Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Friday 18th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, since the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, laid the Bill before your Lordships’ House, I have argued that it should be given a proper, considered appraisal in Committee, and nothing that has happened in today’s debate has changed my view about that. This has been a thoughtful and at times very moving debate, on all sides of the argument. However, I express some surprise that the Bill was not laid first before the elected House. After all, it is not as if we have not given this issue any previous consideration.

When the House last asked the question, “Is it possible to allow assisted suicide for a determined few, without putting much larger numbers of others at risk?”, it concluded that it is not. It did so after exhaustive deliberation. The Select Committee, which was chaired with such distinction by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, covered some 246 Hansard columns, two volumes of 800 pages, asked 2,460 questions, considered 14,000 letters, and took evidence in four jurisdictions. Since then, the principles involved and the challenges we face have not changed, and there is no consensus and no settled view, as the debate in your Lordships’ House today has demonstrated.

That is reflected in society at large. Consider just two editorials that appeared at different ends of the spectrum in this morning’s newspapers. The Guardian newspaper said that the Bill,

“would create a new moral landscape. It is also, potentially, open to abuse”.

It concluded:

“Reshaping the moral landscape is no alternative to cherishing life and the living”.

The Daily Telegraph said:

“The more assisted dying is discussed, the more its risks will become apparent”.

That point was made very well by the noble Lord, Lord Wills, a few moments ago.

Another reason why the Bill should go into Committee is that the fear that those remarks underline was revealed in a poll referred to earlier on, published only yesterday by ComRes. Yes; it shows that support for assisted suicide has been at 73%, but as soon as the question is asked, “Would you support it if it jeopardised public safety?” that falls to 43%, which, of course, means that it is entirely evenly matched on both sides. As we know, the questions that are asked in those polls are the issue. Prudential judgment is required by Parliament. After all, as a young Member of the House of Commons I was constantly told that I ought to support on the basis of polling evidence legislation against immigrants, to leave the European Union, and to reintroduce capital punishment, none of which I supported, because prudential judgment is more important than polls.

Public safety and incrementalism are my main reasons for opposing this Bill. Great play has been made today by many speakers about choice and autonomy. I thought that the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, put it incredibly well in her speech. How much autonomy is there in this Bill? I think that the word “assisted” in the title is the key. Who will be required to do the assisting? It will be doctors, of course, and very few want to do it. One of my sons is training to be a medic, and he tells me that he is deeply concerned about this Bill because of the proposals to change the nature of the healer and defender into the destroyer of life. That is why the British Medical Association, the Royal Colleges, the British Geriatric Society, the hospices and 95% of palliative medicine specialists oppose a change in the law.

We had a reference earlier from my noble friend Lady Grey-Thompson to Professor Theo Boer from the Netherlands. He said that he now regrets that on the basis of the argument for greater autonomy and freedom he supported changes in the law there. He said:

“I used to be a supporter of the Dutch law. But now, with 12 years of experience, I take a very different view ... Pressure on doctors to conform to patients’—or in some cases relatives’—wishes can be intense”.

Professor Boer admitted he was,

“wrong—terribly wrong, in fact”,

to have believed that regulated euthanasia would work. One reason why he has changed his mind is because of the inevitability of incrementalism. Euthanasia, he says, is,

“on the way to becoming a default mode of dying for cancer patients”.

Since 2008, assisted deaths there have increased by about 15% every year, maybe reaching a record of 6,000 a year.

What of incrementalism here? The 2011 commission of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, said that assisted dying should not be offered to disabled people who are not terminally ill,

“at this point in time”.

At what point in time will it be right to offer to end the lives of people with disabilities? How long will it be before it becomes expected? Only today the Secretary of State for Health, the right honourable Jeremy Hunt, said that changing the law would “devalue” the lives of people living with permanent disabilities.

And what of public safety? The current law, unlike the Bill, provides safeguards and has rarely had to be invoked. Willy Loman, the central character in Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman”, takes his own life, and the playwright’s plea is that we pay attention, and that,

“he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him”.

I had an uncle who fought in the last war and, as a result, became deaf. He was a gunner. In a state of great depression—a point referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, earlier—he took his own life. The suicide of people, assisted or otherwise, affects everyone. We should pay attention to the terrible things that mental illness and depression involve and respond with tender compassion and strong laws to deter exploitation, with laws that safeguard vulnerable people. My noble friend Lady Campbell of Surbiton said that this would become a runaway train, and we should pay attention.