Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 10th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alex Davies-Jones]

Absolutely. The Minister with responsibility for courts, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Sarah Sackman), has already outlined the steps that the Government are taking to increase sentencing in our courts. We will of course consider what other action we can take. We know that the budgetary position that the Government face is incredibly tight, because of the inheritance that we received. However, it is vital that we make fiscally responsible decisions.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

14. What recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the early release scheme.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Shabana Mahmood)]

SDS40—the standard determinate sentences early release scheme—was an emergency measure that we had to take to avert the complete collapse of the criminal justice system following the shocking inheritance left to us by the previous Government. The emergency measure is not, of course, the solution to the crisis that we inherited. That is why we will build the 14,000 prison places that we need, and have launched the independent review of sentencing.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

What concerns me is not the past but the future and how to protect the public. Will the Secretary of State assure me that the screening process is sufficiently robust to ensure that violent and dangerous criminals are not released into the community?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I gently say to the right hon. Gentleman that the past is relevant in so far as it sets the context for the crisis that we have inherited, which needs resolving. Given that we all but ran out of prison places—numbers had fallen to fewer than 100 in the summer—it is important that we recognise that the prison system is and has been on the point of collapse. That is why we had to take emergency measures. We have made exclusions to the SDS40 scheme that should take account of his concerns. It is of course important that offenders are monitored and supervised effectively when they are not in prison, and that is what we are trying to do now. Tech can play a bigger role there, and I have asked the independent review into sentencing to look into that.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Edward Leigh Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 29th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), and I want to follow her in talking about palliative care. Let me start by reading an email that was sent to me only yesterday by a personal friend and constituent:

“I apologise for adding to the thousands of emails you will be receiving. I just wanted to tell you why I oppose the right to die Bill. I know you are aware of the experience I had when my husband was dying. In hospital we had a dreadful experience because they had no end-of-life care and he suffered. Once in the Hospice it was a different story and he received the loving care he rightly deserved.

My argument is that, instead of assisted dying, we should be spending much more money on end-of-life care and funding the wonderful Hospice movement. Thank you for reading this.”

I will read another letter, from a doctor, which I think encapsulates some of the problems that we encounter in this issue:

“Only recently, I was giving my condolences to a grieving woman who had lost her husband in the early hours. He had been given a few small doses of pain relief and mild sedatives over the last few nights for symptom control and had passed away peacefully at her side. She asked me in all seriousness, ‘Doctor, did the nurses give him something to make him die quicker last night?’ This was an awful lingering doubt that she had. I was able to firmly reassure her that, no, the medication would not have sped up his passing.

For her, and the vast majority of other patients, doctors are there to prolong life and palliate symptoms. Were this to change, then we would not be doctors in the eyes of many, but bringers of death, agents of a state which counts its weakest members as expendable and worthy of nothing but an early grave.

I do not want to be a member of a profession which has that reputation or role”.

Those are two witnesses who have written to me. I have taken an increasing interest in this whole issue of palliative care, and the law frankly—

[Mr Perkins]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Will the hon. Gentleman forgive me if I do not? I know that many people want to speak. I just want to develop this argument, then I will finish.

The law is so unclear. I have talked to a number of palliative care specialists, and they say that we can give as much morphine as we want to a patient and we will not kill them, but there is real doubt in the minds of the public. A lot of the impetus around this debate, and the reason why people in opinion polls are apparently supportive of this measure, is that they are terrified of dying in pain. There is no need for this. When I talk to consultants and practitioners in palliative care, they say that they can manage pain. I was struck by a very touching email that was sent to me by a constituent, who actually supports the Bill on the grounds that when his wife was dying, and he was begging the doctor in a national health hospital to give her more morphine, the doctor said, “If I did that, I would be breaking the law.”

I can see the Health Secretary is sitting here, and I really think that if we are going to have a serious debate about this issue, we need to have something equivalent to a royal commission to determine what doctors can and cannot do. It is essential that we really reassure the public. There is tremendous interest in and huge doubt about this issue. Many people are conflicted, and we have heard many moving stories about people’s fear of dying in agony, but until we clear this up, I do not think that we can make the progress that this issue deserves. Yes, we have to fund our hospice movement seriously. It is very worrying that we are going to fund the NHS to fund death, but that we are not adequately funding our hospice movement.

