Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Daisy Cooper and Sarah Olney

Report stage
Friday 20th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Olney]

I will not give way, sorry. Assisted dying under this legislation cannot be implemented without psychiatrists, but they would be acting outside the advice and guidance of their professional body.

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Sarah Olney]

I am not giving way. Will there be sufficient psychiatrists prepared to implement the provisions of this legislation, against the advice of their professional body, to ensure that enough panels can be convened for the purpose of facilitating assisted dying? It is hard to see how there could be.

[Daisy Cooper]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Sarah Olney]

I am not giving way. By contrast, many decisions are expressly reserved for politicians. Should the limited resources of the NHS be used to deliver an assisted dying service, or should it be possible to offer the service as a profit-making enterprise? What information should be collected and reported about assisted dying? Who should oversee and regulate its practitioners? Members of Parliament are to have no say over any of those matters at all. Those are all powers to be reserved to the Secretary of State, to be decided behind closed doors. Once again, this legislation grants these responsibilities to people who do not want them.

Neither the current Health Secretary nor the current Justice Secretary are supporters of this Bill. After today, the House of Commons will be shut out of further decision making on this Bill, even though many of the decisions still to be made are rightfully ours to make. The lack of professional consensus or acceptance of the requirements of this legislation, coupled with a lack of political scrutiny of many of its more important provisions, creates an unstable foundation upon which to build an assisted dying service. For such a service to succeed, it needs professionals willing to deliver it, who can have confidence that they are acting within the law and will be supported by their professional peers and by society at large. I do not see how this legislation can deliver that.

It is instructive to compare this piece of legislation with the Abortion Act 1967. That, too, was a private Member’s Bill, brought to this House by the Liberal MP David Steel, but it was preceded by a medical advisory committee chaired by the president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, which approved the Bill. The professionals who would be needed to enact the legislation had indicated their support for the Bill before it reached the Commons. The Bill only delegated one power to the Secretary of State. The legislation was hotly debated then as now, but once it was passed, it came into force within six months.

Remarkably, with the exception of amendments required to bring it into line with successive Human Fertilisation and Embryology Acts and to extend its provisions to Northern Ireland, the provisions that the Abortion Act brought into law have remained almost entirely unchanged in 58 years—until just this week, in fact. The careful consideration of the issues that took place before the legislation came to the Commons, combined with the fact that all its provisions were included within the primary legislation to be debated and voted on in one go, has enabled a settled consensus to develop around abortion provision in this country, in contrast to other jurisdictions. It has enabled vulnerable women to seek the help they need and given healthcare workers the confidence and support they require to meet those needs. That is what we need, if we want to deliver a successful assisted dying service, and this legislation cannot deliver that.

If Members want assisted dying, vote against this Bill and make the most of the moment to press for a better approach that can deliver a sustainable framework, accepted and supported by the medical profession, and in which the public can have confidence. If people’s lives are going to be ended prematurely as a result of this legislation that we pass, we cannot take risks. We cannot afford to pass this Bill.