Vikki was selected from 160 MPs, who had indicated their desire to speak, to deliver the final speech in the debate on the second reading of Kim Leadbeaters Assisted Dying Bill.

The full speech can be seen here and the text is below.

Final speech, Vikki Slade.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We do not need to choose between palliative care and supporting those who want to make their deaths better.

It is so fantastic to hear everyone from across every part of the chamber, have a shared commitment to funding more palliative care. And I hope that the Secretary of State and his team will hear that and go further in knowing that you have our support in investing more.

But until they do, we cannot condemn those who are at their end of life to terror, to loneliness, to being forced into horrible circumstances.

Whilst listening to this debate, I've been concerned by some of the comments

and so I've re-read the bill as I've sat here, and I'm concerned that there has been a suggestion that mental health conditions would be allowed, it is not, clause 2.3,

And that people might not be offered surgery or other treatment, they must, clause 4.4

It is also worth noting, that the suggestion of a person being coerced could be protected by forcing someone to disclose to the very family who may be be coercing them. The witness, in clause 5.2.2 and the periods of reflection allow that independent person to be present at those appropriate times.

I have already shared publicly my own family death journeys and I wear them here on my jacket, but today is not about them, today is about all of those people who need this.

Last night, I read the book, Die Smiling, about Nigel's journey to Dignitas and it ends with his final journey and Facebook post prepared before he made that agonising journey, a 20-hour journey with his wife and children to Switzerland, and it moved me to tears. But most people cannot afford that option, most do not want to put their families at risk of prosecution, they want death on their own terms.

Gary lives in my constituency of Mid Dorset and North Poole and he asked me to tell you his story of dying with liver cancer. He knows the end stages will be brutal, and he

wants to decide when enough is enough. Gary told me, death does not worry me at all,

dying slow death with my dignity, stripped away, terrifies me, so when my time is right, I will kill myself. Alone and afraid.

My sick dog will not have to die alone and afraid. I am forced to do so. I want to die on my terms, how can this be right?

Tracy, who is was a palliative care nurse, told me, I've witnessed many end of life patients and I cannot say hand on my heart, that many of those patients had a peaceful death. I left palliative nursing as the emotional trauma became too much.

There are neither the range of medications or symptom relief treatments available for many of the harrowing things people are forced to go through in their last days and weeks of life.

This bill is about compassion and humanity and we must listen to the voices of dying people.