Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Alicia Kearns Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 29th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Kim Leadbeater]

The hon. Gentleman has made the point for me: within a robust system, we will check for coercion, but we do not have any of that now. At the moment, the person will be definitely be dead. We have to look at the status quo. Putting in layers of safeguarding and checking for coercion must be better than the system that we have now.

[Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Stamford) (Con)]

Colleagues are right to raise questions around coercion. I hosted a phone-in on LBC where people rang in and said, “I feel like I have to end my life because I recognise how difficult it is for my family to see me suffering.” The limit in the Bill, however, is that someone must have only six months to live according to two doctors and a judge, which I genuinely believe massively reduces the risk of coercion. Are we really saying that people are so desperate to bump off their families that if they were told that they had six months to live, they would escalate the process and do it sooner?

[Kim Leadbeater]

The hon. Lady makes an excellent point—she is absolutely right. The very strict criteria in the Bill add extra layers of safeguarding, which, again, we just do not have at the moment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Stamford) (Con)]

To discuss matters of life and death is to recognise the gravity of one’s role as a Member of Parliament. The Bill before us seeks to shorten the suffering of the terminally ill—those with just six months to live—and no one else. For too many, death is not a singular moment but an excruciating journey of terror and agony as your body turns on you.

Arguments that we must wait for palliative care to improve in our country are a logical fallacy. The Bill does not prevent us from improving our palliative care system, contrary to what has been said today in the Chamber. In evidence to the Health and Social Care Committee, Hospice UK said that:

“it would be totally inappropriate for us to suggest or even imply that hospice and palliative care services can somehow address…pain in all circumstances.”

Imagine you have cancer that day by day is breaking every individual vertebra in your body, one by one, and there is nothing that can take away the pain—that is how my mother lost her life. Her last words were, “I cannot go on like this,” and, thankfully for her, there were only a few more days of pain; however, for others, there will be months more. Before they get to that six-month period, people will have suffered years of excruciating agony that palliative care cannot resolve. Yes, we must improve palliative care, and I will fight for that.

Arguments that this legislation would be the beginning of a slippery slope are not reflected by the majority of legislators, such as Australia and across multiple states in the USA, where such policies have not been expanded. Again, the Health and Social Care Committee has told us that where terminal illness was the basis—not suffering—as for this Bill, the law has not changed.

As a Conservative, freedom, choice and personal responsibility shape my decision making—until those freedoms cause harm to others. I do not see the role of legislation as imposing moral convictions. It is our job to protect choice. I say to those whose religious beliefs drive their arguments today that I will always defend their right to practise their faith and protect their own life choices. However, supporting the choice of others does not diminish the principle of compassion; it recognises respect for individual autonomy. To deny choice to others—especially those with only six months to live, where their personal choice does others no harm—is wrong.

To those concerned about the state mandating powers to decide who can and cannot live, I say that judges already exercise this power. They end lives in far more complicated cases, such as those of children on life support.

On arguments around procedure, we all have to be honest with ourselves: this Bill has been read far more vociferously than most Bills that go through this House. Most Bills over the past 20 years have come to Parliament with far fewer than 14 days to consider them: for the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, we had six days to consider 59 pages; for the Illegal Migration Bill, we had six days to consider far more. We have had sight of this Bill for longer than many others. The idea that a private Member’s Bill is not appropriate is also wrong. Social reform comes through private Members’ Bills: the abolition of the death penalty, the legalisation of abortion and the decriminalisation of homosexuality—all things I hope this House would unite on.

This is the start of the process of debate, and it would be a tragedy if the Bill were defeated today. Members should trust me when I say that I learned early in my career that when we hear promises that things will come later, that is a promise that no action will come at all. The High Court made it clear to my constituent Phil Newby, who has motor neurone disease, that we must make this decision. To those considering abstaining because this is so difficult—and I recognise that it is difficult—I say that we must not shy away from it. I ask colleagues to vote for the Bill in order to allow a long legislative process to proceed and, together, to commit to shortening the suffering of those who are terminally ill in our society, because they deserve that choice.