Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Catherine Atkinson Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 29th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) on bringing forward this Bill, which has been the occasion of a very important national conversation. I recall to the House the fact that, in 1969, Parliament voted to abolish the death penalty for murder. Public opinion was actually against that change, but MPs believed, on a point of principle, that the state should not be involved in taking a life. It was a good principle in 1969 and it remains a good principle today.

I am not against legalising assisted dying in any circumstance, but I have many reservations about this Bill. In particular, I do not believe that the safeguards are sufficient. They are supposed to be the strongest in the world because of the involvement of a High Court judge, but the divisional courts have said that

“the intervention of a court would simply interpose an expensive and time-consuming forensic procedure”.

Sir James Munby, the former president of the family division of the High Court, said recently:

“Only those who believe implicitly in judicial omniscience and infallibility—and I do not—can possibly have any confidence in the efficacy of what is proposed.”

Is the judge supposed to second-guess doctors? Will the judge make a decision on the basis of paperwork? Or will there be a hearing in open court? Where will be the capacity in the criminal justice system to deal with all this? Far from being a genuine safeguard, the involvement of a judge could just be a rubber stamp.

[Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)]

More than two thirds of care proceedings involving the most vulnerable children in our society cannot be completed within six months. Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is a real concern that the safeguard is not deliverable, or risks being the rubber stamp that I know my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) does not want it to be?

[Ms Abbott]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend.

Robust safeguards for the sick and dying are vital to protect them from predatory relatives, to protect them from the state and, above all, to protect them from themselves. There will be those who say to themselves that they do not want to be a burden; I can imagine myself saying that in particular circumstances. Others will worry about assets they had hoped to leave for their grandchildren being eroded by the cost of care. There will even be a handful who will think they should not be taking up a hospital bed.