Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Baroness Jay of Paddington Excerpts

Friday 18th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jay of Paddington (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to support my noble and learned friend’s Bill. I see it as a tightly focused and compassionate Bill, which will clarify the incoherent legal framework we have heard about today. It is more than 20 years since I first debated assisted dying. Since then I have sat on two Select Committees on this matter, visited the Dignitas organisation in Switzerland, and observed the Death with Dignity Act in Oregon. I have learnt a great deal from those experiences and my views have evolved and strengthened over that time.

I am today absolutely committed to the provisions in my noble and learned friend’s Bill. It has a narrow, specific focus on the terminally ill; it contains strict upfront safeguards and eligibility criteria; and it is an entirely appropriate measure for this country to adopt. My opinion has been reinforced by many personal approaches urging us to pass this Bill. Over my years in this House, I have been the object of many lobbies, as I know others have, but this has been totally different. Many of the individual stories are very hard to hear and difficult to read. My most recent correspondent, just this week, watched his wife die only a few days ago. He writes:

“She struggled with the vestiges of living … All she sought was peace and the law forbade it. How can that possibly be right?”.

Testimony like that makes it difficult to understand how anyone can reject a measure based on the reduction of human suffering.

However, I want to emphasise the constitutional significance of our proceedings. I have just stepped down after four years of holding the privileged role of chairman of your Lordships’ Select Committee on the Constitution. That position has emphasised to me the central role this House plays in the significant part we take in scrutinising the detail of legislation. It is our most important constitutional function. If we look at the Bill from that perspective, it would surely be a gross dereliction if we did not pass it beyond today’s Second Reading towards the close, dispassionate and detailed analysis it needs.

Of course, our duty to give the Bill proper consideration has been spotlighted by the findings of the Supreme Court. It is worth, even in this short debate, mentioning just some of the points it made. The justices unanimously held that the United Kingdom must decide whether the current law on assisting suicide is incompatible with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights—the right to private life. In other words, it is not an imposition from the European Court. A majority of the court held that they had the constitutional authority to make a declaration that the general prohibition on assisting suicide was incompatible with Article 8. Two of justices were prepared to make that declaration then, but the others declined to do so, taking a view that Parliament should be allowed to debate the issue, as we are doing today.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Neuberger, President of the Supreme Court, said:

“Parliament now has the opportunity to address the issue … if it is not satisfactorily addressed, there is a real prospect that a … successful, application for a declaration of incompatibility may be made”.

He was saying that we could face an extraordinary impasse, whereby the Supreme Court has ruled that two of our important pieces of our law are incompatible. Presumably, that would then lead to very rapid, hasty legislation being introduced—an unsatisfactory situation.

The fundamental understanding of our unwritten constitution is that Parliament is sovereign. The judges, however wise and authoritative, do not make the law; Parliament does. We have before us a timely and considered Bill; we have the opportunity to act and we must do so.