Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Lord Winston Excerpts

Friday 18th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, this is an eloquent and emotional debate. It has to be emotional because, essentially, the decisions that we make in this debate are largely emotional ones. Unlike the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, I do not think that this is a small Bill; it has massive implications. I have spoken before in your Lordships’ House about the experience of my mother. She was a brittle diabetic who, in the last six years of her life, was regularly admitted to hospital, often unconscious, in various degrees of decay. She was a brilliant woman, an amazing public speaker, a great mayor of a borough of London and an extraordinarily good thinker. But no one would have thought that had they seen her in bed in one of our local hospitals. She was never in a single hospital; she went to at least three during her diabetic episodes. What I am going to say about her experience under the National Health Service is not specifically directed at any one hospital, it is a universal experience, which is widely seen by many elderly people who cannot impress themselves on others in the ward.

In the four-bedded ward where she was last admitted, two patients were lying in their own excrement and urine for at least an hour, even though when I was visiting I pointed it out to the nursing staff. Food was supplied, but not actually fed to the patients who could not feed themselves. In my mother's case, she often missed her insulin as a diabetic and of course not having regular food did not help her diabetes. Drugs were frequently not given. But the key issue is shown very simply by a matter-of-fact thing that we see again and again with old people who are addressed invariably by their first name and not given respect in hospital as old people.

The problem is the attitude of staff, and attitudes such as this will get significantly worse with the increasing pressures that we are bound to have in healthcare in our National Health Service. No matter what the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, has just said, you cannot regulate against attitude, nor can you regulate against the attitude of patients who feel increasing anxiety in hospital or when they are not well.

Perhaps I might indulge myself briefly to tell noble Lords about my mother's death. For the last two or three years of her life we decided absolutely, given that there was modest and not inadequate medical care, that we would leave her at home and see to her ourselves and rotate regularly being with her. There was a 40-minute moment before her death when my mobile phone rang and it was my youngest son, Benjamin, who was with my mother in her bedroom. He said, “Dad, I don't think Granny is very well”. “Tell me what is wrong”, I said. He said, “She’s not speaking”. I said, “It’s possible, Ben, that she might have died”. He said, “What do I do?”. I said, “Stay there. I will drive as fast as I can and will be with you in the next 30 to 40 minutes. Just stay with her. You’ve been immensely privileged and so has she because she loved you very much and you are the last person she saw and she is the first person you have seen in this situation”.

I got there, and my point is that we have been talking intensively in this debate about the dignity of a planned death. I do not believe in that planned death being dignified. There is much more dignity in many ways in being able to ensure that people wherever possible die with their relatives around them in an unplanned death in the way that my mother died, with her youngest grandson present.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)]

My Lords, I have been in your Lordships’ House for nine months, and this is by far the most important subject to have come to us in that time. I support the Bill because I believe in the principle that, with the right criteria and with the right safeguards and procedures in place, people who wish to end their lives should be allowed to make that decision for themselves. It should be their choice, and I am uneasy about saying to them, “No, you cannot decide this for yourself. We know better”.

Of course, I respect and understand the concerns that people have about the Bill. I understand, but do not accept, the argument that although the Bill could bring relief from intolerable suffering for individuals, there may be wider adverse consequences for society. I understand the fears that some people have about the “thin end of the wedge”, although I think that issue lies firmly in the hands of Parliament. I also very much understand that people have concerns about the details of the Bill. Are the safeguards strong enough? Are the procedures sufficiently precise?

However, today, I want to touch very briefly on one aspect, which was triggered by an article in yesterday’s Telegraph by the Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Mirvis, who opposes the Bill. He said:

“There is no greater value in Judaism than the sanctity of life … It is a gift from God and it is not ours to cut short. Life has an absolute value”.

He carefully used the word “absolute”—in other words, it is not qualified or diminished in any way and not relative. I stand to be corrected, but I have no reason to believe that the Chief Rabbi is a pacifist and I presume therefore that he believes in self-defence. If one believes in self-defence, you have to decide at what point the taking of life is justified to defend life; and, in deciding that, you engage in some form of utilitarian calculation. I question the Chief Rabbi’s use of the word “absolute”; as the noble Lord, Lord Alli, said earlier, there are no absolutes. Indeed, as we all know, there are many distinguished people with deep religious convictions, and many in this House, who support the Bill.

When the Chief Rabbi says there is no greater value in Judaism than the sanctity of life, we understand and totally respect that he would never contemplate ending his own life—

[Lord Winston]

Has it occurred to the noble Lord that self-defence is the preservation of life?

[Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury]

I understand that. The point I was making was that when you engage in self-defence, you are in the process also of risking and taking life for that objective. That involves a calculation.

When the Chief Rabbi says there is no greater value than the sanctity of life, we understand that he would not contemplate taking his own. But are these people who could never contemplate taking their own lives because of their convictions saying that people who do not share those convictions should nevertheless be bound by them? Surely not, if you believe in religious freedom. All of us have our own moral beliefs, and it is society’s job to decide where morality and the law should overlap and then to shape the law accordingly. That is what this Bill seeks to do.

The Bill is so important, and the practicalities so crucial, that it needs to be scrutinised in detail. I hope therefore that it will receive a Second Reading.