Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Julian Brazier and David Amess

Monday 18th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

T2. Last week, the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier), responded to a debate in Westminster Hall secured by our hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Dame Angela Watkinson) on air cadet training facilities. In Southend, 1312 Air Training Corps uses the facilities for gliding in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (James Cleverly). Will the Under-Secretary of State make sure that those facilities are still made available to our cadets?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Julian Brazier)]

Wethersfield, the facility to which my hon. Friend is referring, has been identified for disposal, and the new site is yet to be selected. However, I can reassure him that we are strongly committed to gliding, and 614 Volunteer Gliding Squadron, when it moves from Wethersfield, will expand into its new role as a regional hub. Our immediate priority is to get cadets back flying again, after a gap of about two years. That will start again this year, and should be fully delivered by 2018.

Care of the Dying

Debate between Julian Brazier and David Amess

Tuesday 17th January 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) on the strength and spirit of his speech. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Glenda Jackson) and very much agree with what she said. I was privileged to be present at my father’s death. My mother will, hopefully, shortly celebrate her 100th birthday.

All hon. Members came into politics because we care about life. We did not come into it to legislate about death. This is a sensitive and serious issue. One of our former colleagues is not in great shape at the moment. If he were able to attend he would support what my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate said.

When I was Member of Parliament for Basildon I was privileged to lay the foundation stone for St Luke’s hospice. My hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) mentioned hospices in her constituency. In the area that I represent there is Fair Havens hospice and Little Havens hospice for children. I agree with the views of my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate on what Dame Cicely Saunders said.

Britain is the world’s leading provider of end-of-life care. We are the only nation to offer palliative care as a specialist, medical discipline in its own right.

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, when Government budgets are under a great deal of stress and the amount of assistance received from the NHS by hospices such as his and the Pilgrims hospice in my constituency is being decided, it would send exactly the wrong message to those splendid hospices and to those making budgetary decisions in the NHS if the House decided to allow assisted suicide?

[Mr Amess]

I agree with my hon. Friend. His local hospice does splendid work.

Hospice workers require four years’ intensive training in order to practise. As a result, our hospitals and hospices are staffed by teams able to offer first rate end-of-life care when it is needed—all hon. Members will be familiar with the wonderful quality of care in our hospices—which puts Britain at the scientific forefront of palliative medicine, meaning that the care we can offer will only improve as advances are made. If we can offer this world-leading end-of-life care, why are we looking to euthanasia as an alternative solution?

We can do even more with end-of-life care than we are doing at the moment. We should seek to provide appropriate care to everyone who needs it, as the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn said, no matter who they are or where they are. Figures suggest that 700 people in every constituency die without access to the appropriate services they need. Of course, this needs to change.

We need to help more with planning difficult situations. Understandably, thinking ahead can be traumatic for patients and families. None of us—I am the world’s biggest coward—wants to face the consequences of death. We must therefore do all we can to ensure that the end-of-life support received runs as smoothly as possible. We should focus on personalisation and integration.

Care needs to be developed throughout the community, so that the dying can spend those precious last moments in their local area, not in hospital.

We have already heard about the difficulties of legalisation in Oregon.

I could say much more, but I will not. I simply applaud the words of Dame Cicely, who said,

“Hospices are places where people come to live, not to die.”

Once again, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate on providing the opportunity for us to debate this important issue.