14:07 - The House having divided: - Ayes: 118 / Noes: 330 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice (Mike Penning)
It is an honour and a privilege to be standing at the Dispatch Box today as we show the rest of the country and the world what a Parliament should be doing. We have debated this important subject with passion but shown that we all have respect for each other. It is a shame that it has been 18 years since this matter was last debated, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Rob Marris) on bringing it here today. We have heard some unbelievably passionate speeches.
The House has also shown that it is not just full of lawyers and professional politicians. There are people here who bring experience of their previous professions. Some of them went off to university, some of us went off into the fire service—including me and the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick)—and some went into the Army. This debate has shown what we in the Chamber can do when the electorate elect people who are representative of their communities.
It is rare for a Minister to be able to stand at the Dispatch Box and get rid of their ministerial folder, but the Government do not hold a position on this Bill. They will respect the view of the House. That is exactly what happened in the other place last year, when Lord Falconer made the position quite clear, and the position is quite clear here today. I will therefore speak from the Dispatch Box in a personal capacity, which is also unusual.
When I was 17, I was a young soldier and I had just passed out of training. I got a message from the adjutant that my grandmother had collapsed and that I had been granted compassionate leave because she was terminally ill. People do not get compassionate leave from the armed forces unless the situation is really serious. I went home and Nan was in hospital. She had had a massive stroke and was paralysed from the neck down. I am a man of faith, and that night I prayed that Nan would not make it through the night. She was in great discomfort and she was conscious most of the time. The doctors said they did not think she would make it. She saw me and she cried, as I did.
Nan lived for another 20 years. She was a feisty girl. She smoked 60 a day, which is why she had the stroke, and she had a huge mass on her lungs. She used to cough in a way that I never thought anybody could cough, and she could swear at me when she saw me smoking, even though she smoked 60 a day. The point I am trying to make is that those in the medical profession are simply fantastic people and they do fantastic things for us, day in, day out—we heard much about that from the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford), who told us not only about her work, but about the work that has been done in other areas—but they get it wrong, and the will of the human being to decide when it is right for them to go, no matter what pain they are in, is something that we should not take lightly.
Nan was not in pain when she eventually got home. Strokes are horrible things; Nan was bed-bound and my grandfather nursed her for 20 years. Interestingly, I was best man for my grandfather when he remarried at the age of 71, which is also an experience. Sadly, I lost my step-grandmother only a couple of weeks ago, when she was 99. She was just as feisty as Nan, so in many ways he bought silly twice, because she very much ruled the roost.
When Nan was so ill, a group of nurses came in to help her. This was right at the start of the hospice movement, and ever since I have been involved in the hospice movement—I declare that interest. I am patron of the Hospice of St Francis and of Iain Rennie Hospice and Grove House, which are amalgamated under Rennie Grove Hospice Care. The Peace Hospice, just outside my constituency, does fantastic work, and Keech Hospice, a children’s hospice in Luton which looks after terminally ill children in my constituency, also does fantastic work.
My reasons for voting against this Bill this afternoon are twofold. First, I do not think it should be an excuse that we cannot control pain in the 21st century for people who are so ill. Secondly, I am, frankly, against suicide. I have been to too many suicides, as has the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse, where we have seen the aftermath. People who wish to commit suicide need help—we should help them, not assist in killing them.
Jonathan Reynolds
claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).
Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.
Question agreed to.
Question put accordingly, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The House proceeded to a Division.
Division 69
Ayes: 118
Labour: 73
Conservative: 27
Scottish National Party: 14
Liberal Democrat: 3
Green Party: 1
Noes: 330
Conservative: 210
Labour: 94
Scottish National Party: 11
Democratic Unionist Party: 8
Liberal Democrat: 3
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 3
UK Independence Party: 1
Ulster Unionist Party: 1
Independent: 1