Robert Jenrick opens up on personal story in stern warning over Assisted Dying Bill as MPs vote TODAY on historic law change

If passed, assisted dying will become legal in England and Wales, and the NHS will be forced to offer the procedure by 2029.

Jenrick's warning stands in sharp contrast to the bill's sponsor, MP Kim Leadbeater, who has described her proposed legislation as "the most robust piece of legislation in the world".

However, the Shadow Justice Secretary delivered a scathing assessment of the proposed law, suggesting that it "will put the most vulnerable people in society in danger".

He told GB News that, “an anorexic patient would be able to use this procedure to take their life without even telling their family members."

While he also points out: “It is so hard to predict how long somebody's got at the end of their life, even when they've been diagnosed with a terminal illness. I think any doctor would accept that.”

Speaking to GB News, he explained that his grandmother was, "diagnosed with a terminal illness, was given just a short while to live, and then ended up being with us for nine years afterwards.

"We were so fortunate, so grateful to have her in our lives for that period of time. And I think she was grateful as well for, for those years, some of which were very hard... She saw us grow up. She watched my mum, her daughter live many, many years of her life.”

He admits it wasn’t easy: “She could hardly walk across a room at times and had to use oxygen….It was very, very hard to watch her deteriorate.

“I'm sure she did find it difficult to put such a burden on us. My mum was basically her full time carer. My sister, myself, my dad, we were always around her. Supporting her. Taking her to hospital. To the doctors to get prescriptions. Our whole lives in many respects revolved around her.”

But he added: “We did it because we loved her. And none of us regret a moment of that time that we invested with her. In fact, when I look back on it now, all these years later, they were some of the best, the most important years of my life.”

Jenrick also shared concerns about the pressure vulnerable and elderly people may feel if assisted dying is an option: “Thousands of people will be lying in bed at night just thinking about this, being haunted by this, wondering whether they should do it in order to look after, to be kind, to be generous to their own family and loved ones.

“That isn't the society I want to live in. I want to live in a country in which we cherish and care for older people, and look after them properly in the last years of their life.”

He worries about pressure on the NHS and palliative care: “I support my local hospice in Newark. And they're they're really struggling right now. They've got extra costs coming in, National Insurance and other things.

"We should be focusing on palliative care, how we can support people like my grandmother and millions of people like her better. We can do so much better as a country.”

The professional bodies representing doctors, psychiatrists and pathologists have all come out as against the bill in its current form, saying that the safeguards are not sufficient.

Disabled charities are against a change to the law. Before last year’s general election, the Prime Minister made a promise to Esther Rantzen, who is terminally ill with lung cancer, that he would make time in parliament for a debate.

As this bill is in the form of a Private Members Bill, it is a free vote and MPs do not have to vote among party lines.

At the first vote last year, there was a majority of 55 in favour. Today's vote is expected to be much tighter, especially since the promised original "safeguard" of a High Court judge has been removed.