Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Baroness Goudie Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 22nd October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goudie (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all those who have sent me emails and letters, both against and for the Bill. The vast majority of the mail I have received has been asking me to vote—if there is a vote—and speak against the Bill.

In the 1970s, I had the pleasure of being introduced to Dame Cicely Saunders and going to her hospice, and I spent a number of years talking to her and helping with her. I became very involved in the Prince and Princess of Wales Hospice in Glasgow, with which I still have close links and which has done a great deal of pioneering work in palliative care. I would like to see palliative care assisted by the Government much more, including in the home. Not everybody should have to leave home to die; most people would prefer to be in their own home.

“Assisted dying” is a euphemism. This is an assisted suicide Bill—let us call a spade a spade. Nor is the Bill about alleviating suffering. Eligibility for assisted suicide does not require suffering. Other countries have this type of legislation, with acute suffering as a condition for eligibility. In this Bill, there is a very low threshold for eligibility. There is also concern about coercion, and a vulnerable individual being manipulated into this decision.

I quote from an American psychiatric journal:

“Psychiatrists with ethical objections to assisted suicide advocated a higher … more extensive review of a decision.”


The standard for deciding whether a person has the competence to make this decision is not a scientific one. It is difficult to determine whether a person even has the mental capacity to make such a definite decision. How are we to determine standards and thresholds for deciding whether a person has a specific capability to consent to a physical assisted suicide? What happens when doctors cannot decide, or if one of the two doctors changes their mind or does not agree? The Bill poses questions about the ethics of evaluating competence when it is partly determined by the individual values of the attending doctors.

Facilitating the taking of human life is a poor solution to improving the quality of end-of-life care. As I said at the beginning of my few words, we should be putting much more effort and funds into palliative care in the home, in hospices or in a mixture of both.

British Bill of Rights

Baroness Goudie Excerpts

Wednesday 28th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

My Lords, as the noble Lord will be aware, we have a dualist system rather than a monist system. Neither Parliament nor the courts are bound by international law, but a member of the Executive, including a Minister such as myself, is obliged to follow international law, whether it is reflected in the Ministerial Code or not. All Ministers will be aware of their obligations under the rule of law.

[Baroness Goudie (Lab)]

Why was the decision taken by the Foreign Office and the Cabinet to downgrade human rights?

[Lord Faulks]

I do not believe that there was any downgrading of human rights. We have a proud history of protecting human rights, both here and abroad, and we will continue to maintain our concern for those human rights.

House of Lords: Reform

Baroness Goudie Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goudie]

My Lords, I am a radical. I believe in parliamentary reform—of both Houses. Scrutiny of legislation is only one example of where improvement is required, but it is illogical to focus exclusively on this House. On the contrary, it is only in the context of both Houses that one can identify the functions of this House and it is only after defining the functions of this House that one can sensibly approach the question of its composition.

I am a democrat—I believe in a fully elected House of Commons and the primacy of that House. That, of course, is what we have. To that extent, I am in favour of the status quo. No case has been made out that any weaknesses of this House will be cured by the proposed change in composition. No confidence can be maintained that the strengths of this House may not be impaired—far from it. The one certainty is that there will be uncertainty and confusion about primacy and the relationship between the two Houses. There is the potential for paralysis. It is naive to suppose that if this House were elected its Members would not consider that this elected House had at least equal legitimacy to the other elected House.

To meet this point, it is proposed that there should be different electoral systems, but that is merely digging a deeper hole. It is bizarre to be considering an alternative voting system just after it has been rejected in a referendum. More seriously, those who believe that the single transferable vote or proportional representation, or whatever, is superior to first past the post will inevitably consider that this House enjoys the greater legitimacy of the two. It is nothing short of absurd to imagine that the conventions that govern the relationship between the two Houses would remain anything like the same. These proposals are ill thought out. The hybridity will not command support in the country.

At a time of acute constraints on public expenditure, expense will be incurred. We saw the figures yesterday, while yesterday’s Gallup poll highlighted the problems of well-being for low-income families. Those are the issues that we should be discussing in this House and the other House.

These proposals will monopolise parliamentary time, not only over the issue of new creations but because they envisage removing those who were, unquestionably, appointed for life. They will therefore turn an appointed House into a disappointed House, which will need to scrutinise, at the least, the transitional arrangements. I welcome the establishment of the Joint Committee of both Houses to consider all these matters in detail. However, for most Members of this House, and certainly for the general public, there are greater priorities.