Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Lord Winston Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 22nd October 2021 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Winston]

At end insert “but that this House considers that the bill should refer to euthanasia rather than assisted dying.”

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, is a great privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, for whom I have huge respect. In my career delivering babies, I have also seen some of the terrible and moving things she describes. I have great respect for her important speech and her great work in moving this Bill. But many noble Lords have received vast correspondence, and it is clear that there is massive public interest in this debate, as almost never before, and many misunderstandings about its implications, which can be seen from what has been written. It raises the most important moral question and needs clarity without euphemism. “Assisted dying” could equally be applied to palliative care, so the Bill’s title does not represent what is really intended. The word “euthanasia”—from the Greek “eu”, meaning well or good, and “thanatos”, meaning death—is what we are actually talking about.

I met a teenager in a school last week who asked me this question: do you think we should strive for a perfect society? She went on to ask whether that is really desirable. I said that, in an imperfect world, we have to do the best we can, and this is what we are to debate today. I hope that we do so in a respectful and thoughtful manner. I will say no more but will hear what other noble Lords have to say. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lipsey (Lab)]

My Lords, I am a complete unbeliever in religion. I raise the fact that in this long and very distinguished debate, religion has been the Banquo at the feast. We have hardly heard anything about religion, even from the Bishops’ Bench.

Like all noble Lords, I have received a tsunami of emails putting forward arguments why I should oppose the Bill. Some of the arguments are valid; some are not. I replied to many of them and asked a simple question: are you religious? Most answered. All those who answered said they were religious. Of course, religious people’s views on this matter are as valid as anyone’s—not more valid, but as valid—but I am disappointed that not one of them chose, on initially contacting me, to say that they were religious, allowing me to look at the argument from that point of view.

The other thing that worried me about this correspondence was how much of it contained—I do not know whether inadvertently or not—untruths. A whole lot said that a majority of doctors oppose euthanasia. I asked them for their evidence. First, they sent me a survey of palliative doctors, who were indeed opposed. That was very interesting, but palliative doctors are a tiny minority of doctors with a particular interest. When I pressed further, I was referred to a survey on what people wanted doctors’ organisations to recommend on this legislation. That is not about whether you are for or against assisted dying; it is about what the BMA and so on should do. In any case, the facts are quite clear: a narrow majority were against doctors taking up a position against this. It was a bit of fake news, I think.

As a non-believer, I do not pretend to understand—I can get elucidation afterwards—the theology that persuades so many Christians that suffering at the end of life is God’s will. I do not need to, because nobody wants to force assisted dying on anyone, whatever torture they are undergoing; I certainly do not. What I find so distressing is that these people, who I readily concede are of the utmost good faith, want to impose their faith on the rest of us.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

No, they do not.

[Lord Lipsey (Lab)]

The noble Lord says no. I am not saying it is all of them; I said many of them. Why he wants to do it, I do not know.

To many of us, choice in dying—dying in dignity—is an essential human right that individuals can opt for or not opt for according to their personal creed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

I just want to pay my deepest and sincere compliments to the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, whose humanity and speech were quite remarkable. We fully understand where she stands and have a huge amount of sympathy with what she says.

In moving my amendment, I was fairly careful to adopt a neutral position, but one thing in this debate that remains a problem for me is how it has been assumed that it is the autonomy of people who are dying, or are likely to want to die, that is at stake. The problem is that, in spite of what the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, said, it is about the autonomy of a lot of other people—health service workers, carers, people in the street, people who clean hospitals and, most importantly, our society.

It is very important that the people who have written to me—I have tried to reply to nearly all the letters, as far as I can, but there has been a vast number of them and it has been difficult—understand that there has to be further discussion of the Bill, that it should progress in the normal way and that the convention of the House, which is usually respected, is that we do not move amendments at the end of a Second Reading.

When we come to the next stages of the Bill—if we do—it is important to recognise that the Bishops’ Bench is extremely important in this. I am not a Christian—I am a Jew—but the influence the bishops have on the moral compass of this debate is extremely important. I am not going to deal with any cognitive geometry, as the Minister suggested, but it is not an argument about religion; religion is irrelevant. The debate is about how we understand what our ethical standards should be and how we maintain the ethics of our society. That is perhaps more important now than it has ever been before, with the problems, for example, that technology produces. Having said that, I do not want to detain the House any longer. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment withdrawn.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

House adjourned at 5.56 pm.