Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Kim Leadbeater and Lloyd Hatton

2nd reading
Friday 29th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Kim Leadbeater]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and I will come on to some of those points later in my speech. Let us be very clear: the title of the Bill refers to terminally ill adults, not disabled people or elderly people, as another hon. Member referred to. The criteria are very clear.

I come back to the status quo, which is the problem we are trying to address. If people want to avoid the trauma of some of the harrowing circumstances I have described, they can have an assisted death—just not in this country. If they have £10,000 or £15,000, they can make the trip to Switzerland or elsewhere but, because of the current legal position, it is often a deeply distressing and very lonely experience, shrouded in secrecy, with people feeling like criminals as the fear of prosecution hangs over them.

Ilana’s husband Crispin had late-stage motor neurone disease. He was paralysed, and Ilana is a wheelchair user, but at his request she took him on a traumatic and difficult journey to Switzerland. She describes the intense stress and anxiety she felt due to the total secrecy of their plan—and we can only imagine what the journey home was like, on her own, with an empty seat beside her.

There are also those terminally ill people who take matters into their own hands. Gareth’s father Norman served in the Welsh Guards. He was a strong man, but his final five years were full of pain and discomfort. He had prostate cancer, which he lived with for 15 years. He was given good initial hormone therapy and chemo, but the cancer spread everywhere and the pain could not be eased. One day, when it all became too much, he went into his garden with the gun he owned and shot himself. Gareth’s sister rushed to his house and found him. Gareth said his father just wanted the pain to stop.

Then there is Peter, from Mirfield in my own constituency, who stopped me in a car park a couple of weeks ago to tell me the harrowing story of his beloved wife, who was diagnosed with metastatic cancer aged 52. The treatment was ineffective and her symptoms were unbearable. She took an overdose of her medication, and Peter found her and took her to hospital. She recovered and he brought her home, but the following day she made another attempt to take her own life, in a way that is too awful to describe. Peter found her dead, and he spent the next eight hours being questioned by the police.

It is estimated that more than 600 terminally ill people take their own lives every year. Often patients will store up medication. Josh, a 33-year-old from Huddersfield went to coach his local kids’ rugby team one Saturday and came back to tell his mum all about it. He found her dead. Lisa, who was terminally ill, had stored up her medication and taken her own life.

Our former colleague Paul Blomfield, the previous MP for Sheffield Central, has campaigned tirelessly on this issue since his dad Harry took his own life in 2014, alone in his garage, after being diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. Language matters: Harry was not suicidal; he loved life, but he had watched too many of his friends have lingering, degrading deaths and he did not want that for himself. But, like the others, he could not tell Paul and his family of his plan, as they would have been complicit and could have faced prosecution. How many precious days and weeks did Harry miss out on as a result of having to take action while he was still physically able to do so? Hearing these stories is not easy, but it is important.

[Lloyd Hatton (South Dorset) (Lab)]

What I have been struck by in recent weeks as I have listened to Members from across the House is the clear agreement that the current situation is neither sustainable nor dignified. Almost everyone in this House agrees that the status quo is unacceptable in terms of dignity, palliative care and end of life. Given that, does my hon. Friend agree that today’s debate is about how we depart from the unacceptable situation that we currently face? Is today’s vote not the first stage of an important discussion about we improve the end of life for hundreds and hundreds of people across this country?

[Kim Leadbeater]

I wholeheartedly agree. I am setting out what we are dealing with now. This cannot be right, and surely we have a duty to do something about it.