Before we take this momentous decision, we have to be realistic about it: if the Bill were to pass at 2.30 pm, that would be it. I do not believe that a private Member’s Bill, which has only five hours of debate and on which many Members of Parliament will not be given time to speak, is the right mechanism. In the last Parliament, we discussed a certain subject that we all know about—it was a very different issue. We had hundreds of hours of debate, questions and scores of civil servants crawling over the issue. Surely this issue is even more important. Surely we should have had more than just two or three weeks to consider this Bill. We should be looking at the detail, because the devil is in the detail in respect of possible coercion, the facilities available to the hospice movement and the issues I have talked about, including the lack of clarity in the law as to how we can or cannot relieve pain. Can we not pause a moment? Those are the practical points that I want to make.

This is so important: the futures of so many vulnerable people are at stake. I was struck by the comment made earlier by the hon. Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) that we cannot consider this issue just in terms of individual hard cases. We must consider it in terms of society as a whole. What sort of society are we? Are we a society that loves our NHS, that loves life, that loves caring and that loves the hospice movement? Or are we a society that believes that there is despair? I will vote for hope at 2.30 and I will vote against the Bill.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

19. What steps she is taking through the criminal justice system to facilitate the removal of foreign national offenders from the UK.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

21. How many foreign national offenders were removed from the UK through a prison transfer agreement in each year since 2010.

--- Later in debate ---

[Shabana Mahmood]

As I say, we are on track to remove more foreign offenders this year than in previous years. In fact, over the period when the shadow Justice Secretary was the Immigration Minister in the previous Government, the number returned was around 1,300. We have already returned more than 1,500 foreign offenders, utilising all the prisoner transfer agreements at our disposal. We are actively trying to negotiate more such agreements, so that we can continue to speed up removals from this country.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

The previous Government negotiated a scheme by which we can deport Albanian prisoners back to Albania. It is an excellent scheme; Albania is a completely safe country, of course. Given that those crossing the channel are committing an illegal offence, is there anything legally to stop us arresting them and putting them on a flight straight to Albania? We do not even need to lock them up in Albania; they can just start their journey all over again—what a good deterrent.

[Shabana Mahmood]

As the right hon. Gentleman well knows, we have legal obligations to those who arrive in this country that have to play out. However, PTAs relate to those who have committed an offence, have been convicted and are being held in the prison estate. They can therefore be removed from this country under a prisoner transfer agreement. We are working with the Albanians to ensure that the PTA with Albania is as effective as possible.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

I have visited Cookham Wood. I cannot remember the precise date, but the really important statistic to note is that in the period up to the end of September last year, we recruited an additional 1,400 prison officers. The numbers are going up, and the attrition rate is going down. [Interruption.] Hold on. That is because we have introduced measures such as the new colleague mentor scheme, rolled out £100 million on security and so on. We recognise that the safety of our prisons is in large measure down to the quality and quantity of our staff, and we are improving on both counts.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

T3. There was an interesting debate in the House of Lords last night, in which Lord Hoffmann confirmed my understanding that the European Court of Human Rights was wrong to impose a rule 39 injunction to stop flights to Rwanda, and that we could safely ignore such an injunction. Will the Secretary of State confirm that that is his understanding of the law, and if we get the Bill through Parliament and have flights on the ground, will he ignore such an injunction? And would that not be a good issue on which to fight the election?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Sir Edward, you should know better. This is topicals. You are a member of the Panel of Chairs as well; you are meant to set an example, not abuse your position.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

I do not have plans to do so, I confess, but if the hon. Lady is to have those conversations, I invite her to consider writing to me afterwards; if there are matters we can take up, I would be happy to do so.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

T5. And so another migration Bill winds its way slowly out of the House of Lords, and when it becomes law, an army of human rights lawyers will try to frustrate it. Will the Government reflect that, if only we had had the courage to get out with a derogation from the European convention on human rights and the refugee convention, we might have solved the small boats crisis two years ago? Now my constituents are victims of that, because the Government want to put 2,000 migrants in RAF Scampton, and the same human rights lawyers in the Refugee Council will oppose it on the grounds that it is inhumane to put them next to hangars ridden with asbestos. Why do we not just get out of the convention?

