Assisted Dying Law Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Aaron Bell
Main Page: Aaron Bell (Conservative - Newcastle-under-Lyme)Department Debates - View all Aaron Bell's debates with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Assisted Dying Law
Aaron Bell Excerpts(4 years, 9 months ago)
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Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) on securing the debate.
The status quo is not sustainable. It puts the Director of Public Prosecutions in a difficult position, and that is no way for such an important matter to be handled in law. It is for us to make the law. Whatever we do, we must do something, because the current situation is not sustainable. It is not fair on family members who are investigated and left on bail. The evidence is that the public are willing to look again, and are willing us to look again, for the reasons already given, including compassion and dignity. I do not think there is much dignity in what people have to go through to obtain an assisted death. Another reason, perhaps, is our changing attitudes to faith. There are more people without faith or whose faith is less orthodox than it was in the past.
Like the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) and my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn), I am new here. Hon. Members who have taken part in previous debates have told me that those debates changed their minds. I recognise that exact safeguards will be difficult to agree and that if a Bill is introduced, we would have to consider them all carefully.
To conclude, although I am instinctively predisposed towards a possible change in the law, I remain open-minded. Therefore I welcome a Government-backed inquiry as an important first step.