Keighley MP Ann Cryer today entered the assisted dying debate by vowing she would go to the controversial Swiss suicide clinic Dignitas to die if she fell seriously ill.

The Labour MP, who turns 70 this year, is one of more than 100 MPs worried about choices some terminally-ill adults are being forced to make due to a lack of safeguarded assisted dying legislation in the UK.

Her comments were praised by Bradford campaigner Debbie Purdy who is trying to get the law clarified.

Mrs Cryer revealed she had already spoken to her children about her wishes and said she wanted to book “a one-way ticket to Switzerland” if the worst happened.

She said: “I do not want to live to 100 with dementia or some horrible wasting disorder. I have had too many friends who have died from MS or motor neurone disease. I do not want to go on year after year with a dreadful disorder.

“I have told my children I want them to take me to Switzerland if I want to go and once I had made my mind up.

“It will be a single ticket to Switzerland for me. It is not a brave thing to do but something that would be forced upon me or others if in that situation. There needs to be a change of law in this country.

“I think the law needs to be clarified. I think so far no one has been prosecuted for assisting suicide but there will come a time when some one will be prosecuted when they have not done anything wrong so we need some changes.”

Her call came as Government says it is modernising the law on assisted suicide. MPs will have the chance to debate the Coroners and Justice Bill, which aims to modernise the 1961 Suicide Act, in the Commons on Monday.

Mrs Purdy, 45, from Undercliffe, who is suffering from primary progressive multiple sclerosis, wants to know if her husband, Omar Puente, will be prosecuted if he helps her travel abroad to die in a country where the practice is legal.

Aiding or abetting a suicide is a crime punishable by up to 14 years’ imprisonment in the UK.

Mrs Purdy said: “Ann Cryer has more guts than the Government. She is saying people should take on board society has changed. It is a very different world we live in since 1961 when the law was made.”