Dame Esther Rantzen's daughter lambasts Lords who saw assisted dying bill fail without a vote

Rebecca Wilcox, the daughter of the terminally ill broadcast legend, spoke to LBC News's Vanessa Baffoe about the official failure of the bill on Friday.

Ms Wilcox lambasted the House of Lords over the filibuster of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which failed without being put to a vote in the upper chamber.

Terminally ill people have been left “utterly bewildered” by the assisted dying Bill running out of time, one of its chief backers said as opponents again branded it unsafe for the most vulnerable in society.

Peers sitting for the final day of debate once again made impassioned arguments for and against the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, but to no avail.

It proposed allowing adults in England and Wales, with fewer than six months to live, to apply for an assisted death subject to the approval of two doctors and an expert panel.

She told Vanessa: "We don't believe it's the end of the road. We believe that this is a bump on the road caused by a very few, petty few, I would call them, who have vandalised democracy by filibustering and talking the bill out of time at the House of Lords.

"It will go back to the Parliament, hopefully come up in the next Parliament session, and we will send it back to the House of Lords."

Rebecca was downbeat at the prospect that assisted dying would not be available for her mother, Dame Esther, and other campaigners who hoped to be able to end their lives on their own terms.

She told LBC News: "We won't get this in time for my mother. We won't get this for many of the campaigners who have already died and suffered horrible deaths along the way, but we will get it in time for future generations.

Without holding back, Rebecca declared the Lords that opposed the bill had "scuppered the democratic process"

She added: "Now that they have removed their role, as it were, by stopping the bill, by sabotaging the bill and not refining it, revising it and sending it back, people are appalled by that. The elected House [of Commons] is appalled by an unelected House [of Lords] doing this."

"It's really calling the House of Lords' role into question," she said.