Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Lord Mackay of Clashfern Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 22nd October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, it is not unusual for me to speak on this subject, as you have heard. I have been involved in it for a long time and do not want to bore you by repeating anything. First, assisted suicide is against the law, as a general law in the land. In this Bill, the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, with great clarity and skill, described the situation with which she wants to deal. It is a situation in which a person has an inevitably progressive condition that cannot be reversed by treatment.

That applies to the disabled, as well as to others, and to people who have it for a long time. Six months has been chosen as the breaking point for this Bill, but I do not understand exactly why that has been chosen, particularly when it is extremely difficult for doctors to tell how long a person will live. We had plenty of evidence about that in the inquiry that I was honoured to chair long ago. It is very difficult: death may come very quickly or be postponed for some time. In the Bill’s description, disabled people are covered, and that is the reason that those who are concerned about it for the disabled have a base.

This Bill is designed to show general compassion, but the other matter I want to mention is people who have a terminal illness which has been diagnosed but will take a long time before their anticipated death. They will have pain, sometimes very severe pain, but they are not included in the Bill. It is difficult to say that that shows compassion.

The other thing I want to mention is that this principle makes it very easy to enlarge the scope of the Bill simply by deleting the “six months”. Since the six months does not appear to be particularly principled, that must be quite easy to do. Therefore, if we were to pass this legislation, we would have to anticipate that it would be quickly followed by an attempt to get rid of the six months. As I said, if it were to happen at all, there is something to be said for allowing it to include people with a progressive illness that takes much longer than six months.