By DAVID WILCOCK, DEPUTY POLITICAL EDITOR

Published: 10:02 GMT, 31 December 2025 | Updated: 10:10 GMT, 31 December 2025

The new assisted suicide law is unsafe and could see cancer patients choose death over treatment, the incoming Archbishop of Canterbury warned today.

Dame Sarah Mullally warned that the bill is 'unsafe' and people's decisions may be swayed by the poor quality of palliative and social care they receive.

The archbishop elect, who is the current Bishop of London, is a former nurse and will become the first woman to lead the worldwide Anglican communion in January.

Speaking to an edition of BBC Radio 4's Today programme edited by former PM Theresa May, Dame Sarah said there needed to be better care for the 'most vulnerable'.

She also hit out at a lack of safeguards to prevent people who are not terminally ill from being helped to die, saying: 'I'm not sure any amendments will make it safe.'

She added: 'We don't properly fund palliative care. I am worried people may make a decision for assisted dying because they are not having the right sort of palliative care or the right social care.

'I also have a worry that there is a whole group of people who haven't had choice in life, they are people who, because of inequality, are more likely to get cancer and late diagnoses and to die of it.

'My worry is that that group of people may be given options and feel because of other people's value judgements the option is assisted dying and not chemo and to fight for it (life).'

Dame Sarah Mullally warned that the bill is 'unsafe' and people's decisions may be swayed by the poor quality of palliative and social care they receive.

MPs paved the way for assisted dying to become legal in England and Wales when a majority of 23 backed the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill in June.

Criticism of the backbench-led bill sponsored by Labour's Kim Leadbeater (right) has grown since the Commons vote, with peers tabling hundreds of amendments designed to address flaws in the way it was drafted.

MPs paved the way for assisted dying to become legal in England and Wales when a majority of 23 backed the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill in June.

The Bill will become law only if both the House of Commons and House of Lords agree on the final drafting of the legislation – with approval needed before spring when the current session of Parliament ends.

Criticism of the  backbench-led bill sponsored by Labour's Kim Leadbeater has grown since the Commons vote, with peers tabling hundreds of amendments designed to address flaws in the way it was drafted.