, our fellow citizens, this choice.

"I want this choice for my constituents. I want it for those whom I love, and indeed, I want it perhaps one day for myself.

He says the status quo is “cruel and dangerous”. He also adds that there won’t be a slippery slope unless MPs agree to one.

Diane Abbott, the Labour MP and mother of the House of Commons, has just finished speaking.

She said she is opposed to the bill as she has doubts over the protection of marginalised and vulnerable people, and those who might see themselves as a burden.

She said: "There will be those who say to themselves, they don’t want to be a burden. And I can imagine myself saying that in particular circumstances.

"Others will worry that assets they are going to leave for their own children are being eroded by the cost of care. And there will even be a handful who will think they should not be taking up a hospital [bed]."

She said she cannot vote for the bill because of these doubts, but supports further debates and an exploration of the bill's contents.

Making the case for those opposed to the bill, Conservative MP Danny Kruger says the "problem with the bill" is how a terminal illness is defined.

He says that "the fact is almost anybody with a serious illness or disability could fit this definition"

He says he recognises that these are not the cases that are targeted by this bill, but that "that's the problem with the bill".

He also says that giving medics and judges the 'power' to make decisions on assisted dying would be "very dangerous".

Conservative MP Danny Kruger is speaking now. He is making the opening speech representing those opposed to the bill.

He pays tribute to Leadbeater for the way she has campaigned for the bill, with respect, sensitivity and dignity.

He says: "We all share a deep concern about the experience of people dying or fearing death, fearing pain and suffering."

He says he wants the “broken palliative care system” to be repaired.

He adds that the bill is “too big for the time it’s been given”. He says it is unlikely to be amended, beyond “minor tweaks”, if it goes through to the committee stage. For that reason, if MPs have doubts, they should vote against, he says.

"The bill does not apply to people with mental health issues," the Labour MP confirmed.

"And the bill does not apply to the elderly."

Expanding on the bill's full title - the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill - she reiterated that those who are terminally ill remain the central focus.

The MP has recounted one story from a man named Warwick, whose wife Anne died from suffocation, caused by cancer.

The heartbreaking story saw her recount: "She spent four days gasping and choking, remaining awake throughout, despite being given the maximum dose of sedatives."

"She had begged Warwick to end her life, but as he stood over her with a pillow, he could not do what she asked because he didn't want that to be her final memory of him.

"Anne had excellent palliative care, but it simply could not ease her suffering."

Leadbeater has told the Commons that public opinion is in favour of a law change.

It comes as a poll conducted by More In Common which showed that two-thirds of Brits support the bill.

Kim Leadbeater, Labour MP and bill co-sponsor, is the first MP to speak in the Commons and she thanked fellow MPs for attending.

Leadbeater told Parliament that she knows the issue is is not easy "but if any of us wanted an easy life, they're in the wrong place. After nearly a decade, many would say this is long overdue."

"This is particularly important as we have people in the gallery who have a very strong personal interest in this issue (people who hold a range of views) but some of whom have lost loved ones in very difficult and traumatic circumstances, and others who are themselves terminally ill."