Sir Max Hill, Dame Alison Saunders and Lord Macdonald of River Glaven have expressed support for the bill to legalise assisted dying for terminally ill adults.

The proposals, which will be debated next month by MPs, would let those who have six months to live to be helped to die, subject to a number of safeguards.

Sir Max, who was DPP between 2018 and 2023, told The Times: “I think there’s the real force, the fact that we’ve all reached the same conclusion, because that is genuinely borne by our experience across almost three decades now.”

Dame Alison, his predecessor, said she burst into tears when she was first asked to review an assisted dying case during her tenure as DPP.

She said: “I ended up sitting there in floods of tears, thinking, ‘Oh my God, this is so awful to have to advise on.’ I remember quite vividly reading the first one and thinking I need to shut my door, because I had to compose myself.”

“The DPP isn’t an elected official with the resources of Parliament to consult in that way and debate it,” she added.

Lord Macdonald, who was DPP between 2003 and 2008, said that the existing law was a “real mess”.

“We’ve got ourselves into this real mess where the application of the law is discriminatory and prosecutors are making law by deciding there’s a category of case they won’t prosecute,” he said. 

“In the meantime, a lot of people are suffering very ugly deaths. The whole situation is just grim at the moment.”