Coroners (Determination of Suicide) Bill [HL]

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 19th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to support this excellent Bill, so strongly introduced by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans. In order to achieve a reduction in the number of suicides and the number of attempted suicides—which is thought to be about 20 times higher—it is crucial to know more about the factors that lead a person to consider this course of action. The right reverend Prelate gave clear examples of the role of gambling addiction in suicides, and I welcome his efforts to ensure that this is recorded as a factor by coroners when appropriate.

I agree with the approach outlined in the Bill and I very much welcome its breadth. It is not simply about gambling, though that is profoundly important. The approach is that the coroner must record an opinion about the factors which were relevant to the death. It should of course be noted, as Samaritans explains clearly and as the right reverend Prelate said, that there are rarely single causes or factors that lead someone to consider ending their own life. However, where there are common themes, we need to understand them so that we can make every effort to reduce the number of suicides and—as I have said—often very violent and dangerous attempted suicides, which can leave the person with serious injuries and profound medical problems, at huge cost to the NHS apart from anything else. If coroners’ records included the information envisaged in the Bill, they would be a priceless source of information for the development of preventive measures.

I am personally aware of the appalling consequences for families of the gambling addiction of the breadwinner. When I was organising the campaign for child benefit for CPAG in the 1970s, when the Government of the day were planning to abolish family allowances and merge them with child tax credits, which of course often then benefited the breadwinner, I received at least 2,000 letters from frantic mothers—I think they were all mothers in those days; they would not be today—telling me that their family allowance, which was a pittance, was the only money they could totally rely on each week to feed their children. A vast number of these women had gambling-addicted partners, so I became very conscious at that time of the importance of this issue—and here we are, 40-odd years later. It is a terrible social problem, and we need to have better data about it and act to reduce it.

Another great potential benefit of the Bill—I hope the right reverend Prelate will forgive me for introducing this—is that terminal illness as a major factor in suicides would be recorded. As your Lordships know, I have a Private Member’s Bill on assisted dying. During my speech to introduce the Second Reading debate, I spoke of the experiences of dying people who take their own lives, generally alone and at great risk to themselves if they fail, as I have already mentioned. As noble Lords know, the current law bans assisted dying, hence the wretched experience of dying people who face unbearable suffering at the end of their life deciding to end it prematurely while they have the physical ability to do so, and to do it without consulting their loved ones, and certainly completely alone.

The organisation Dignity in Dying—I should declare my interest as its chair—published in October its report Last Resort: The hidden truth about how dying people end their own lives in the UK. That report details the stories of dying people who have taken their own lives in this country, told through the words of their nearest relatives. These are people who have had access to specialist palliative care but for whom palliative care, through no fault of the carers, doctors and others, cannot eliminate or adequately alleviate their appalling suffering. They have felt that the current law does not offer them the choice of a dignified death, so they try to create it for themselves, usually disastrously.

The Last Resort report estimates that between 300 and 650 recorded suicides every year involve a person experiencing a terminal illness. The breadth of that estimate is similar to the Gambling With Lives estimate on the number of gambling addiction-related suicides, and for similar reasons: we simply do not have enough data to understand the scale of these problems—and without understanding the scale of the problems, we cannot properly take action to tackle them.

I do not wish to revisit the very thorough Second Reading debate on my Bill, but I emphasise one of the great benefits of this Bill: that terminal illness would be recorded by coroners when it is the relevant factor leading to death under Clause 1(3), in proposed new rule 35(1). I also want to clarify the difference between the suicide of a terminally ill person who may have months or years to live on the one hand, and the choice of a dignified death supported by a doctor and loved ones when death has become inevitable and imminent and life is deeply unbearable to the individual. The term “suicide” is not appropriate in that situation; it is about controlling the nature of one’s own death.

Finally, I mention in closing that the Office for National Statistics is currently investigating the rates of terminally ill people who take their own lives. From discussion with colleagues, I understand that this has become an extremely complex challenge, simply because of the discrepancy in recording these issues. There is no doubt that if we had this Bill in place and terminal illness was recorded by coroners where relevant, the ONS research would be straightforward, almost unnecessary; the data would all be available.

I warmly welcome the Bill and hope the Government will adopt its key recommendations. We all know that Private Members’ Bills in this House have a certain life, but Ministers really could do something about this. I congratulate the right reverend Prelate.