Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Mawhinney and Lord Deben

Friday 7th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben]

My Lords, I did not intend to speak on this group of amendments, but two interventions lead me to do so. The first was that of my noble friend Lord Mawhinney, who I think is wrong. I do not think that his proposal is necessary. I think that the Bill covers that. What my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay pointed to in that part of Clause 4 is right. It is important that even those of us who are very unhappy about the Bill should be extremely careful not to be presenting things that might be seen as merely holding up or interfering with the process of the Bill. That is why I would not support that proposal. It was the intervention of the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, which particularly caused me to feel that I should join the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, in his conversation.

[Lord Mawhinney]

I am grateful to my noble friend for giving way. Would he be willing to accept that there is a difference between an option being available to someone and a requirement to make a decision being available to someone? I am disappointed that my noble friend implicitly accused me of trying to slow down the process when I was, obviously inadequately, trying to draw a distinction which seems to me to be important. The opportunity to be required to make a decision is different, almost in principle, from the option to make one. I hope that my noble friend might on reflection agree that that is a distinction worth considering.

[Lord Deben]

First, I agree with the distinction. Secondly, the criticism that I made was not of my noble friend but of myself. It was that I would not like to be accused of supporting something merely for the sake of supporting it because it was another part of the debate. That is why I felt it right to say that I did not support this in order that no one should feel that one was elongating. What I would say to my noble friend is very simple: within the Bill it is clearly necessary before the final act takes place for the person doing that act to assure themselves that there has been no change of mind. That is not an option; it appears to me from the Bill that that is a necessity. If it is not a necessity, we ought to make it one. The noble Baroness spoke of the guidance. It would certainly have to be very clear in the guidance. Given those things, I would not want to change it in the way that my noble friend suggests.

I return to the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, with whom I have had fascinating and interesting discussions over many years. One of the issues that we have not so far considered, but I hope we all have in our minds, is the fear that particularly older people should feel that they are no longer of use when they are of use. Very often, when people say, “I ought to end my life because I am a burden on you”, the answer ought to be, “You are not a burden”. I have been very fortunate in my life because I have had the ability—I mean by that the size of accommodation—for my wife and I to look after both our sets of parents until they died. It was an enormous privilege. If you asked our four children, they would tell you that it was one of the most important parts, if not the most important part, of their upbringing—to be brought up with aged grandparents and, in one case, with a grandmother who had long lost the power of communication. They would all say that all four of them contributed greatly to them and to their lives. The worry I have of the thought that the noble Baroness put forward is that it reaches to the thing in this Bill that for me is the deepest unhappiness, which is that people should feel that they do not matter because they cause trouble and difficulty and are a burden on others.

One of the things behind all this that leads me to take time and to be concerned is the awful way in which this nation in particular treats its older people in general and the attitude we have towards them. Of course, I suppose at my age I ought to declare an interest. However, I intend to be around, like most of my relations, for very much longer. I hope I will not be a burden, but it is not for me to judge whether I am a burden. That is why I think paragraph (d) of Amendment 65 is so important. I do not believe that people should end their lives because they make a decision that they are a burden. I think that is one bit we have no capacity to decide in any circumstances, however mentally agile we may be. It is utterly impossible for any of us to make that as an objective decision. Therefore, to put this into the Bill is an important affirmation of our belief that a person, even in their last days, may, in fact, far from being a burden, be someone who makes a real contribution to the people around.

It is difficult not to, and I know that sometimes it could become maudlin, but we can speak only from our own experience. I, too, was with my father as he died. We were very close. He died as I said the words of the Nunc Dimittis. He clasped my hand and was gone. I think that his last fortnight of pain and his difficulty in coming to terms with a failed operation, making a decision that he would leave his death as it would come, has had a bigger effect than almost anything else. I do not think that he knew that; although I believe that he does now. However, I do not think that he was capable of saying that he did not matter and I think that we ought to protect people from being asked to make that decision.