Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Lord Wigley Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 22nd October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, for introducing the Bill. Like many colleagues, I find this important Bill immensely difficult, for reasons that I share with many colleagues who take the opposite view. I find it very strange to be on the other side from good friends, such as the noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson, Lady Finlay and Lady Hollins, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and others, with whom I have campaigned on many issues, both in this House and outside. But I can only be true to myself; I cannot turn a blind eye or a deaf ear to those families who plead for such legislation to be on the statute book, based on their own harrowing experiences as families.

I have received dozens of letters—handwritten letters—from such people, not repeating the stock arguments of the sort many of us have received in repetitive emails. Yes, I had had twice as many emails as I have had written letters, but in terms of the range of actual human experience, of personal suffering and passionate pleading, the letters in support of the Bill win the day by a country mile. I am persuaded that legislation along these lines is needed, for several reasons, including that I believe it is fundamentally wrong that, while those who can afford or have the capability to organise themselves to go to Switzerland or wherever can find an escape from pain and anguish, those without such resources have to endure ongoing suffering.

Secondly, we are told that the current law is adequate, but we have evidence of people who have been refused any control over the end of their lives resorting to attempting to starve themselves to death to escape their pain. Thirdly, we know of people who are prepared to go to prison in order to allow their relatives to end their suffering and have a degree of dignity in death. Finally, the weight of public opinion is heavily in support of such legislation: 86% of respondents in a 2019 Populus poll in Wales support it.

The present blanket ban on assisted dying is failing and this Bill offers an opportunity to put it right. It should surely be given a Second Reading today, be examined in detail in Committee—and, yes, amended if necessary. Then it should be passed to MPs to do their constitutional duty and not continue hiding from this most basic issue which their constituents want urgently addressed. I support the Bill.