Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Lord Moylan Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 22nd October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I oppose the Bill despite the respect I have for the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. I wish to develop the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilton. When my father was on his last legs a few years ago, he was physically quite robust: he was capable of keeping up with current affairs, he lived at home and looked after himself. However, mentally he was becoming increasingly fretful and, indeed, had borderline paranoia in the last couple of years. I believe this is quite common among the elderly: it is a form of dementia even though he was not actually confused in the normal sense.

The news of the Liverpool pathway scandal that broke in his last year had a shattering effect on him. It destroyed any trust he had in the medical profession and it became extremely difficult to persuade him to attend hospital for treatment for the low-level chronic conditions he had that needed periodic attention. This is my worry. I am generally opposed to the principle of Bill, but my worry about its practical effects relates very much to this key question of the intimate type of trust that we all need to have in doctors and nurses when we are ill and we put ourselves in their hands.

It is not only people such as my father, who was borderline paranoid and suffered from conspiracy theories; it is many elderly people, who feel simply that a hospital is a place of life and cure, it is not a place where death is deliberately administered. I know that many doctors and nurses feel very similarly. There is evidence from other countries where this practice is legalised, of elderly people, in particular, being fearful of going to the hospital. How will this be dealt with? I have heard nothing from proponents of the Bill about how they would address—or even acknowledge—this concern. One possibility would be a radical separation between the NHS and assisted dying facilities: no sharing of personnel or premises. However, I have not heard an answer to it; that may or may not be workable. It needs to be addressed because it is fundamental to the social effects of the Bill if it is passed.