Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Baroness Hooper Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 22nd October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hooper (Con)]

My Lords, it is not death but the manner of dying that concerns most people. However, of the many moving letters and messages that I, and I know others, have received about the Bill, no one asked me to support it—on the contrary. In listening to the well-reasoned arguments and some very brave personal accounts for and against that have been advanced today, it is clear that there is at least one thing on which we can all agree: this is a very complex and difficult issue for which there are no easy answers.

Many moral, theological and legal avenues have been broached in the course of this debate. I would like to explore them further, but time, of course, does not allow. I will make just one point. Inevitably, the personal examples that have been advanced today have concentrated on older people. Of course, looking around your Lordships’ House, this Second Reading debate has encouraged many of the older Members—including me—some of whom we have not seen during the long period of lockdown, so it is good to see them here and contributing to the debate today.

Seriously, I understand this concentration on older people at the end of their natural lives and on the pain and suffering they may have to endure, but my concern is that giving a certain category of people the right to end their lives legally could influence others of other generations, whatever the presumed safeguards that I fully appreciate the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, has tried to build into the Bill. To put it simply, we are all aware, I am sure, of the increasing number of young people—especially young men, it seems—who are committing suicide. This Bill, however unintentionally, could give them a feeling of legitimacy and justification in taking their young lives for reasons that may be imagined. This, in my opinion, would be an unintended consequence too far. For this reason, and for the many reasons advanced by others, perhaps encapsulated best, for me, in the early stages of the debate by the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, I oppose the Bill.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Baroness Hooper Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, makes an overwhelming case here. I support her. I share the concern that she has expressed that, without the substance of the amendments that she proposes, there is a very strong risk that the Bill will fatally undermine the limited access to justice—it is very limited—that is currently available in practice, and I emphasise “in practice”, in relation to allegations of serious wrongs committed by British companies in developing countries. I very much hope that the Minister will listen favourably to what the noble Baroness has said and be able to accept the principle of the amendments. If there is concern that further safeguards need to be added into the amendments, and there may be, I hope that the Government will come back on Report with an amendment of their own.

[Baroness Hooper]

My Lords, it was drawn to my attention that the changes introduced by the Bill would make it almost impossible for foreign victims of human rights abuses committed by UK companies to access justice in this country. These are indeed sensible amendments that would protect access to justice for, as the noble Baroness has said, a very small number of vulnerable people affected by poor business practices while ensuring that there is no additional cost to the public purse.

Because of my particular interest in Latin America, I am aware of some of the cases quoted by the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, in setting out the reasons behind the amendment. As has been said, she has made the case so clearly and fully that it is not necessary for me to go on at any length, but I wish to record my support for these amendments. I hope that the Government will give serious consideration to them.

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, I, too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, for having spoken so well to her amendment. I remind the House that I have been involved for much of my professional life in the kind of issues that arise in the matter that we are discussing; I am of course a former director of Oxfam. It is difficult to put on record just how concerned the voluntary agencies are, all of which I think are deeply respected in this House, and the anxiety that they have about the consequences of the new proposals.

As I have said before when I have dared to intervene in these highly expert legal arguments, it is important sometimes to spell out the social realities. The noble Baroness did this commendably in her introduction but I would like to fill that out a little more. I make no apology for doing so because we must remember what we are talking about.

In the 1996 case against Cape plc by 7,500 South African asbestos miners who had developed a range of sinister asbestos-related diseases following prolonged exposure to asbestos dust in the workplace, evidence came to light that the company had actively lobbied to conceal the nature and extent of the health risks associated with asbestos exposure and had knowingly exposed thousands of workers to the deadly dust. The courts decided that the case could be tried in England rather than South Africa. The company reached a final settlement with the claimants in 2003 to the amount of £10.5 million.

Take another case: the experience of Monterrico Metals in Peru. In August 2005, 28 people were detained by police, bound and hooded and then held for three days at the Rio Blanco mine in a remote area of northern Peru. They had been protesting against the development of the mine, the principal asset of Monterrico Metals. According to their witness statements, the protestors were held against their will and subjected to physical and psychological torture, including beatings and, in some cases, sexual abuse. The company denies involvement in the police operation but witnesses reported that the mine’s management were co-ordinating the police operations. Five claimants were shot, one lost an eye and another protestor bled to death. This case was finally settled in August 2011, shortly before it was due to come to the English High Court and six years after the incident took place. As part of the out-of-court settlement, the mining company imposed a gagging order on the amount of the compensation payouts, which applies both to the farmers and to the legal firm representing the protestors.