[Alex Chalk]

No one is a more doughty defender of the people in his constituency who are concerned about matters relating to Scampton than my right hon. Friend. This is principally a Home Office matter, as he knows, but the points he has made will have reverberated not just in this Chamber but, I am sure, all the way down the road to Marsham Street.

Abortion: Offences against the Person Act

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Thursday 15th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

May I say that that was dextrously done by the shadow Leader of the House? She makes valid points in her typically reasonable and measured tone. She is right to highlight that this was an extremely complex and emotive case. Again, I hope she will forgive me for not straying into commenting on the judgment or the decision taken in this case. There is a legal framework for safe abortions, which is set out in the Abortion Act 1967. It set out the conditions under which abortion is legal and is available.

On the hon. Lady’s comments about the CPS, I gently say that in considering any decision it has to look at both the evidential test and the public interest test. However, the CPS is independent and it makes those decisions; again, it would not be appropriate for a Minister to comment on CPS charging decisions. Similarly, the Sentencing Council is independent, and it determines what to review and how to review it. I suspect that it will have heard her comments, but, again, it would be inappropriate for me to seek to direct the Sentencing Council, given its independent function.

Like the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North, the hon. Lady mentioned that there is a difference in the frameworks in Northern Ireland and in England and Wales. The House was cognisant of that difference when it chose to make that decision, and that decision must be respected. As for any future decisions made by this House, I simply reiterate that were the House to seek to change the law and come up with a different framework, the Government would of course work to implement the will of the House.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

When the House debated whether it should be possible to receive an abortion pill through the post, we warned that there might be a tragic case such as this. Some people in the abortion industry are now using this tragic case to argue for some sort of legal right to abortion up to birth. Given that many babies are surviving at 24 weeks, that is an obscene and cruel proposal. Surely the solution, given that it is difficult to determine gestation without an in-person appointment, is to return to the system of in-person appointments, so that women can receive safe, legal abortions if they wish.

Legal Rights to Access Abortion

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I apologise that I cannot stay until the end of this debate, but I have to chair a meeting upstairs.

MPs who want even wider laws on abortion recently hijacked the Government’s Public Order Bill in an attempt to introduce buffer or censorship zones, the aim of which is to restrict the fundamental freedoms of speech and expression. They are against people’s human rights and would deny and criminalise those volunteers who offer support to women going to abortion clinics who do not really want to have an abortion but are forced to, perhaps by abusive partners.

Now, many of the same MPs are seeking to hijack the Government’s Bill of Rights, also on the issue of abortion. The Government are introducing the Bill of Rights as they seek to remedy one of the worst mistakes made by previous Governments—namely, that on the undemocratic reach of European human rights laws. The Bill of Rights is intended to deal with situations such as illegal cross-channel migrants using human rights laws to evade justice, or terrorists hiding behind laws that were never meant to shield them from justice and scrutiny in the way that they have.

The Bill, which was in the manifesto that I and my Conservative colleagues stood on in 2019, will give supremacy to the UK Supreme Court—that is all it does—and make it explicit that courts in this country can disregard rulings from the European Court of Human Rights. By the way, those who favour more abortion should note that actually, whatever may be the letter of the law, in practice we have some of the most liberal abortion rights in Europe. I wonder just how many of those people would like to be under the control of the European Court of Human Rights, when many other countries in Europe have far more restrictive abortion laws. I think they may be shooting themselves in the foot.

[Christine Jardine]

For many women it is not about what happens anywhere else in the world. It is about protecting not a right for us personally—because I do not think that many of us would have an abortion—but the ability of other women, young women, to make that decision if necessary and if they feel it is right. The problem with a Bill of Rights Bill that does not include the right to an abortion is that those women are excluded from having that right.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh]

The hon. Lady mentions a worry about what is happening in the rest of the world. We have heard a lot about the United States of America, but we are in an entirely different situation here: if anybody wants to change the effective right to abortion, they have to come to Parliament. Parliament is supreme in this matter, so I am not sure that women need to worry about what is happening in the United States. There is no way in which I or anybody else, or anybody in any court of law in this country, can restrict their effective right to abortion—a Bill has to go through Parliament.

