14:44

Lord (Charles) Falconer.

Lord Falconer, the shadow lord chancellor, has said he would like to bring back his failed assisted dying bill after a British businessman travelled to the Swiss suicide clinic Dignitas to end his life.

Falconer, who served as lord chancellor under Tony Blair, criticised the fact that Jeffrey Spector, 54, had to go abroad for help to commit suicide after learning his cancer had worsened.

The senior Labour peer told the BBC’s World at One: “I saw the photographs of him having his last meal in Switzerland and I think

it’s completely wrong that when someone is terminally ill, they don’t have the option subject to safeguards in deciding to take their own life. It’s wrong they have to go to Switzerland to do that.”

Falconer said he would try to bring back his assisted dying bill back if he wins a ballot for private members to bring forward legislation in the House of Lords.

The bill would enable people who had less than six months to live, as confirmed by two doctors, to be given a lethal prescription of drugs. It was discussed by peers in the last parliament but ran out of time for further debate before the election.

