Health: End of Life

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, it is nearly 10 years ago that I was appointed a member of the Select Committee of your Lordships’ House on the assisted dying Bill proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Joffe, under the as ever brilliant chairmanship of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern. It is on the question of assisted dying and legislation to implement it that I shall concentrate today. I put on record my passionate support for the hospice movement, which has come both from personal experience and from my time as a Minister with responsibility for hospices in the Department of Health. That commitment extends, as the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, said in his excellent opening speech, to all settings in which people die.

When my own father was dying, I was deputed as the member of the family who should go and put the question to him—we thought that this was the only question—as to whether he wanted to die at home. It was a difficult conversation to have, more so because he thought that I was absolutely mad to be having this conversation. He turned to me in his way and said, “Well, dear, we’ll just have to see how it goes and what’s best at the time”. As it happened, he did die at home, but he would not have wanted to do so if that was a terribly distressing situation for my mother and it was more appropriate for him to be in another setting. That element of individuality in these choices is tremendously important.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, I came to the Select Committee as someone without objection in principle, understanding about the hard cases and moved by them but as an ex-law student who had had it drummed into me that hard cases made bad law. Therefore, I was concerned as to whether adequate safeguards could be incorporated to make sure that there was no pressure on individuals to avail themselves of this option. My experience of taking evidence, visiting Oregon and going to other jurisdictions, persuaded me that it was possible to provide those safeguards, and I think that the Bill proposed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, is particularly robust in that respect.

There were two other things that I learnt in the course of the past 10 years. One was that no one can speak for their demographic on this issue. Different people take different opinions from the same sort of background. I cannot speak for 64 year-old female Jewish parliamentarians in good health. There are probably quite a few of them around. I cannot speak for that group. There are differences of opinion among doctors—I am a member of the General Medical Council—nurses, people with disabilities, people of faith and, indeed, ministers of religion. However, overall, there is consistent general public support for a change in the law on this issue.

The second thing I have learnt concerns the insurance cover value of assisted dying legislation, to which the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, referred. In Oregon, the latest figures for 2007 show that 9,800 people considered a prescription for assisted death out of 30,000 who died. Just over 1,000 talked to a doctor about the prescription. Of these, 85 received the prescription and only 49 used it. However, other people gained great confidence and strength from knowing that if life was intolerable at the end, something could be done. I gain confidence from the fact that I have in place an advance directive about what should happen to me. I think that that confidence should be extended to others through legislation.