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.

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[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.

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[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.

Phone Hacking

Alun Michael Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

That was the point I was making. The existing PCC arrangements have not delivered. The press should try to make self-regulation work, and that issue should be dealt with as part of the inquiry, because it is important to restore public confidence across the country in the way in which the media operate, in their independence and in their trustworthiness.

There are questions, too, for the police. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson stated yesterday:

“It is inevitable...that questions will be asked about the parameters of the original investigation but also more widely about the regulatory role of the Press Complaints Commission and others.”

He is right, and there are three questions to answer. First, were payments made by the media to individual officers—which is clearly illegal and corrupt? Secondly, was there a wider relationship between the newspapers and police? Thirdly, why did the first investigation not reach the truth and uncover what was happening?

I spoke to the commissioner today. He told me that he believes that a public inquiry is not only inevitable but it is the right thing to do. He said that the police should be held to account. It is important for the inquiry to cover those issues. Ministers should reflect on the specialist role that police officers, the IPCC and Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary will play in ensuring a proper investigation.

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

Did the Metropolitan Police Commissioner indicate whether he had made a referral to the IPCC, or has that not happened yet?

[Yvette Cooper]

As I understand it from my conversation with the commissioner this morning, the Met has indeed made a referral to the IPCC about the allegations that police officers received payments. That has been discussed with the IPCC, whose conclusion—again, as I understand it from my conversation this morning—is that the current investigation by the Met should continue, but it is keeping that under review. It is important that we have that independent investigation. There is a wider question about safeguards in the system on which we will want to reflect, given that individual investigations may go awry or may not reach the conclusions that they need to reach. I do not think that that role will be fulfilled by the police and crime commissioners proposed by the Government, because that would create greater risks in such cases in future.

The police do vital and excellent work, solving crimes, bringing offenders to justice, and supporting families of murder victims and others. It is important that that work is not undermined or discredited as the result of any lack of transparency over the phone-hacking revelations. We must recognise that any areas where things have gone wrong must be put right.

Before turning to the case for the public inquiry and what it should consider, may I respond briefly to the points made by the Attorney-General about whether a referral should be made to the Competition Commission? He will know that we have continually called for such a referral, as we believe that it is the right thing to do. I hope that the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, who is in the Chamber, and the Attorney-General will reflect carefully on the points that have been made by Members on both sides of the House about the flexibility within the law to look at the issue again, and recognise the importance of the need, for which we have argued from the beginning, for referral to the Competition Commission. I would simply say that judgments must be fair, but it is also important that they are seen to be fair and that the public have confidence in them.

The Prime Minister agreed today that there should be an inquiry or inquiries into these issues. At the end of the Attorney-General’s speech, he referred to a number of inquiries that were already under way and tried to give us some assurance that that meant that these matters were being taken seriously. He knows, however, that the number of inquiries that have taken place or are taking place now gives no such reassurance. Quite the opposite is true because so many inquiries have not got to the truth in the past. Whether those were inquiries by the PCC or by parliamentary Committees, they were not able to get to the bottom of the truth about what had been happening.

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[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

I was asked in 2006 to collaborate with the first police inquiry, because I had been one of the victims of hacking. I collaborated and gave evidence, and I was very pleased that it resulted in the conviction of two people for clearly illegal activity. I am collaborating currently with the police in their second inquiry, which is of course ranging much more widely.

I have said this in the House before, but I am clear that from the beginning the issue has not been principally about whether politicians, the royal family or celebrities have had their phones hacked, but about whether ordinary members of the public have had their privacy invaded by people much more powerful than them. It has been about people who have not had the opportunity to speak for themselves or to command the airwaves in return.

I thought it bad enough that families, friends and constituents had had their information picked over, and I know from experience that it severely affected the career and health of one friend, but we now realise that it was much worse than that, because it has been about not just ordinary members of the public doing ordinary jobs, but people at their most vulnerable and traumatised. They have been exploited purely in the interests of a media story, so I, like every Member, join in the expressions of revulsion by the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and all colleagues. It is the most unacceptable of behaviour.

Given the acceptance that there should be inquiries, we should make clear the questions that we need the public inquiries to answer. If there is a robbery, three sorts of people are involved: the people who are visibly involved; the people who commission the robbery and benefit from the proceeds, although we never see them; and the people who know all about the robbery but try to pretend that they do not.

The inquiries and the police investigations must go to all those people, because it is no good picking off the small guys, the guys who are pushed out to do the jobs, when the decisions have been clearly taken by the big guys—or in this case, the big girls. We need to ensure, therefore, that we encourage the police to be absolutely ruthless in investigating everything that may have happened, and to give our full support to the new commissioner and his team now carrying out the inquiry.

There is an obvious second set of questions. The Metropolitan police did not do a good job in 2006, and they probably did not start back in 2002, when the issues appear to have come to light. When the investigation took place into the murder of Stephen Lawrence, institutional racism was discovered in the Met police. I am not alleging that there is institutional corruption in the Met police, but it has been widely known for years that there has been regular corruption on such issues in the Met police and in other police forces.

