Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Friday 18th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, I support giving the Bill a Second Reading. This is clearly a most difficult issue, in which we have to balance the sanctity of life with the freedom given to us as individuals to make choices. We have to balance the fears some hold about the abuse of any new provisions in the Bill with the real suffering experienced by thousands of people, so graphically described in so many letters they and their families have written to us. We have to deal with the present imbalance, whereby those lucky enough to have the material resources and family support can go to Switzerland to end their lives, whereas those without the resources or family support have to struggle on from day to day, suffering pain and anguish with no means of relief in their reach.

The existing prohibition on medical assistance to die causes some terminally ill people to take matters into their own hands, without adequate support, and some relatives to risk prosecution for helping a loved one die. The Bill would bring clarity to the law and provide greater certainty for terminally ill people and their loved ones.

The Bill has strict safeguards and eligibility criteria. People who are not mentally competent or terminally ill, such as disabled or older people who do not have a terminal illness, will not be eligible. A few weeks ago, the Supreme Court issued a clear warning to Parliament that, if it does not address the issue of assisted dying satisfactorily, the courts could. It is therefore vital that the Bill is allowed to progress through today’s debate and on to Committee stage, where it can be dealt with on a clause-by-clause basis.

There are of course dangers of abuse and there must be safeguards against the ultimate abuse of vulnerable people in their weakness, disability or old age feeling the pressure of relatives to bring about their own end for ulterior motives. However, in the Bill we are dealing with individuals who are already confronting their own deaths within months. Consequentially, families will also be aware that their support will be required for only a limited period of time.

Noble Lords may be aware that disability issues have been high on my agenda throughout my parliamentary career. I am clearly uneasy if this legislation causes anxiety to some disabled people. I emphasise only that the Bill is geared not to disability, but to terminal illnesses, which generally are totally unrelated to disability. If a blind person, a deaf person or a person who is wheelchair-bound comes into the ambit of the Bill, it is not because they are deaf, blind or cannot walk. It is because they have a condition from which they will die within months.

If further safeguards are needed, let us examine them in Committee. Let us not kill off the Bill today to close off the possibility of improving it. The prospect the Bill offers is to provide to those who wish it the possibility of a dignified death in their own homes with their loved ones around them, not the bleak alternative of going to a foreign country to a lonely death in strange surroundings. Compassion must surely demand that we do better than this.