Wes Streeting slapped down by Keir Starmer in furious assisted dying row

Sir Keir Starmer slapped down Wes Streeting after he warned the NHS cannot afford assisted dying. The Health Secretary, one of the most senior opponents of the legislation, said it would take "time and money" away from other parts of the health service.

But the Prime Minister insisted he was "confident" that the bill is "workable" in a rebuke to Mr Streeting. Speaking on the way to the Nato summit in the Netherlands, Sir Keir said: "It is my responsibility to make sure the bill is workable, and that means workable in all its aspects. I'm confident we've done that preparation."

The Government is neutral on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill which cleared the Commons with a majority of 23 votes last Friday.

But the Health Secretary argued in a Facebook post that better end-of-life care was needed to prevent terminally ill people feeling they had no alternative but to end their own life.

He said he could not ignore the concerns "about the risks that come with this Bill" raised by the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Royal College of Physicians, the Association for Palliative Medicine and charities representing under-privileged groups.

Mr Streeting said: "Gordon Brown wrote this week that 'there is no effective freedom to choose if the alternative option, the freedom to draw on high-quality end-of-life care, is not available.

"Neither is there real freedom to choose if, as many fear, patients will feel under pressure to relieve their relatives of the burden of caring for them, a form of coercion that prioritising good end-of-life care would diminish.' He is right.

"The truth is that creating those conditions will take time and money.

"Even with the savings that might come from assisted dying if people take up the service - and it feels uncomfortable talking about savings in this context to be honest - setting up this service will also take time and money that is in short supply.

"There isn't a budget for this. Politics is about prioritising. It is a daily series of choices and trade-offs. I fear we've made the wrong one."

Mr Streeting added that his Department of Health and Social Care "will continue to work constructively with Parliament to assist on technical aspects of the Bill" as it goes through the House of Lords.

The Daily Express has been campaigning for assisted dying with our Gives Us Our Last Rites crusade.