Letters sent by broadcaster and MPs with medical backgrounds call for action to change law

Esther Rantzen has urged all MPs to back Kim Leadbeater’s “strong, safe, carefully considered bill” to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales, which faces its next Commons test on Friday.

In an impassioned letter, the broadcaster, who has stage-four lung cancer, said she and other terminally ill adults asked MPs to allow “a good, pain-free death for ourselves and those we love and care for”.