Terminal cancer MP Ashley Dalton criticises UK cancer outcomes and assisted dying bill

In an interview with BBC Two's Newsnight, Labour MP Ashley Dalton said it was outrageous and unacceptable that people in the UK are more likely to die from cancer than in most comparable rich countries. Dalton, the MP for West Lancashire, has terminal cancer. BBC Two reported that she has been appointed as an adviser to the government's National Cancer Plan for England and helped write it. The plan aims to transform cancer care and outcomes by 2035.

Dalton was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2013 and again in 2024. She told the programme that her work remained important to her after her secondary diagnosis, and that she did not know how long she had to live. She described living with grief for the life she had expected.

On assisted dying, Dalton said she had been vociferously against the bill debated in the most recent House of Commons debate. She said her opposition was specific to that bill and the holes she felt were in it, and that terminally ill people do not all agree. In a clip from the debate broadcast by BBC Two, she said: 'My days may be numbered, but that doesn't mean that I want this Chamber to rush through bad law just so I might have a chance to see it or use it.' She urged MPs to vote no or abstain if they doubted the bill was robust.

She also argued that the answer was not to terrify people and their families but to sort out palliative care first. She described her father's death at the start of this year as a good death. He wanted to die at home and did so, with his family and music, and with just-in-case medicines available. BBC Two reported that Dalton had been a health minister earlier this year and launched the National Cancer Plan. She said the UK had been going backwards for about 15 years, and that the plan was ambitious but doable.

BBC Two put it to Dalton that the King's Fund health think tank says people in the UK are more likely to die from cancer than in most other comparable rich economies. She replied that this was absolutely unacceptable and outrageous. BBC Two reported that when she stood down as a minister, her then boss Wes Streeting said she had achieved more as a minister than many politicians achieve in their entire careers. Dalton has been an MP since 2023.