Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Lord Ashton of Hyde Excerpts

Friday 16th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mawson]

My Lords, I am happy to hear that, although I think there is a debate to be had. I am happy to sit down but there is an issue here, which is being drawn to the surface, about the words we use and about what the country understands is happening about this matter. I am happy to sit down, although I was going to illustrate the point with a practical example from the BBC about these matters and with an experience I had, where it was absolutely clear that large parts of the general public were not clear about this. I think the noble Lord, Lord Winston, has put his finger on a point that needs to be listened to.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, has been trying to get in for some time. I think the Committee would like to hear from her.

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister. I am sorry I have not got a loud voice. I may be a little slow. This is not because I want to hold up the Bill, I just have things to say.

We have been told time and again that disabled people with life-limiting conditions—and I use that term advisedly because we do not recognise the terms “terminal illness” and “months” or “weeks to live”; but more about that later, under a suitable amendment—have nothing to fear from the Bill. We are told that it is necessary only to help a few desperate individuals to end their lives when they have weeks or months to live, and that, if enacted, it will not touch anyone who does not want it. I do not believe that and, it seems, neither do the authors of the Bill. Why else would they elect to name it the Assisted Dying Bill instead of the assisted suicide Bill? If it is truly concerned only with personal autonomy and choice, surely that should be celebrated and clear.

By avoiding the term “assisted suicide”, the Bill circumvents the framework of measures in place to review, monitor and prevent other forms of suicide. It seeks to exclude deaths under the Bill from the general requirement for a coroner’s inquest to be conducted where suicide is considered a possible cause of death. It contains a provision for publication of annual statistics of “assisted deaths” separate from the established arrangements for collecting and publishing statistics on deaths by suicide. It provides for a death under the Bill to be recorded by the registrar as an “assisted death”.

I have a question for the Minister. This Government, like their predecessors, have a major cross-departmental suicide prevention strategy. It seeks,

“a reduction in the suicide rate in the general population in England”,

and defines suicide as,

“a deliberate act that intentionally ends one’s life”.

In the light of this definition, will the Minister inform us whether, if the Bill were to become law, he anticipates a rise in the suicide rate, and would he expect the suicide prevention strategy to contain measures to reduce the numbers in this group intentionally ending their own lives?

We all, in this House and outside, understand the word “suicide”. It centres on the individual. The act of suicide is the responsibility of the person who commits it, and no other. It is impossible to commit suicide without first consenting to do so. The same does not apply to the word “dying”.

Assisted dying is practised in Belgium, the Netherlands and elsewhere. Whatever the initial intentions were, decisions to end life in those places are now not taken only by the individual. It is not an autonomous act. The slippery slope is oiled by the vague euphemism of “assisted dying”. Disabled and terminally people are rightly frightened that the Bill, as currently named, puts them at risk. The purpose of the amendment is to provide some safeguards through the use of plain language. “Assisted suicide” makes it clear that only the individual may instigate and control the process leading to an early, state-sanctioned death. I urge noble Lords to support this argument.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord May of Oxford (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

We cannot have two people speaking at once. I am sure that the noble Lords can resolve it between them.

[Lord Warner]

My Lords, I have been sitting through these debates on assisted dying for some 12 years, sometimes on the Front Bench and sometimes on the Back Benches. I agree that I am getting older and my memory may be getting a little faulty, but I do not recollect in many of those debates people standing up with such skills of advocacy as we have heard this morning about this definitional issue in the wording of the Bill.

We have been talking about legislation which has been labelled assisted dying Bills over the 12 years from the first efforts in this area of my noble friend Lord Joffe. We have had commissions on it which have used the term “assisted dying”. The public have got used to the term “assisted dying”. If we really want to confuse the public at this point, changing the terminology of the Bill is a really good thing to do. We have sat through long public debates over this particular—