Health and Care Bill

Debate between Baroness Grey-Thompson and Lord Ashton of Hyde

Lords Hansard _ Part 1 & Report stage
Wednesday 16th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)]

My Lords, I detect a sense that the House would like to hear from the Front Benches, but I know that all noble Lords have a right to speak and that the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, is very keen to say something. I am sure she will understand that the House wants to hear the Front Benches and that, if my noble friend wants to bring this to a vote, we should get on with it.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I have spoken numerous times about my opposition to assisted suicide for many different reasons. It is not, for me, about the sanctity of life. Not everybody who believes that the law should not be changed has strong faith. However, we are continually being asked to vote through the principle and think about the detail later. The devil is in the detail.

Detailed scrutiny is our role as a revising Chamber. The Commons has so many of its amendments guillotined. However, we have to take an issue such as this, which is about ending people’s lives, very seriously and we have to debate some of the detail. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, feels strongly about this and I wish she had pressed much harder and much earlier for a Committee stage for her Bill. In an issue such as this, when we are talking about ending people’s lives, there should be hundreds of amendments, because it has to be debated properly.

I would like to briefly go on the record to thank the hundreds of people who have written in. We are really lucky right now that we live in a democracy and that people are able to freely express their opinions, whether we agree with them or not. Our role in the House of Lords is to deal with those people who write in. Lots of people from both sides have written to me. However, we must also be really careful in our language and not scare people into thinking that assisted suicide is the only option for them.



As a disabled person who sits in this Chamber with a red stripy badge, I have a huge amount of privilege. Many, many thousands—tens of thousands or more—of disabled people do not have privilege in respect of protection. This amendment and what it seeks to do will fundamentally change the political and societal landscape for disabled people. If people have not read it, they should look at the article by the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, this weekend about how disabled people are encouraged to think that they would be better off dead than live with an impairment. Even in this Chamber, we hear about things such as incapacity and incontinence and all the things that people fear. I push back on that, and I push back on the view that public opinion is overwhelmingly in support of this. On the Dignity in Dying website, 284,881 people have signed the public petition. On the Commons website, asking for a change in the law, 46,483 people have done so. That is not overwhelming public opinion.

I know the frustration of people who want to change the law. I can feel it; we hear it, and I admire the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Baker, says that we are a democratic Chamber. There are plenty on the outside who would not agree with that in terms of the way that we operate. This, however, is a constitutional matter. For all those arguing in favour of this tonight, I really look forward to them supporting my Private Member’s Bills asking for things such as good education, work, social care and access to trains, which are the things for which disabled people are arguing. This is not it: this is not the right time and not the right place. I do not support this amendment.