Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Lord Dannatt Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 22nd October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dannatt (CB)]

My Lords, as many noble Lords have already remarked, this issue of assisted dying has quite rightly provoked profound interest in the country and generated a huge volume of mail received by all of us. Opinions are strongly held and starkly divided. In personal conversations, from the mail that I have received and from the opinions of noble Lords who have spoken today, I have heard the arguments and have been weighing them against my own beliefs and values. I am now clear on my own view.

The case for the Bill appears to centre perfectly reasonably around compassion and the right to choose to end one’s life, albeit with appropriate safeguards, but I believe that the fundamental principle behind the Bill is wrong, as indeed there is a case that the name of the Bill is wrong. Assisted dying confuses palliative care and assisted suicide. Palliative care aims to relieve distress, while assisted suicide aims to help someone kill himself or herself. This Bill would make it legal for a physician to assist someone to kill himself or herself as a way of relieving distress, albeit with the permission given by a judge—something of a paradox, which other noble Lords have remarked upon.

We are told that there would be sufficient safeguards, but the major risk remains that the safeguards against abuse, although prescribed as they might be in a future law, would not be strictly followed in practice, and a variety of pressures would descend on the elderly, the sick and the vulnerable, for a mixture of motives. While certainly not perfect, the status quo protects the sanctity of life. Although the Suicide Act 1961 decriminalised suicide, it sought to discourage it by criminalising assistance in it. This is a very sound safeguard which must stand. While the Director of Public Prosecutions has the discretion to decide that it is not in the public interest to prosecute a case of assisted suicide if there is a strong case for compassion, nevertheless the existing law protects the vulnerable. I agree with Lord Sumption that our current “untidy compromise” is the safest arrangement. Therefore, as things stand, I oppose the Bill. Should a vote be called, I shall vote against it.