It is disappointing that there are Members of this House, including even those who do not support the intentions behind the Bill of Rights, who see it as yet another opportunity to hijack flagship Government legislation to further weaken the few laws and safeguards that exist in the governance of abortion. It is up to Members of this House to vote to change the law on abortion, which we have a perfect right to do. Those of us who think the sheer scale of abortions represents a failure in how we treat women and how we value life at least know that the law was made by Parliament and so can be changed by Parliament. By making abortion a “right”, in contrast, the present laws would likely be enshrined, and so would be beyond correcting even when plainly needed.

Let me give one widely accepted example. The law was changed in 1990 because the previous limit of 28 weeks was considered too late a limit, given that the science on viability had changed. Now, science shows that babies can survive at 22 weeks or earlier, and there are a lot of people who believe that the present limit of 24 weeks is therefore too high. It is possible for an abortion to be taking place in one ward of a hospital while, in the next ward, huge amounts of public resources are quite rightly being used to save a baby of 22 weeks’ gestation. However, if a right were enshrined, the necessary change to stop the practice of late-term abortions would likely not be possible.

A very interesting point has also been made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) about gender selection. How would that issue be dealt with by Parliament through a Bill of Rights? The trouble is that we cannot frame legislation to cover every eventuality in a Bill of Rights. It is much better that Parliament considers every practice, every change of a law, and every advance of science on its merits.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the hijacking of Bills just makes bad law? In Northern Ireland, we have seen just that: the law has been hijacked, and we have seen a change from life-affirming laws that the people of Northern Ireland support to some of the most liberal abortion laws in all of Europe.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I agree with the hon. Lady. It is a very dangerous parliamentary and legal practice for anyone to try to achieve their aims by piggybacking them on a Bill that is designed to deal with a completely different eventuality.

As we know, the law as it stands effectively allows abortion on demand. We have a record 200,000-plus abortions per year in this country—perhaps one in four pregnancies. That is beyond doubt, and in reality every woman who wants to have an abortion can attain one. We do not need to include it in a Bill of Rights; instead, we need to look at how the state has failed so many women that they feel abortion is the only option available to them, and to look at alternative modes of support. There is no real appetite to make abortion a right, aside from a vocal minority and various lobby groups, including the abortion providers themselves.

A right to abortion would be a very strange thing indeed. It would be the only right that we would regret using, and the only right that we would, ideally, actively seek to minimise. Nobody thinks that abortion is a good thing and wants more abortions—they may think it is necessary in certain circumstances, but it is not the sort of right that we want to extend. That stands in contrast to other fundamental rights that we do not seek to minimise, including freedom of speech, freedom of association and the right to privacy, to name a few. We cherish and value those rights and want to enframe them in a Bill of Rights. I hope that colleagues who want to drag this Bill to a very different place rethink their plans.

[Stella Creasy]

The right hon. Gentleman is being very generous in giving way. Could he clarify something for me? He talks passionately about the human right of freedom of speech, and I agree with him; I feel very strongly about defending it, and I notice that this Bill of Rights talks about protecting that right from interference. Can he explain how that is different from interfering in somebody’s womb, which is what the human right to have an abortion would address? Why is it that this legislation is right to protect one right, but not to protect another right? Why is it right that this legislation would bring in judges and give direction to courts on one issue, but not another issue?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

That is an interesting point, but is the freedom to have an abortion at 24 weeks rather than 22 weeks the kind of fundamental right that we believe should be protected in a Bill of Rights? This is a matter for argument. A Bill of Rights is an unbelievably blunt instrument to deal with this particularly sensitive issue. I say to the hon. Lady that if any of us are dissatisfied with this law—and there are probably more Government Members than Opposition Members who are dissatisfied with the present law—we at least have to come to Parliament and convince our colleagues to change the law. I do not believe, and nor do many other people, that the Bill of Rights is the right way to do it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stella Creasy]

The hon. Gentleman suggests that difficult cases are the unique preserve of abortion provision; there are difficult cases when it comes to freedom of speech and people’s motivation. What I do recognise is that right now there are women on trial for having a miscarriage or potentially being accused of seeking an abortion perhaps when they were further along in their pregnancy than they realised, and it is not right to see these cases as criminal matters when we are talking about a healthcare provision, in which case what we need to do is set out an alternative foundation for the law.

