Queen’s Speech

Earl of Arran Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Arran (Con)]

My Lords, it is now more than 15 years since I sat on a Select Committee in your Lordships’ House. It was established to look at draft legislation on assisted dying for the terminally ill. As a committee, we had the privilege of travelling to the Netherlands, Dignitas in Switzerland and Oregon, which then stood as the only state in the USA to have legalised this practice.

We were led with great distinction by my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern as chairman and the 10 other distinguished members included the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, who is in the Chair today.

We heard in Oregon that the practice there was working well and had been integrated into palliative and hospice care systems, and its safeguards were protecting against any possible abuse. Regrettably, in 2006 this House declined to support a new law based on Oregon’s experience, although it did lend its support to similar proposals in 2014 and 2015, only for the Bill to fall due to lack of time after three full days of debate, including two full days of consideration in Committee. As a House, we gave our support to tightly safeguarded legislation—that is, two doctors independent of one another would have to assess a person’s mental capacity and prognosis, and the entire process would be overseen by a High Court judge. These were, and continue to be, the most safeguarded and conservative proposals anywhere in the world. They were supported by your Lordships’ House and by more than 80% of the British public.

It is now more than five years since we have had a substantive debate on this issue and public demand for changing the law has not subsided. Nor, indeed, has international progress. Oregon’s example has been followed by 10 additional American states, with New Mexico becoming the 11th jurisdiction in the USA to permit assisted dying earlier this year. Altogether, over 70 million Americans live in states where assisted dying is permitted. Tasmania this year became the third Australian state to do so. New Zealand held a referendum on assisted dying last year, which passed with an overwhelming majority. In Europe, too, the Low Countries and Switzerland have long permitted euthanasia and assisted dying. They are being joined by Spain and Portugal, whose Parliaments have approved new laws in the past few months. Important court judgments are likely to lead to similar legislation in Austria and Germany.

Even closer to home, Ireland is currently debating assisted dying; a vote in the Dáil passed the Dying with Dignity Bill in October. In Scotland, too, Holyrood will tackle this issue again in the near future and looks likely to succeed in legislating for assisted dying.

Perhaps influenced by the growing clamour for law change and the mighty evidence that assisted dying can be introduced safely and fully integrated into modern end-of-life care, doctors’ views are shifting in support of assisted dying. Two years ago, the Royal College of Physicians dropped its long-standing opposition to assisted dying and the British Medical Association is poised to do the same later this year. In a survey of nearly 30,000 doctors the BMA found that 50% of its members supported a change in the law, compared to 39% against. This progress is fast spreading across the English-speaking world and in predominantly Catholic countries closer to home. As more and more countries legislate, we gain more and more evidence that assisted dying can be legislated for safely and with huge popular support, giving dying people the right to choose how they end their lives.

I say very simply: we did not ask to come into this world; might we now be allowed to say how we would wish to depart from it?