A CONTROVERSIAL bid by a Swindon peer to introduce assisted suicide for the terminally ill took a big step forward after a parliamentary committee said his blueprint should be looked at more closely.

Campaigners said the findings of a cross party committee of peers were momentous and gave the green light for a future euthanasia law. Lord Joffe's current Assisted Dying Bill will collapse because it has run out of parliamentary time due to the forthcoming election.

But peers said their report into his plans, published yesterday, should be debated in the House of Lords after the poll.

And if the founder director of Allied Dunbar introduces a new draft law later this year, which he has vowed to, it should also be examined by peers on the floor of the House of Lords. In 1994 a previous attempt by the Liddington resident was rejected with peers saying there was no basis for considering it.