Many of us recognise that the Bill of Rights is not a good piece of legislation and that the things that it does will not achieve the outcomes that the Government hope for. However, it opens the door to a conversation about what rights women in this country should have. If the Government are determined that nobody from Europe should interfere with somebody’s freedom of speech, why do they deny the role of protecting women’s wombs from being interfered with and why not let women choose for themselves whether or not to have an abortion?

We would not be unique in making that choice; countless nations around the world already do it. Indeed, in the current criminal basis for abortion access, we are behind other countries such as Russia, Australia, South Africa, Vietnam, Germany and Argentina. Countries such as Canada have explicitly classified abortion as a human right; lawmakers in France have just agreed to write it into their constitution. Belgium, Denmark and Sweden are also considering constitutional amendments—

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Stella Creasy]

I will just finish my sentence, if I may. I am desperate to hear what the right hon. Gentleman has to say, but I want to be very clear that this is a debate that is happening around the world.

Roe v. Wade was the spark that reaffirmed that that fire needed to burn, because many of us have known that, even though we have access to abortion in this country, that access is not secure; it can be challenged. Indeed, I have spent 12 years in this place listening to people chipping away at that access and using the fact that abortion is not a legal right to do so.

The right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) and I are on different sides of this debate. I would love to hear why he believes he has a right to choose for a woman what happens to her body.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I would quite like to ask my own question, if the hon. Lady will forgive me. If the right to abortion is so restrictive in this country, why do we have one of the highest abortion rates in the world?

[Stella Creasy]

I did not say that it was restrictive; I said that it was patchy, because it is patchy. What we understand is that those who live in rural areas find it much harder to find the two doctors required to secure an abortion, and that is one of the reasons why many of us have fought for telemedicine to help with that process and to ensure that during the pandemic women’s rights were not left behind.

The right hon. Gentleman misses a fundamental point—a woman should be able to choose what happens to her body. If we have a Bill of Rights, surely it sets out those most fundamental basic rights.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Gareth Johnson)]

The court backlog is an important issue. As part of the deal done with the Criminal Bar Association, we are looking at giving better funding for cross-examination under section 28 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 for victims of serious sexual violence, but the hon. Gentleman will know that the Government have put in place a catalogue of measures to tackle the backlog in the Crown court. We want to get on top of the backlog; we were getting on top of it until the Bar strike took place, and thanks to the deal that has been struck, we are now optimistic that it will start to come down.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

T5. Everyone is scratching their head about how to send illegal migrants back across the channel, but every time we try something, it is trumped by human rights lawyers. Clearly something must be done. Is there anything in the Human Rights Act 1998 or the convention on refugees to stop us sending illegal migrants straight back to our sovereign military base in Cyprus, which we own? They do not need to be locked up; they can just be sent back to where they come from.

[Gareth Johnson]

We believe that our proposals to process people in Rwanda are compliant with not only the UN convention on refugees, but the European convention on human rights. We believe that our proposals are within not just international law but national law. There is nothing in those laws that prevent us from carrying out the policy we are proposing.

Assisted Dying

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Those who favour assisted dying will get their wish: there will be a debate on the Floor of the House of Commons, and if there is one more debate, there will be others. They will go on through the years, and the majorities against assisted dying will get smaller and smaller, because of course we are up against it. Overwhelmingly, the economics are against us—[Interruption.] It is about economics. We have a vast, ever-growing population of people who are very frail and very elderly, who are a burden on society and know it. Therefore, I predict that, sooner or later, the House of Commons will debate this issue and, sadly, pass a law as so many other countries have done.

This is not a debate about assisted dying. We all want to help people to die peacefully and painlessly. It is a debate about assisted suicide—helping people to kill themselves.

[Lucy Allan]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Lucy Allan]

My right hon. Friend says that this debate is about suicide, but I wonder whether he has a family member, as I have, who took their own life through suicide, and whether he understands the difference between that and what we are talking about today?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I have not had a family member do that, but we have all encountered friends and relatives who have been under intolerable pressure. Hon. Members have cited examples, and I can do so too.

