Assisted Suicide

Alun Michael Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Solicitor-General]

I listened to the right hon. Lady’s speech and although I understood it, I am not convinced by her argument. None the less, she is perfectly entitled to make it.

Assisting or encouraging suicide is an offence and the maximum penalty for it is 14 years. It should not be thought that the law is not clear. We are talking about the application of the law when it comes to a decision about whether or not to prosecute. Those are discrete issues.

It cannot be acceptable to permit people to encourage others to kill themselves. Most often the people concerned would know each other, but the growth in suicide websites means that the person doing the encouraging could well be wholly unknown to, and not even present with, the person being assisted or encouraged to kill himself. To clarify the position the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 updated section 2 of the 1961 Act. That change was made amid growing concern about misuse of the internet to promote suicide and suicide methods, and to reassure the public that the internet was not outside the law. It is now clear in that 2009 Act that it is not necessary for a person committing the offence of assisted suicide to know the person whom he is encouraging to commit suicide, or even to be able to identify him. The change to section 2 came about via the Coroners and Justice Act, and any further changes to the law must, I suggest, be a matter for Parliament to decide.

Although today’s motion does not call for a change in the substantive law, and the amendment tabled by the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Dame Joan Ruddock) calls for the DPP’s guidance to be put on a statutory basis—no doubt following consultation, but I think I can paraphrase in that acceptable way—she does not ask for a change in the statute itself. I have no doubt that some may suggest during this debate that there should be a change in the criminal law relating to assisting or encouraging suicide. I do not advocate a change in the law, nor do I think it sensible to place the DPP’s guidance on a statutory footing.

[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Solicitor-General has come to a point that concerns me. Does he agree that passing the amendment would appear to be doing something that is very close to changing the law, and it would be a pity to give that impression?

[The Solicitor-General]

I think that I am entitled to look at the amendment proposed by the right hon. Lady on its face value, and it proposes to change the current arrangements. It proposes that there should be a consultation as to whether the policy and the guidelines should be placed on a statutory footing. However, I think that I am entitled to infer from that that those who support that aspect of the amendment wish the DPP’s guidelines to be on a statutory footing. I disagree with that. I do not think that that is sensible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

My starting point is that I want our law and our legal practice to be clear but flexible. In his excellent introduction to the debate, the hon. Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway) said that decisions about the law should be made by Parliament and not by the courts, but these decisions are not court decisions. They relate to how to decide whether it is right, necessary or humane to pursue a prosecution according to the circumstances of a particular case.

I support the motion, but I regard the amendment as an unfortunate attempt to hijack the debate. It is a Trojan horse attempting to change the law, and I do not want the law to be changed in either direction. There is a certain amount of pull from people on either side who are often, understandably, informed by specific cases, to reinforce a point of view that comes from that specific case. The fact remains, however, that we cannot avoid the need for people to make a judgment in difficult circumstances. The doctor, the relative, or the person who must decide whether his or her moral responsibility is to assist another or to take a particular course of action, are the only people who can weigh all the facts and come to a judgment, balancing the sanctity of human life with the suffering and the personal wishes of the individual concerned.

After the event, another judgment has to be made as to whether the individual involved broke the law, and whether there ought to be a prosecution. There was a case in my constituency of a mother who killed her severely disabled son. The public reporting of that case suggested to me that nothing was gained by the prosecution; it simply served to make even more painful, in public, the period of intense suffering that she experienced over a long period. We cannot legislate against that, but we can offer guidance on how a judgment should be made on whether to prosecute. That is what the Director of Public Prosecutions has done, and in my view he has got it right. This is an issue of judgment, which is absolutely crucial.

I shall make a comparison with data protection. People often want a safe haven, which is expressed as “If in doubt, don’t share data”, when in fact there is a legal responsibility to consider the public interest and to balance the pros and cons of sharing specific data. A judgment has to be made in accordance with the law. Indeed, the law requires a judgment to be made. That is why we bring the balance of judgment required into a single judgment by talking about data management, rather than about data protection or data sharing. I hope that that helps to illustrate the fact that, in relation to assisted dying, to say “Never prosecute” or “Always prosecute” would be equally wrong.

The motion does not seek to change the law, but the amendment would take us further down that road by suggesting that the guidance should be subject to a decision of Parliament. Surely the hidden agenda is that we could disapprove guidance in the future, or even require a change in the guidance by resolution. That would be wrong. I have had letters from people who believe that the guidance is already subject to Parliament, but it is not. Some have implied that passing this motion would make subsequent changes to the guidance subject to Parliament, but that would be wrong. The guidance tells prosecutors how they should seek to make an appropriate judgment within the law, and we should not interfere with that. If we wanted to change the law, that would be a matter for Parliament, but the interpretation of the law is something that we should note—perhaps with approval, as the motion does—but not seek to determine. Let us leave it there.

On both sides of the argument about whether we should go further or be more restrictive, people argue from a point of view of compassion, and I respect the opinions on both sides. Newspapers and hon. Members who are dealing with individual cases argue for compassion for an individual in a particular set of circumstances, but our laws have to be universal and they therefore have to allow room for compassion and for the protection of the vulnerable. That means that the law should not be too specific or inflexible. I believe that the courts have been right in reflecting the decisions of this House on what the law should be. I also believe that the Director of Public Prosecutions, in responding to the pressure on him to produce guidance, has got it right within the law.

I am happy to support the motion, and to endorse the policy set out by the Director of Public Prosecutions. The present policy appropriately protects those who want to act out of compassion in helping the terminally ill while safeguarding against the dangerous prospect of legalising assisted dying or putting pressure on the ill and the vulnerable.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nigel Mills]

I am sorry, Mr Speaker. I am full of a cold, and my throat is not quite as strong as I would like it to be.

If Parliament intends that compassionately assisting a loved one to die should not be prosecuted but maliciously encouraging someone who does not really want to die should be prosecuted, then that is what the law should be, and it is down to the DPP to put in place guidance on how to distinguish between the two.

[Alun Michael]

Does not the hon. Gentleman understand that the whole point is that a judgment has to be made on whether the law is being pursued or whether there are factors that show that there are grounds for a prosecution? That is what the guidance is all about. What is needed is not a change in the law but for us to applaud how the guidance has been provided, based on what Parliament has already decided.

[Nigel Mills]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. Parliament decided 50 years ago that all prosecutions should require the DPP’s consent. I contend that in his guidance the DPP is not strictly giving guidance on the law. The law says that assisted suicide is a crime that can be punished by up to 14 years’ imprisonment. I would rather the guidance said that compassionately assisting a loved one should not be a crime, but the malicious stuff should be, and then it could be used to determine exactly when a prosecution would be due. I strongly believe that Parliament should draw the line in the sand on this very difficult issue. We should not be leaving it to the whim of the courts or to individual DPPs slowly to move the line forwards or backwards depending on their view. It is right that Parliament should decide.

I welcome the fact that we have had this debate so that we can endorse the current position of the DPP, and I will support amendment (a) to try to put that on a firmer footing.