Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Pannick and Lord Winston

Friday 16th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, that was a very powerful speech. The Bill as it stands seems to me to involve no lack of clarity whatever. Clause 1(1) is perfectly clear:

“A person who is terminally ill may request and lawfully be provided with assistance to end his or her own life”.

What does assistance mean? Clause 4(1) is perfectly clear:

“The attending doctor of a person who has made a valid declaration may prescribe medicines for that person to enable that person to end their own life”.

There is no lack of clarity there. We may disagree over whether this is a desirable or an undesirable Bill, but the idea that people in the country do not understand the issues because of the wording of the Bill is simply fanciful.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, with great respect to my noble friend Lord Pannick, I disagree, and totally agree with the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill. There is another issue beyond clarity here. One of the issues that was raised at Second Reading and, I think, on the first day in Committee was the concept that fragile and possibly deranged, angry and distressed elderly people coming into hospital have of the nature of their status as patients. The use of the word “suicide” brings clarity for them, because it makes a very big difference to medical and nursing practitioners, who can quite clearly see that they will not be involved in a process of assisted dying. It is, effectively, suicide, and that limits any notion of how they might feel when they feel that somebody is not really worth supporting in hospital. This is a major problem and will become an increasing one. We see the increasing difficulties in the health service when dealing with cancer care at the moment and the provision of drugs. There will be pressures on budgets and increasing pressures on patients who will feel under pressure to take a decision that is not entirely theirs. I therefore support this amendment.