I simply take a very pro-life point of view. It is not from my religious conviction or my belief that everybody is beautiful and wonderful, however small, however tiny in the womb, however old or frail, how much of a burden they are, whether they are a convicted murder or whether they are one of our military enemies. I take a pro-life view, and I think so much of the misery in the world in the last 100 years has been because people are casual about taking life. Many of the arguments that we hear in favour of assisted dying are based on very appalling, horrible and extreme cases. They are similar arguments to what we heard when we had the initial debates on abortion, with foetal abnormality, rape and all the other things. Then we had abortion on demand, and now we are going to get death on demand. That is what it is all about. All the pressure, particularly on the frail and vulnerable, will be about that.

I want to make a theological point. A friend of mine died in the first months of covid. He died in agony. He died in a part of the country where he was sent out of hospital because the medical profession was panicking. He was not given adequate palliative care and he died in agony. It was appalling. We are all agreed that we are still not doing enough about palliative care. We have to do much more. We have to tell everybody that they have the right to go into a hospice—a right that so many people are not given—and receive the full benefit of modern medical technology to die peacefully and painlessly. For the overwhelming majority of people, if they are given palliative care, it is an option they can enjoy.

I actually watched another friend of mine die. He was my best friend and former colleague in this House. He was dying of terminal cancer; I was sitting beside him and I could see the morphine pumping through his wrists. He died peacefully and painlessly, but I have no doubt that it was the morphine that killed him. Theologically, morally and legally, there is nothing against a doctor helping me to die by pumping morphine into me, even if that is the immediate cause of my death. [Interruption.] I can see people shaking their heads, but I have actually seen it happen. Is there anyone in this room who would blame a doctor who helped someone to die if they were in agony? The doctor was not trying to kill them—they were trying to ease the pain. And in easing the pain by delivering that amount of morphine, that might have hastened their demise.

Let us be realistic about it. Let us try to take a pro-life view, and let us remember—

[Steve McCabe (in the Chair)]

Order. I call Wera Hobhouse.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

That was a very good speech. I thank the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) for securing this debate. I thought that her speech was excellent; it was incredibly touching and very sensitive. It was a perfect opening on this very difficult subject.

Of the public, 74% want their Member of Parliament to vote for a law on assisted dying. I did that in 2015 and I would do it again, given the chance, today. By a remarkable quirk of fate, in that vote in 2015, 74% of Members of Parliament voted against bringing in a law on assisted dying, which I think is entirely unsustainable. It is not holding back the tide; it is holding back a tidal wave of support for this.

We have heard so many times in recent years that we must trust the public. I absolutely agree with that, and I trust the 350 people in my constituency of Thirsk and Malton who wanted this debate. I do not agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) on this. I agree with him on many topics—he is a man of great common sense, normally—but this is not about economics. This is about the people and what the people want. I say to the very well-behaved members of the public in the Gallery that I guess that the percentage who want assisted dying is much, much higher, because this is such a sensitive subject.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Will my hon. Friend allow me to intervene?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I will look to the Chair—who says no; I apologise. We will talk about it afterwards.

As has been said any number of times this afternoon, this is about choice. Of course, all of us in this country are so lucky to have this free society we live in. This is about freedom of choice, but it is not about freedom of choice over anything; it is about freedom of choice about the thing we fear most in life: death.

I would say today that I do not actually fear death; I might think differently in a few years’ time—that point in time is getting closer—but I will tell you what I fear, Mr McCabe. I fear a painful death. I absolutely fear a painful death. I may have options. Some of us are lucky enough that we could plan ahead and say, “Well, we’ll make that trip to Zurich”, or we might take the terrible path that the father of the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) had to take. People have a choice, of course, to do what they think is right and not to take that option, but instead to take the natural path. However, I think it is wrong to remove from people the choice, a choice that other countries and other places allow and that we can choose to have, as well—the ones who are lucky enough to have that choice.

There is one thing that we have probably not discussed in this debate. It is not just about the fear of dying; it is about the fear of what might happen. There is a quote from Dr Sandy Briden, who died of a form of cancer that is rare in the UK:

“Knowing I had the option of an assisted death when things get too much would allow me to live now, without the constant fear of what might happen at the end. For me, assisted dying isn’t about dying; it’s about living.”

It is about living that last time we have, knowing we have the choice—away from that anxiety, which must be terrible for people nearing these situations—and it is certainly something that I would have wished for my mother when she passed away at the end of 2019. The palliative care was there, but still it was, for all those around her, a traumatic experience.

