Health and Care Bill

Debate between Lord Winston and Baroness Butler-Sloss

Lords Hansard _ Part 1 & Report stage
Wednesday 16th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, it would be perfectly possible for someone in the House of Commons to raise this issue and deal with it there. What concerns me—I pick up what the noble Lords, Lord Cormack and Lord Howarth, said—is that this seems to be a constitutional issue. I am not going to say a word about the rights and wrongs of assisted suicide or assisted dying. However, I shall just read a few words of the amendment. It asks us to agree that the

“Secretary of State must, within the period of 12 months … lay before Parliament”


not just the possibility of a Private Member’s Bill being given time, which was what was suggested earlier, but a draft Bill. That is telling the Government what legislation they have to pass. This is a matter that transcends issues of compassion or whether one is on one side of the argument or the other, because what we in the Lords are telling the Commons is that they have to support us telling the Government to put forward a Bill with which they may not agree. But they do not have any choice if this amendment is passed. That Bill has to,

“permit terminally ill, mentally competent adults legally to end their own lives”.

The amendment is not asking the Government to please give time—I could understand that. It is telling, not asking, the Government to put forward a draft Bill in support of one side of the argument. Whichever side I was on, I would feel absolutely impelled to resist this amendment.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, I have repeatedly opposed assisted dying and it is well known that I feel, and have felt, strongly about it. I also feel that this is quite a different situation. I do not want to argue my case here, but serious issues are raised by the amendment. I am not persuaded that voting for it would make a difference, because the Commons can still consider what we have said this evening. However, it is clear—I completely agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer—that we as a Parliament have to discuss this issue.

I remember, when I first came into this House 27 years ago, in the Prince’s Chamber there was a notice recording an Act of 1620, I think—under Charles I—that argued that we should not use intemperate language in the Chamber. In this situation, I believe this is inevitably important. I regret very much that the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, spoke in the terms he did. I do not think it is helpful to the argument. I think it probably destroys his argument to some extent. What the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, says is a very different matter—and I regard the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, as a friend. Above all, it seems that as a Parliament we have to discuss this, and this is something burgeoning in the public. Therefore, it is a duty to discuss this in Parliament. If we happen to introduce this Bill, which the Commons can then consider, whether it is passed at this stage or not, that would be utterly justifiable, and I support this amendment.