LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — UK lawmakers are to consider a proposal to legalise assisted dying, a member of the ruling Labour party said Thursday, as calls mount to change the law.

Parliamentarians will discuss the emotive issue after MP Kim Leadbeater introduces a bill on October 16 to give terminally ill people “choice” at the end of life.

Leadbeater is the sister of Labour MP Jo Cox who was murdered by a far-right extremist during the 2016 EU referendum campaign.

If successful, the legislation will only affect England and Wales.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged to make parliamentary time for the subject as part of his Labour party’s election campaign in July.

On Thursday, his most senior civil service adviser, Cabinet Secretary Simon Case, said it would be a free vote as it was an “issue of conscience”.

“That means that ministers can vote, or not, however they wish,” he wrote in a letter. “The Government will therefore remain neutral on the passage of the Bill and on the matter of assisted dying.”

Euthanasia is illegal in Britain but is already in place to varying degrees in some European countries.

Previous attempts to legalise it have been voted down but public opinion is shifting and attempts to change the law are under way in Scotland, which has a separate legal system and powers to set its own health policy.

“Parliament should now be able to consider a change in the law that would offer reassurance and relief – and most importantly, dignity and choice – to people in the last months of their lives,” she said.

An assisted dying bill was last debated — and defeated — in the House of Commons in 2015.

But since then surveys have shown an increase in support for helping terminally ill people end their lives.

The debate has been given impetus recently by a campaign led by high-profile TV broadcaster Esther Rantzen, who has terminal cancer.

Private members’ bills are introduced by individual lawmakers after a ballot and are not part of the government’s formal legislative programme.

Successful MPs can pick a bill of their choice, which is then debated and scrutinised before a formal vote.

A bill to make assisted dying legal in Scotland was introduced in the devolved Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh earlier this year.

The Isle of Man and Jersey — self-governing British Crown Dependencies which are not part of the UK — are also moving towards passing their own laws to give terminally ill people the right to die.

Belgium, along with the Netherlands, in 2002 became the first EU countries to allow euthanasia.

Spain in 2021 authorised euthanasia and medically-assisted suicide for people with a serious and incurable illness, followed by Portugal in 2023.