I do not get the slippery-slope argument. We have seen that in Oregon, which has not changed its law in 25 years, a very low percentage of people—0.7%—take this path of death through assisted dying.

However, I understand that there are really cogent arguments as to why we would not have this law, which is why I support an inquiry. I just do not see what the argument against an inquiry is. We could look at best practice around the world and decide what is best practice for the United Kingdom.

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[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair today, Mr McCabe.

I start by thanking everyone for their contributions to today’s debate. Members have spoken with personal sincerity and faithfully represented their constituents’ views on a very emotive issue. We have heard passionate speeches this evening, proving that the topic of assisted dying is a compelling one for those on both sides of the argument.

I am sure that Members will forgive me if I do not mention everyone who has spoken, but I must acknowledge my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), who opened the debate with a dignified, moving and well-researched contribution. Although 31 Members spoke, I think around 50 Members were present at the beginning of the debate. My maths is not brilliant, but there were about 20 on one side and 11 on the other, which may be interesting given the vote the last time this matter was debated.

Seven years ago, I wound up for the Opposition—that shows how far my career has progressed—on Rob Marris’s Assisted Dying (No. 2) Bill. That is not the last time that this issue was debated—there was a Westminster Hall debate a couple of years ago, and the other place has debated it even more recently—but in 2015 there was a five-hour debate in the main Chamber, which ended with a vote.

Perhaps today is an opportunity to review how things have moved on in this contentious area. The answer is in some ways substantially, and in others hardly at all. It is clear now, as it was clear then, that—in the words of the noble Lord Faulks, who spoke for the Government in 2014—

“any change in the law in this emotive area is an issue of individual conscience. In our view, it is rightly a matter for Parliament to decide rather than government policy.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 18 July 2014; Vol. 755, c. 919.]

That must be right, but it is also right that for Parliament to decide properly requires the Government’s co-operation and consent. I will come to that in a moment.

As a number of Members have mentioned, the higher courts have been consistent in their view that this is squarely a matter for Parliament. However sympathetic they may be to the harrowing cases that have come before them, they look to us to set policy in this matter.

Let us look at some of the areas where change has happened. Many more jurisdictions have legalised assisted dying: all six Australian states, seven more US states, New Zealand, Canada and Spain. Over 200 million people in those and other democracies are covered by such legislation. That shows not only the direction of travel but allows more evidence to emerge of the effect of legalising assisted dying, and whether the fears surrounding it—especially those around coercion, the so-called slippery slope and the challenges for the medical profession—have been proved well founded. On the whole, those concerns have not materialised.

One of the biggest arguments against assisted dying is concern about the possibility of coercion. Vulnerable adults nearing the end of their life could be at risk of pressure from family members who feel incapable, for whatever reason, of providing care and support for a terminally ill person. We must be alert to such possibilities. If Parliament is to decide on this matter, it is essential that there is a plan for robust safeguards against that, backed by evidence that they work. Again, we are in the fortunate position that other countries have walked this path before us and we may be able to use their knowledge and experience to our advantage. The petition makes it clear that such safeguards are essential.

The opinion of significant parts of the medical profession has moved to a neutral or more supportive view of assisted dying, with the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Physicians joining the Royal College of Nursing and several other royal colleges in adopting a neutral view. More evidence has emerged of the traumatic effect of the current restrictions, including travel abroad to die for those who can arrange and afford it, high suicide rates among the terminally ill, and many people dying without effective pain relief and in distressing and degrading circumstances.

Public opinion is overwhelming and clear, with over 80% supporting assisted dying. This is an issue where the gap between opinion in this place and in our constituencies has been at its widest. I wonder if it is now narrowing. When 5,000 people were polled on the subject, 84% of respondents were supportive of assisted dying, with strong support across all demographics. This petition, sponsored by Dignity in Dying, received over 155,000 signatures in support of legalising assisted dying. It proposes the narrowest form of assisted dying, for those of proven mental capacity nearing the end of their life. Some jurisdictions permit assisted dying in cases of chronic suffering, but that is not proposed here.

