King’s Speech

Earl of Arran Excerpts

Wednesday 8th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Arran (Con)]

First, I apologise to the House for not being able to be here at the end of today’s proceedings.

It is now nearly 20 years since your Lordships convened a Select Committee, of which I was a privileged member, on draft legislation on assisted dying. Three Bills have been debated at Second Reading during that time, two of which passed but were unable to progress in Committee. It is obvious that there cannot be progress on this subject unless and until the Government are willing to make time available for this legislation. A Private Member’s Bill is not up to the job alone.

The Sexual Offences Act, introduced into your Lordships’ House by my late father, would not have passed into law without the tacit support of the Government of the day, and nor would the Abortion Act. Neither of these great Acts is perfect, but nor is humanity itself. Society of that time wanted them to happen, and eventually the Government pushed them through on to the statute book.

Last week, the House of Keys in the Isle of Man voted, by 17 votes to seven, to grant a Second Reading to Dr Alex Allinson’s Assisted Dying Bill. As one would expect, there were many who voted for the legislation who insisted that their support was conditional on the Bill getting its safeguards right. That is of course the right approach, and there will undoubtedly be a long and fruitful discussion as to how the law should operate and how to ensure it can be done as safely as possible. The opportunity properly to scrutinise legislation and ensure it works for the British public has been denied to us in this House due to lack of time. Surely that cannot be right.

It is not just those in the Isle of Man who see progress where we do not. The Scottish Parliament is drafting legislation, which will be subject to much scrutiny there. The Government of Jersey are consulting widely and thoroughly on the issue but have confirmed that they will bring forward proposals for legislation next year. Beyond our borders, the Irish Parliament and the French Government are also exploring how to legislate on assisted dying, and we will see progress in both places early next year. It is, therefore, profoundly disappointing that the processes of this House have not allowed for such a debate to continue here.

With over 80% of the public wanting a change in the law, I ask your Lordships: whither good sense, whither justice, whither democracy, whither kindness and compassion? We need to break this deadlock, for it is the strong wish of the British people.

Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Earl of Arran Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 22nd October 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Arran (Con)]

My Lords, this House has now debated assisted dying on very many occasions, whether it has been through the legislative efforts of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, or the late Lord Joffe. I was very privileged to examine the issue closely when I served on one of your Lordships’ Select Committees on assisted dying more than 15 years ago, chaired by my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern. We went to Oregon and northern Europe, which included going to Dignitas, since when I have spoken on assisted dying on many occasions. On each occasion, we have had lengthy debates in which your Lordships agreed that the law that we have now is not working as well as it could be; then the issue is left to drop through lack of time.

In each debate, the Lords spiritual warned us that assisted dying was not the right law for this country, in the full knowledge that their own congregations took the opposite view. Members of Parliament can be accused of not listening to their constituents; might not the same apply to our Anglican clergy—an accusation of not listening to their flock, 84% of whom support a change in the law? I do not believe that there are many Members of your Lordships’ House who sincerely believe that assisted dying is anything but inevitable. Many Members have told us this afternoon of other parts of the world where it has been made legally possible in the six years since the Bill of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer.

With the passing of every year, more and more people will die in unnecessary pain and suffering in this country. More and more jurisdictions will have the courage to legislate that we so sorely lack. Indeed, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that both Scotland and Ireland might also legislate, thus leaving little England and Wales stuck in the middle. Unless we are able to progress this legislation, we will continue to squander the opportunity to craft a sensible, compassionate law fit for the 21st century. Several of the great humanitarian Bills—such as the homosexual reform Bill and the Abortion Bill 1967—were extremely controversial at the time. They had their imperfections, but the public and society as a whole eventually urged them onto the statute book.

God did not intend mankind to suffer unnecessarily. The Assisted Dying Bill is a Christian Bill, and clearly legislates for the overwhelming need for kindness and compassion in a very frail and vulnerable world. It is a world that none of us asked to enter, but perhaps a world in which we might have the choice of how we depart from it. Humbly, this Bill needs to happen.

Queen’s Speech

Earl of Arran Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Arran (Con)]

My Lords, it is now more than 15 years since I sat on a Select Committee in your Lordships’ House. It was established to look at draft legislation on assisted dying for the terminally ill. As a committee, we had the privilege of travelling to the Netherlands, Dignitas in Switzerland and Oregon, which then stood as the only state in the USA to have legalised this practice.

We were led with great distinction by my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern as chairman and the 10 other distinguished members included the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, who is in the Chair today.

