Assisted Dying

Debate between Karin Smyth and Paul Blomfield

Monday 4th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the 155,000 people who signed the petition prompting today’s debate and to my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) for the way she introduced it.

It is an extraordinary coincidence, but today is the 11th anniversary of my father’s death—more extraordinary, because the last time the Commons debated assisted dying on the Floor of the House was the eighth anniversary of his death. Like an estimated 300 people in the UK every year, he took his life after a terminal diagnosis. Although I still find it difficult to talk about, I want to share his story today, because he would have wanted me to, and because his experience echoes that of so many others and informs a central issue in our discussion. Inevitably, the debate on providing choice at the end of life often focuses on the impact of the change that is being proposed, but I think we should start from a different place: by looking at the existing law and recognising the pain it causes, and the way it forces so many into desperate and premature deaths.

Eleven years ago today—also a Monday—I got a phone call here: he had been found dead in his garage. I had spoken to him the previous night on the phone as I walked through St James’s Park. An ordinary conversation that gave me no inkling of his plan. But later he obviously tidied up his belongings, left some small piles of money to settle bills with—with the newsagent and one or two others—and wrote some final notes. He then walked to the garage, connected a hosepipe from his car exhaust into the car, took an overdose and switched on the engine.

I was shocked and clearly still struggle with it, but I should not have been surprised, because he had always believed that the law should be changed to allow assisted dying. And let us be clear—we should be very clear about the terms we use—my dad was not suicidal. He loved life; he was 87. But at that age he had inevitably watched many of his friends go, often miserably—horrific deaths. He talked with me about their last days and he had always been clear that he would rather end things than face a lingering and degrading death, but I still was not expecting it.

He was somebody who had made the most of life. He had a tough east-end upbringing, became an RAF pilot during the war and built a successful business career. He had had his share of health problems, but he faced them all positively, until a terminal diagnosis of inoperable lung cancer clearly led to his decision to take his life. He could not talk to me or his partner about it, because he would have made us complicit. The current law forced my father into a lonely decision and a lonely death. And he died prematurely, because I am sure that what drove him to end his life at that point was the fear that if he did not act when he was still able to do so, he would lose the opportunity to act at all.

[Karin Smyth]

My hon. Friend is making a very powerful speech. I am grateful to him for sharing his story with us again. What he exemplifies is the wider impact on the family. Families are loving places to be for most people, and the impact goes on for a number of years. The inability to have those conversations with family is one of the things that my hon. Friend is highlighting for us today. The current law inhibits honest conversations in families to help a more supportive situation to go forward. I think that is something we should all take with us this afternoon.

[Paul Blomfield]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. She is absolutely right, and I appreciate the breathing space that she has given me.

Some people have already said in this debate that we simply need to improve end-of-life care. We should, and I say to the hon. Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger), contrary to his comments, that many of those states, for example in Australia, that have introduced assisted dying have, at exactly the same time, substantially increased the amount of money spent on palliative care. We should do that, but it would not have changed my dad’s decision. He supported our local hospice. I have raised funds for it. It does a great job. But no hospice can enable everybody to die with the dignity that they would want.

Indeed, for my father, it was soon after his appointment with the palliative care nurse, where together they talked about his last months and how that would pan out, that he took the decision to end his life. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) alluded to the fact that, if the law had made it possible, he could have shared his plans with us. And knowing that he could, with support, go at the time of his choosing would have enabled him to stay longer. If the law had made it possible, he would have been able to say goodbye and go with his family around him, not in a carbon monoxide-filled garage. He deserved better and many others like him deserve better. And we, here, can make that possible. We simply need to change the law, as the overwhelming majority of the British people want.

I appreciate that there are those whose personal belief makes my father’s choice unacceptable. I respect those beliefs. Live your life by them. But do not impose them on others. Let people have the choice at the end of their lives. Allow them the dignity in dying that we would want to give them during their life.