Some 75% of the public support a parliamentary inquiry into assisted dying. That perhaps tells us where we should be heading. An inquiry would allow us to learn more about the subject, hear from people with first-hand experience of the scenarios we have been discussing and look at the data from the countries that have legalised assisted dying to get greater insight into how it is working.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that, once we have assisted dying in this country, it will change the whole nature of the debate between GPs and old people? At the back of every GP’s mind, and for every old person, there will be that question: “Should I end it?” That is not a burden that we should place on GPs.

[Andy Slaughter]

I not only do not accept that; I find it the most appalling scaremongering. I have never met a GP who I do not think has a duty to their patients. They may vary in their competence and skills, but in their duty to their patients there is a very honourable tradition among general practitioners, and indeed the whole of the medical profession in this country. To throw such comments into this debate is not helpful to the right hon. Gentleman’s own side, let alone anyone else’s.

It is right that recently, under the former Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock), who spoke earlier, the Government undertook research, but they have so far not found the time or resource for a proper investigation and debate, potentially leading to legislation. I am a supporter of good local palliative care, and for several years I have been fighting to retain it for my constituents against attempts to restrict it. We should strive to provide the very best palliative care to all those who are nearing the end of their lives. For many families, palliative care and respite care for family members is essential, but in order to offer the very best palliative care, we need the tools, the people and the money to sustain it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) has recently spoken about Labour’s plan for a national care service. To offer people real dignity in dying, we need a focused approach to care and end-of-life care, which a national care service could provide. Pembridge Hospice and Palliative Care in North Kensington served my constituents for many years until, several years ago, the in-patient unit was closed because it could not recruit a consultant. That is where we should look for problems. Assisted dying is not an alternative to palliative care; the two complement each other.

Neighbourhood Policing: West Midlands

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 14th December 2021 Westminster Hall

[Steve McCabe]

Does it say in the hon. Gentleman’s speech whether he will give way at any point?

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Order. Calm down. The hon. Gentleman does not have to give way if he does not want to.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve McCabe]

On a point of order, Sir Edward. Is it in order—or, indeed, the custom—for the Minister’s Parliamentary Private Secretary to read someone else’s speech during a debate?

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Would the hon. Gentleman like to reply to that?

[Marco Longhi]

I would. If the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) checked, he would find that I am not, in fact, a PPS.

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

There you are.

[Steve McCabe]

I apologise to the hon. Member for Dudley North (Marco Longhi). Can I ask who wrote his speech?

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Are we having a little debate now?

[Marco Longhi]

I wrote it.

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

We have established that. I apologise—I did not call you earlier because I thought you were a PPS; you are sitting in the PPS’s place. I know it is a bit of an insult to call anybody a PPS, so I think we all owe you an apology.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Order. Silence.

[Kit Malthouse]

I have never shied away from those difficult financial decisions that have to be taken. Nevertheless, generations will pass, and maybe in 50 years the Labour party will stop talking about that period of austerity and talk about what is happening today. Today, I thought I was coming to a debate about the value of neighbourhood policing. However, it has become obvious that this is a pretty naked political manoeuvre in advance of some difficult financial decisions that the police and crime commissioner for the west midlands will have to make as he moves towards setting his council tax. My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North (Marco Longhi) has highlighted how significantly council tax has increased over the past few years.

Most of the hon. Members present are experienced parliamentarians. As such, they all know that the funding formula is set in law, and when the police settlement is announced later this year, it will be divvied up between the forces as per the legislation. There is nothing we can do, discretionarily or otherwise, to change that; the funding formula has been in place for some time. We have acknowledged that it is elderly, as I have said at the Dispatch Box—the hon. Member for Croydon Central has heard me say it many times. We are working on a replacement, and we hope to have one in place soon. Nevertheless, this year, as hon. Members know perfectly well, the police settlement will be settled on the basis of that legislation, so the social media posts, tweets and videos that Members put out will be promoting to the public a misapprehension that something could change before later this week, when the police settlement will be announced.

Beyond that, I find these debates a bit disheartening because of the lack of curiosity exhibited by Members about the performance in the west midlands. For example, they never ask themselves why other police forces are doing better. Why is Liverpool doing better than the west midlands? Why is Humberside doing better than the west midlands? They point to the reduction in police numbers in the west midlands and the fact that the numbers at the end of the uplift may not be above where they were in 2010, but they do not ask themselves why there are forces, such as those in Kent and London, where those numbers will be higher than in 2010.