We heard in Oregon that the practice there was working well and had been integrated into palliative and hospice care systems, and its safeguards were protecting against any possible abuse. Regrettably, in 2006 this House declined to support a new law based on Oregon’s experience, although it did lend its support to similar proposals in 2014 and 2015, only for the Bill to fall due to lack of time after three full days of debate, including two full days of consideration in Committee. As a House, we gave our support to tightly safeguarded legislation—that is, two doctors independent of one another would have to assess a person’s mental capacity and prognosis, and the entire process would be overseen by a High Court judge. These were, and continue to be, the most safeguarded and conservative proposals anywhere in the world. They were supported by your Lordships’ House and by more than 80% of the British public.

It is now more than five years since we have had a substantive debate on this issue and public demand for changing the law has not subsided. Nor, indeed, has international progress. Oregon’s example has been followed by 10 additional American states, with New Mexico becoming the 11th jurisdiction in the USA to permit assisted dying earlier this year. Altogether, over 70 million Americans live in states where assisted dying is permitted. Tasmania this year became the third Australian state to do so. New Zealand held a referendum on assisted dying last year, which passed with an overwhelming majority. In Europe, too, the Low Countries and Switzerland have long permitted euthanasia and assisted dying. They are being joined by Spain and Portugal, whose Parliaments have approved new laws in the past few months. Important court judgments are likely to lead to similar legislation in Austria and Germany.

Even closer to home, Ireland is currently debating assisted dying; a vote in the Dáil passed the Dying with Dignity Bill in October. In Scotland, too, Holyrood will tackle this issue again in the near future and looks likely to succeed in legislating for assisted dying.

Perhaps influenced by the growing clamour for law change and the mighty evidence that assisted dying can be introduced safely and fully integrated into modern end-of-life care, doctors’ views are shifting in support of assisted dying. Two years ago, the Royal College of Physicians dropped its long-standing opposition to assisted dying and the British Medical Association is poised to do the same later this year. In a survey of nearly 30,000 doctors the BMA found that 50% of its members supported a change in the law, compared to 39% against. This progress is fast spreading across the English-speaking world and in predominantly Catholic countries closer to home. As more and more countries legislate, we gain more and more evidence that assisted dying can be legislated for safely and with huge popular support, giving dying people the right to choose how they end their lives.

I say very simply: we did not ask to come into this world; might we now be allowed to say how we would wish to depart from it?

Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Earl of Arran Excerpts

Friday 18th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Arran (Con)]

My Lords, death is not a pretty affair. Thus it was a most humbling experience and a great privilege to have been appointed to your Lordships’ committee in 2005 to take evidence on assisted suicide. Not only did we travel to Europe, including a visit to Dignitas, but we travelled also to the US state of Oregon to examine very carefully the operation of the Death with Dignity Act, which was passed in 1997. I suggest that never has the state of Oregon been mentioned so often in your Lordships’ House. We could almost be forgiven for thinking that we are the Oregon Parliament—but we are not. I mention Oregon for a purpose, and I shall dwell very briefly on a few points.

Seventeen years later, that Act has enjoyed great popular support. There is no evidence of abuse, nor are there calls to extend the law beyond its narrow parameters. Partly as a result of the Oregon example, the states of Washington and Vermont have now followed suit. That must be something for good rather than bad. Despite the hysterical claims of opponents that the numbers of assisted deaths in Oregon have risen fivefold, assisted deaths equate to only 0.25% of all deaths each year. These claims obscure the fact that the initial numbers were understandably very low while residents became aware of the choice and, following a steady increase, numbers have stabilised in recent years.

A small minority of patients—around a quarter—cite concerns about inadequate pain control as one of their reasons for pursuing assisted dying. This does not mean that Oregon is not delivering adequate palliative care; on the contrary, it is among the best states in the USA for end-of-life care. Indeed, more than 88% of hospitals in Oregon deliver specialist palliative care compared with the national average of 60%. The vast majority of patients who have assistance to die—more than 85%—are enrolled in hospice care. There, as here, many dying patients face the choice of either being sedated to the point that they lose lucidity or retaining lucidity with less than complete pain control, allowing them to pass away as they wish with friends and family around them.

The law does not endanger potentially vulnerable people. Research tells us that potentially vulnerable groups—the over-85s, people from lower socioeconomic groups, people with disabilities and people suffering from psychiatric conditions—are in fact underrepresented in assisted dying figures. A study from Oregon found that some patients did show symptoms associated with depression, although the authors pointed out that the indicators used to measure depression are also the side-effects of a typical terminal illness—for example, loss of appetite, fatigue and difficulty sleeping.

Claims that patients may be coerced to ingest the life-ending medication by family members are misguided and are not borne out by any evidence. Furthermore, the Bill before us provides additional safeguards that would ensure a patient had a clear and settled intention to die before taking the medication.

Death is a most distressing affair. We must therefore look at this Bill with great care and compassion but, above all, with good, sound common sense. None of us here today asked to come into this world. Should we therefore not have the choice as to how we might wish to depart from it? A very considerable majority of the public are now clamouring for change. Society at large is on the march. It is our duty to listen and act.