Coronavirus Regulations: Assisted Deaths Abroad

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Thursday 5th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise that issue. We provided more than £150 million of extra funding to hospices during the first peak. Locally, many clinical commissioning groups fund their local hospice and contribute to that support, but we always keep it under review, because hospices are such an important part of the provision of end-of-life care.

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

I am concerned that in this discussion there is a danger of focusing too narrowly on the specific option around assisted suicide. Modern medicine can palliate the pain of dying in almost all cases, but it can also extend life, in many cases artificially, beyond what most people would consider its natural span. Before we enter into a parliamentary review, Government review or Select Committee review of the precise options around assisted suicide, should we not have a much broader conversation about how we manage death and dying in this country?

[Matt Hancock]

I agree with my hon. Friend that the question should be located within that broader debate. I understand the yearning from people not to shorten life, but to shorten a painful death. Of course, no specific proposal has been brought forward; that would be for Parliament to develop rather than the Government.