The very fact that the Information Commissioner produced a report in 2006, instancing how often and in how many papers such practices were going on, makes it absolutely clear that there has been an endemic problem in policing, with payments involving the police and people acting illegally in order to get stories, and with collaboration outside the public gaze. That is why I do not think it would be appropriate for another police service to investigate the Met, although I heard what the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) said in her intervention. There has to be an inquiry that is absolutely free of the police service, and is led by somebody who is entirely independent. In my view, that person has to be a judge. The inquiry must have the power to call all evidence and to require people to attend and answer questions, and it must be completely fearless.

I accept the argument that it may be possible for an inquiry to begin now with activities that will not compromise the police investigation. I am also absolutely clear that the police must be allowed to get on and complete their investigation, produce the evidence and go to the Crown Prosecution Service, so that charges can be brought and prosecutions made.

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

Does the right hon. Gentleman not accept that although the public investigative processes that he is describing are absolutely necessary, we have a body that has the professional competence and capacity to investigate police actions? It is right that the Metropolitan Police Commissioner has today referred certain matters to that body.

[Simon Hughes]

Yes, that body exists and I do not cavil at its independence. However, given the extent of the clear corruption in this case, the length of time over which these practices have continued and the huge public interest, it is logical to have the sort of inquiry that was held on the Stephen Lawrence case and others, which goes beyond the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

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

Let me start by congratulating and thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who has performed a great public service in the clear, precise and consistent way that he has pursued this issue, as has my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson). They have done us all a great favour, including this House.

The Attorney-General was right to tell the House that there are issues on which Ministers will say little in the short term. All the allegations need to be fully investigated and prosecutions should follow if the evidence substantiates them. We must do nothing in this House that would impede police investigations or the consequences being pursued. However, this issue goes far wider than that, as I am sure the Attorney-General would accept. It goes much wider than the faults or criminal activities of individuals, which is why a judicial or public inquiry needs to be established now. We need that assurance.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman’s giving way, especially as I have been subject to an investigation by the police in connection with this matter. I wonder whether he could outline for us who he thinks would be of sufficient calibre to carry out such an investigation. Would they be an international figure or someone from the United Kingdom?

[Alun Michael]

I do not have time to go into that adequately. What I would say is that we need a public inquiry with the capacity to get to the bottom of various issues. Therefore, it needs to be set up carefully and have appropriate powers, and not be the type of bureaucratic public inquiry that has sometimes got in the way of the truth emerging.

We have heard one of the investigators complaining about the relentless pressure of demands from the News of the World on investigators and journalists. I did not detect a great deal of sympathy in the House—I think I heard a bit of a groan, indicating a lack of sympathy—but pressure comes in two forms. One is the pressure to deliver—“You’re only as good as your next headline”—and the other is the general pressure of what is acceptable and expected in any profession, or the environment in which people do their work. It is important that both be addressed. At the heart of the matter are three issues. The first is the standard of journalism; and the second is the standard of governance in the press and the media. This could—indeed, should—be a watershed moment. In general, journalists want to be open and transparent and to do an honest job, but that is not easy all the time. I saw something of the power of the press pack as a young journalist in south Wales.

The Press Complaints Commission is well meaning but, frankly, it is a joke. The public and journalists deserve better. Its lack of influence and inability to change the environment or set standards lets down those who have earned a high reputation for themselves and for our better newspapers and media outlets. The Press Complaints Commission clearly has neither the will nor the capacity to change things, but we need to take care: statutory regulation of the press and media could endanger press independence, which would be a massive mistake. We need an independent body, but one that is robust and effective and has the powers to investigate and enforce. It would be a major step forward if such a body emerged from these events, as I hope will happen.

I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) told us that the Metropolitan Police Commissioner had referred the issue of possible payments to police officers to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, but the IPCC’s investigation needs to go a little wider. The Chair of the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), pointed out that the information now coming into the public domain was in the possession of the police in 2006. I hope that the commissioner will refer that to the IPCC too. The Metropolitan police had also reported to Ministers. My right hon. Friends the Members for Delyn (Mr Hanson) and for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) had information on which they had to take their decisions, and so has the Select Committee on Home Affairs. Those issues relate to the conduct of the police and the activities of police officers and need to be looked at objectively. The IPCC should be asked to do that.

What the IPCC does should feed into the wider public inquiry; I do not think that the two are alternatives. The IPCC has the resources and the investigative capacities, and it has earned a reputation for being tough. It is therefore important that it should be able to ask the questions, “Did the police mislead Ministers and Parliament?”, “Did police receive money?”—that question has been referred to it already—and, “Did relationships distort investigations?” It is important that those questions should be forensically investigated as part of preparing the ground for the wider, transparent investigation that we need, as the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) said. I do not think that these are alternatives, but we need the forensic capacity of the IPPC to look into some of these issues.

The third issue is that we need clarity about the law. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), the Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, rightly said that the Committee had identified confusion about what the law says. That confusion should not exist. I refer specifically to the fact that John Yates told us that there were only a small number of victims, based on what he said was legal advice that the police would have to prove that messages had been intercepted and also listened to before being heard by the recipient. However, Kier Starmer QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions, told us that that was not the advice given to detectives. Advice from prosecutors was at best provisional and did not limit the scope or extent of the criminal investigation—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I call Zac Goldsmith.