Assisted Suicide

Debate between Jim Fitzpatrick and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Tuesday 27th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

We have to legislate for everybody, not just for my hon. Friend’s most able constituents. We have to legislate for the weak and vulnerable, and for those who have nobody to defend them. Yes, of course we can all cite examples of highly intelligent, capable people who would be able, for example, to resist pressure from family members who might be after an inheritance, but what about those who feel that they have become a burden to society? My greatest concern for the elderly and the frail is that, although they might be enjoying their lives, they might feel that they have become a burden and therefore selflessly propose that their own end should be hastened. That is my concern about the term “voluntary”.

I am also concerned about the terms “clear” and “settled”. People might clearly settle something in their youth, then change their mind as the time gets closer. We read the saddest cases in the newspapers of people who have taken overdoses of paracetamol, then regretted their action and decided that they want to live. As the moment comes closer, how settled is that decision that was taken at an earlier stage?

I am also concerned about the word “informed”, Mr Speaker. Informed by whom? Are you going to set up a committee, perhaps with the two of us, to advise on the different options available to people who are at a late and vulnerable stage of their lives? Or will they in fact receive that advice from people who favour a particular course of action? How will we decide whether that information is fair, reasonable, and sufficient to allow them to make a choice that will protect their friends or family from a prosecution for assisting in their suicide?

The guidelines also state that a prosecution is less likely when a suspect is “wholly motivated by compassion”. Of course the family and the spouses involved should be motivated by compassion, but who in this House clearly knows their own motivations when they do particular things? Most motivations are mixed in a number of ways.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that the public interest criteria laid down by the Director of Public Prosecutions give the prosecuting authorities the opportunity to balance whether an action has been malicious or compassionate?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

The Director of Public Prosecutions has indeed set out those guidelines, but can he be certain of people’s motivations? If we ourselves cannot always be certain of our own motivations for doing things, how much more difficult must it be for a lawyer, learned though he might be, to decide on somebody’s motives?

I must warn the House that we are sometimes in the greatest danger from those who are closest to us. I looked this up on the website of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Between 1995 and 1999, 80% of children under the age of one who were killed were killed by their parents, those from whom they would have expected love and compassion. We should therefore be very careful about assuming that just because there is a close relationship, there is automatically compassion.

My solution is that the DPP should be very cautious in his guidelines, and that we should always trust in the good sense of juries if these matters are ever brought to prosecution, for that is where hope lies.