Kim Leadbeater MP and allies have succeeded in bringing assisted dying closer to reality than ever before (Image: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publis)

       Campaigners have urged MPs to focus on the suffering of terminally ill people who are “calling out for choice” as the battle for assisted dying became embittered. With time running out for supporters of changing the law like Dame Esther Rantzen, whose medication for terminal lung cancer has stopped working, there was growing anger at opponents trying to kick Kim Leadbeater’s historic Bill down the line like a political football.

       Both sides have been vying for support as they fight over the biggest change to healthcare in Britain in the 21st century. Ms Leadbeater has hit back at her critics by insisting the process of crafting the landmark legislation has been “thorough, rigorous and professional”.

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       But its opponents have been working to persuade MPs who initially supported the Bill to kill it off – likely dooming any chance of assisted dying being legalised before the next general election.

       This came as the daughter of TV star Dame Esther, 84 – Britain’s highest profile champion of assisted dying – was no longer responding to her terminal cancer drugs.

       Ms Leadbeater said MPs must be allowed to “decide for themselves if this is the right thing to do in order to give terminally ill people choice at the end of their lives and put right the injustices in the law as it stands”.

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       Her Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill has been backed by the Express Give Us Our Last Rights crusade.

       Yet Danny Kruger – a Conservative opponent of the proposed reforms – said the Bill was in “disarray”.

       Changes to the draft law have extended the implementation period from two years to four — meaning assisted dying may not become available until 2029.

       Mr Kruger said: “The fact the Government has decided to double the time for implementation shows the Bill is in disarray.”

       He claimed safeguards have been weakened and said he trusted that MPs who at first backed the Bill “will conclude they can no longer support it.”

       Ms Leadbeater was understood to have tabled the change to the implementation period after being warned by the Department of Health that more time would be needed due to the Bill’s complexity and high number of safeguards.

       She said: “I’ve always said it’s more important to get this right than to do it quickly. Doing it properly and safely is of paramount importance, so I reluctantly accepted a four-year backstop — but it is very much a backstop.”

       Ms Leadbeater admitted she gets “frustrated when opponents of the Bill in the media or in Parliament suggest that this Bill has been done in a way that is anything but thorough, rigorous and professional”.

       She said she believed MPs who study the latest version of the legislation will “see that it’s benefited from all that expertise as well as the extremely hard work of the Committee over some 90 hours of careful scrutiny.”

       Former education secretary Kit Malthouse added his support, saying: “The Bill has emerged with significant improvements and I know now that MPs will consider it again in detail.

       “I hope it will particularly command support from those who agreed in principle last time, but voted against because they wanted something safer and more exacting.

       “The Bill is now exactly that.”

       But Conservative MP Rebecca Paul, who has been part of the Bill’s scrutiny committee, said: “I had really hoped after months of line-by-line scrutiny that the amended Bill would be truly world-class in terms of safeguards. But it simply isn’t.

       “I remain of the view that the Bill isn’t safe enough and more people will be harmed by it than helped.”

       Gordon Macdonald, of campaign group Care Not Killing, added that the "process has exposed the lie that legalising state-sanctioned killing of the terminally ill can be done safely and without putting the lives of vulnerable people at risk”.

       But Sarah Wootton, of Dignity in Dying, countered: “The committee has produced a Bill that is even safer, fairer, and more workable and which provides choice to those who want and need it at the end of their lives.

       “When MPs come to consider the legislation in the votes to come, they must remember the terminally ill people and their loved ones who suffer under the status quo and are calling out for choice.”

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       Liz Saville Roberts, a Plaid Cymru member of the scrutiny committee, said she hoped the Commons “can work together to pass an effective piece of legislation that both respects the individual’s right to autonomy and protects vulnerable people from coercion and abuse”.

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       During the “committee stage” of the scrutiny process key changes were made including swapping the High Court for a multi-disciplinary panel of lawyers, social workers and psychiatrists to review cases.

       A requirement was also introduced for doctors involved with the service to undergo mandatory training in detecting coercion.

       The Bill is due to return to the Commons for a report stage on April 25, which will be followed by a third reading vote.