Assisted Dying

Viscount Craigavon Excerpts

Monday 13th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Craigavon]

My Lords, I speak very much in favour of this policy of the DPP and the clarification provided by the guidelines. My main point is that I believe that more transparency and light can be thrown on the process of decisions that are now being made in this field. That obviously should not compromise any necessary confidentiality but, by revealing more reasoning and the details, it should be possible to assist one of the main purposes of this policy stemming from the Purdy judgment: that is, for the public to be more reasonably able to predict whether actions might lead to prosecution. An alternative would be for the DPP to publish an overview of his decisions without revealing identifying details of the individuals involved. That is the direction that we could be taking now, prior to any further legislation.