Assisted Dying

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2024 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms). I agree with what he said. Assisted dying is a complex subject, and if we are to make any progress in discussing it we need careful reflection and informed debate. It is reasonable that reference to statistics should be made, but we need to be careful in our use of them. What people understand by the term “assisted dying” makes a difference.

In 2021 a Survation poll asked more than 1,000 members of the public what they thought the term meant. Only four in 10 correctly understood it to mean providing lethal drugs to those with less than six months to live to end their life. The same proportion incorrectly thought that it meant giving people who are dying the right to stop life-prolonging treatment, which is already legal in the UK. Worryingly, one in 10 said that the term referred to the provision of hospice-type care for people who are dying. So six in 10 people did not understand what “assisted dying” actually means. We need to ensure that our constituents are fully informed about what assisted dying means, so that they do not “run there blindly”, as Josh Glancy warns in his thoughtful article in The Sunday Times yesterday, which was movingly referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie).

Let us consider a recent Dignity in Dying poll, which concluded that 75% of Brits supported assisted dying. That had fallen from 84% in a 2019 Populus poll. But how strong is the supposed support? That recent poll found that only four in 10 of those polled wanted their MP to vote in favour of assisted dying. It seems that out of the initial 75%, almost half did not support the cause enough to want the law to change. To proclaim that nearly eight in 10 Brits want assisted dying cannot be accepted as a fair representation.

A more committed and thorough approach to understanding what our constituents think might lead us to reflect on a 2014 ComRes poll, which found that the proportion of people who supported assisted dying stood at seven out of 10 when initially asked, but fell dramatically to four in 10 when presented with the full picture of the arguments against assisted dying, and so equipped to make a more informed decision. I recall that in the 2015 debate, several colleagues had entered the Chamber without a firm view on assisted dying, but after they heard the arguments and implications of changing the law on assisted dying and what it would mean for this country, they firmly voted against it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

Living with terminal illness is distressing and difficult for the person involved and for their family and friends. The cases we regularly hear about are truly moving and evoke the highest degree of compassion. When and how someone passes from this life is challenging and a very emotional topic.

When I raised this issue in Parliament back in 2011, I expressed my concern about how the practice of withholding water and food in order to accelerate someone’s death had been deemed lawful in court, although I was relieved that after the Neuberger review that was effectively stopped across the country. Assisting or encouraging suicide is a criminal offence under section 2 of the 1961 Act. That Act was updated by the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, and there was an attempt then to change the law to make assisted suicide legal in this country.

I was not in the House at the time of the 2009 Act’s passage, but fortunately that attempt failed. What did come, though, were guidelines for the Crown Prosecution Service, put in place by the then Director of Public Prosecutions—now the Leader of His Majesty’s Opposition —which seem to have stood the test of time. Back in March 2012, when this House debated those rules, it voted against the proposal to make them statutory guidance while adding its support for palliative care and hospital provision.

There has been a lot of talk about how somebody comes to the end of their life, but there is an overwhelming difference between clinicians knowingly giving medication to help accelerate someone’s death—mindfully setting out to kill—and giving something that may help deal with the pain. However, I think such ethical issues need to be considered as stand-alone Bills. Unfortunately, there are too many attempts to make quite significant changes to ethical issues through Government Bills that are often rushed through, and so significant changes happen with very little debate, if any at all.

On 11 December 2015, 330 MPs voted against changing the law, which is three quarters of the MPs who voted that day. That was not an insignificant debate, and 70% of the House participated in that Division. Since then, no Member of Parliament has come forward with a Bill for the House to consider, either through the ballot or by presenting a Bill. While I know that a lot of constituents would like a change in the law, I still think that the House would not make one. We have seen the issues that have put doubt into people’s minds.

Many Members have talked about the experiences of other countries. The evidence of the acceleration that has happened around the world shows exactly why we should not change the law. In Washington state in 2009, a quarter of people applied because they thought they were a burden. That rose to 59%.

[Fiona Bruce]

Is my right hon. Friend aware that, at the same time that this country’s Parliament voted against legalising assisted suicide, a different decision was made in Canada? In 2016, the first year of medically assisted deaths, 1,000 people chose to have one. By 2022, more than 13,000 people had availed themselves of that law, representing a 30% year-on-year increase.

[Dr Coffey]

My hon. Friend points out how this starts to increase quite significantly. It was also in Canada that a distinguished Paralympian who was looking for help with their disability was offered assisted dying as an alternative to adaptation of their home.

There has been a lot of discussion today about elderly people, but we are not just talking about elderly people. We are talking about vulnerable people. We are talking about people with disability. We are talking about people who could be taken advantage of to end their lives early and who may have that element of being considered a burden. People in this House have put forward the view of Matthew Parris that it is perfectly rational to say that you are a burden, and that you should potentially end your life. No one should feel such a burden on their family, their friends and society that they should end their life early.

While I will upset some of my constituents, I hold a different view from them on this matter, as I have done consistently, and I will continue to want to leave the law as it stands.