Both these cases were brought on a no-win no-fee basis. Under those arrangements, as we all know, the victims’ lawyers took on a significant burden and risked considerable financial costs if the case was unsuccessful. The Government’s proposals would significantly increase the cost and the risk of taking on cases relating to corporate abuses of human rights abroad, which by their nature are extremely complex and expensive to investigate and pursue. For victims of alleged abuses in the developing world, the cost of insurance premiums would be prohibitive if they could no longer be recovered. Even if they won their case under the proposed regime, the success fee would be taken out of the victims’ damages rather than paid by the defendant company. I could go on in some detail about the implications but the legal arguments have been very well put, and they relate to many of the legal arguments that have been put forward in a domestic context.

I make this plea to the coalition Government. They have held high the flag of their moral commitment to the third world. How, consistently with the stand that they are making, can they allow the new proposals to go forward with all the consequences of injustice, hardship and suffering that would follow?

House of Lords: Reform

Baroness Hooper Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hooper]

My Lords, having been a Member of your Lordships' House for 26 years, I have had almost equal experience of the House when it consisted of mixed hereditary and life Peers as of the current composition of appointed life Peers with a small and select band of elected hereditaries. As far as I am concerned, the post-1999 House of Lords is no better, no more democratic and no more able to defeat the Government or ask the House of Commons to think again and does not have a greater breadth of expertise. It is certainly less independent, more partisan and more expensive. I therefore again wish to put on record my regret that the historic and traditional element of our ancient Parliament, which was represented by hereditary Peers, should have been lost apart from the small group who remain and continue to do sterling work. The brilliant speech by my noble friend Lord Elton earlier is a witness to that.

I welcome the proposals before us to the extent that they at least show that the Government are prepared to follow through on the so-called reform Act of 1999. For those of us who were here in 1997 and 1998 when the then Government spoke of their mandate from the public and how urgent and important their proposals were, there was an assumption that the Bill was but the first stage of reform and the dawn of a new era. In fact, all it amounted to was a Bill to abolish the right of hereditary Peers to sit in the House of Lords or, as the then Leader put it, to get rid of hereditary Peers.

I am a natural conservative, in that I do not like change for the sake of change. If changes have to be made, it has to be shown that they are changes for the better. The 1999 reform Act did not achieve that; a wholly appointed House is not an improvement, although I can understand that those who have become Members since 1999 are able to persuade themselves that it is now a much improved place. If I had a magic wand, I would use it to return to the pre-1999 position, and I only wish that the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, had been here in 1998, as I feel sure that she would have been a doughty champion of the status quo then as she is now. I join others in congratulating her—

[Baroness Boothroyd]

I am most grateful to the noble Baroness, but I am not in favour of the status quo. I am in favour of reform, but it must be incremental reform, as laid out in the Bill proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Steel. I want reform, but I want sound and good reform when it does come.

[Baroness Hooper]

I thank the noble Baroness for her intervention. I was about to congratulate her on the style and bravura of her speech yesterday. I must say that, if she supports the Steel Bill, in my opinion that is a long way in the direction of preserving the status quo. However, we are where we are—facing the current proposals.

There are so many ways in which the working of the House of Lords could be improved, and there have been many excellent and some very novel suggestions in the course of this debate. Like others, I have always believed that in considering further reforms we should be looking at the whole of Parliament—that is, at both Houses, also taking into account the powers and functions of the devolved Parliaments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which considerably change the constitutional map.

I have also always believed that we should move towards a fully elected second Chamber, since I do not consider that the present wholly appointed House has democratic legitimacy. However, my idea of a fully elected second Chamber would be via the medium of indirect elections, based on a system of electoral colleges to ensure that the breadth of expertise, which most people agree already exists and must remain if the role of the second Chamber is to be mainly that of scrutinising and revising legislation, should be guaranteed. The electoral college system would allow doctors, lawyers, academics, the voluntary sector, the regions and other groups to be defined to elect their representatives for a period of time. It would be on much the same lines as the hereditary Peers do today so, far from wanting the hereditary Peers to wither away, as has been suggested would be the result of the Steel Bill, I want them to remain and to be reinforced because of the historic continuity that their presence gives to this House.

I cannot therefore find anything to recommend in the Government’s proposals for direct elections or the system that they suggest. Perhaps the only thing I can agree with in these proposals is the decision not to change the name of the House of Lords, at least not in the short term. It would indeed be ridiculous to have a House of Commons without a House of Lords. It is perfectly feasible to have Members of the House of Lords without having to create them all as Peers of the realm, which has indeed become something of a charade. Yet the idea of a senate has no appeal at all.

I started out by trying to find something to welcome in these government proposals. The more that I have listened to the debate and its many brilliant and constructive speeches, the more I recognise that they simply will not do. I hope that the Government will do the same and draw the same conclusion.