Assisted Suicide

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I am now going to call Fiona Bruce to speak to amendment (b), but it will not be moved at this stage. I remind hon. Members that there is a limit of five minutes for all Back Benchers.

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[The Solicitor-General]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I take it that the Solicitor-General is coming to the end of his speech, because we are up against time and many Back Benchers wish to speak.

[The Solicitor-General]

With your permission, Mr Deputy Speaker, I will avoid answering my hon. Friend’s question in order to save time.

If we are to continue to provide care where and how people want it, to expand this work into the community and to care for people with conditions other than cancer, hospices and other providers of palliative care need the right support and the right funding. We need a funding system that can last, that provides stability and security in the long term and that actively encourages community-based palliative care so that people can stay at home or in a care home as they wish. Of course, this has to be affordable within the constraints of the current financial climate.

The independent palliative care funding review looked at options to ensure that the funding of hospices and other palliative care providers is fair and covers both adult and children’s services. When it reported last summer, it recommended that a number of pilots be set up to collect data so it could refine its proposals, because of the lack of reliable data currently available. Last week, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health announced the seven adult and one children’s palliative care funding pilots selected for this important work. They will start in April and run for two years, and our aim is to have a new funding system in place by 2015, a year sooner than the palliative care funding review proposed.

I did not wish to be rude to my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton. I do not know whether there is a correlation or a causative link between the two points she drew to our attention in her intervention. None the less, if the matter comes to a Division, I urge the House to accept the motion moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South, to be deeply sceptical about the amendment tabled by the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford and to look with interest and care on the matter proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton.

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[Jim Dobbin (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab/Co-op)]

Let me say at the outset that I am prepared to accept the motion tabled by the hon. Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway), particularly because he indicated that he might be prepared to accept the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce). I cannot support the amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Dame Joan Ruddock), particularly because of the advice from the Minister, which I have received on a previous occasion.

I am vice-chairman of the all-party group on dying well, which is chaired by Baroness Ilora Finlay of Llandaff, who is professor of palliative care at Cardiff university and a former president of the Royal Society of Medicine. I am totally opposed to the legalisation of euthanasia, assisted suicide or assisted dying—whatever one calls it. It is referred to at the moment as assisted dying. I say “at the moment” because over the past few years full-blown and up-front debates on euthanasia have been held in the House of Lords, led by Lord Joffe. The campaign has changed from being one on euthanasia to one on assisted suicide, and it is now known as assisted dying. The trick, so often, is to soften the language throughout the campaign to gain public support. Therein lies a strategy.

I welcome the DPP’s revision of his guidelines for prosecuting in cases of assisted suicide. As we know, this follows a lengthy consultation. The new guidelines are focused more on public safety and, to my mind, on the protection of people with disability and serious illness, who are, as the guidelines say, of equal worth and therefore must have equal protection under the law. I highlight the issue of elder abuse within families and remind the House that not all families are loving or empathetic. It hardly needs to be stated that vulnerabilities such as physical dependence or mental health problems are not a reason for assisting suicide.

Although there is much to welcome in the guidelines, they leave me with some concerns. The use of judgmental aspects on individual cases is inherently problematic. There needs to be complete transparency over decisions to prosecute or not to prosecute. Without this, we will fail to protect the people who care for those who are dying and leave the person who is dependent and ill in a very vulnerable position. The guidelines make it clear that immunity from prosecution is not guaranteed for assistors of suicide. The danger is that the parts of the guidelines that have been published, plus the spin given in the media by those who support assisted dying, could well lead to people getting involved in illegal acts. Having said all that, there is a general welcome for some aspects of the DPP’s guidelines.

In the context of the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Congleton, I now put the case for the antidote to assisted suicide. I do so by declaring that two of my grandsons live with serious disabilities. They are brothers, and they have a neurological muscle weakness that is controlled by medication. They are both wheelchair bound and require one-to-one support at home and in their education. From time to time, they have required life support systems. I do not want them, or any other person living with a disability, to experience pressure in a system whose law suggests that their lives might not be worth living. That important point was made in the Lords debate by Baroness Campbell of Surbiton and others who spoke on behalf of those with disabilities.

As I have said, the antidote to assisted suicide is palliative care for people suffering from terminal illness. I include all types of terminal illness in that. In 2006, I introduced a private Member’s Bill on palliative care for the terminally ill. That is another reason why I support the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Congleton, of which I am a signatory. Palliative care is about enhancing quality of life and—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I call Mr Stephen Metcalfe.