Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 22nd October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to participate in this timely and important debate. I start by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, on bringing forward the Bill.

Like many noble Lords, I have been deeply moved by the correspondence I have received on this matter; it takes me firmly back to my time as a constituency MP. But equally, in this week of all weeks, it has underlined the necessity of your Lordships’ House to continue to engage with the general public; that is something I think Sir David would have expected us to do.

At a personal level, it has also enabled me to engage in an interesting debate with probably my best friend—my father, the Reverend Lancaster. It will come as no surprise that he has already been in touch to respond to the earlier comments of the noble Lord, Lord Vinson, that Christ’s death on the cross was an assisted suicide courtesy of a friendly Roman centurion, which I could not help but notice caused a certain movement on the Benches in front of me. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Winston, for his amendment, as it delivers much clarity in the language.

In 2015, in my previous life in the House of Commons, I voted against the assisted dying Bill at Second Reading. Since then, like other noble Lords, I have experienced my own mother’s death and while, thanks to excellent palliative care, it was, I hope, relatively pain-free, it has forced me to accept that improved palliative care does not negate the potential need for Bills such as this. They are, in fact, two quite distinct and separate issues.

In her moving speech, much of which I agreed with, the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, was keen to argue that the objective of the Bill has overwhelming public support. She may well be right. She will forgive me, I hope, if I say that I am unmoved by any argument that depends on opinion polls. While I have the greatest respect for public opinion when it is expressed in a democratic election or referendum, legislation by opinion poll is a dangerous game. If your Lordships’ House were to follow that route, we would be legislating to bring back the death penalty. Equally, while I support the Bill in principle—and, let us be clear, that is all we are being asked to do at Second Reading—I continue to have concerns over its application in practice; in particular, in the area of safeguarding.

The safeguards included in the Bill represent an improvement on earlier Bills, but I still have deep concerns—in particular, over the risk of coercion and abuse by relatives for their own gain. Ideally, individuals would make their own autonomous decision about ending their life calmly and rationally, but, of course, in the pressurised, emotionally charged world we live in, that might be quite different in reality. I have little doubt that few relatives harbour malevolent thoughts towards the terminally ill, but their own emotional distress can be a source of pressure in itself. Establishing whether coercion, either deliberate or otherwise, has been a factor in an individual’s decision to ask a doctor to administer lethal medication seems to me to be incredibly difficult to establish through just a couple of independent interviews.

This is the principal area in which I feel the Bill falls short and, should it pass Second Reading today, it is an area that would need to be strengthened, and due consideration given to what kind of experience, medical or otherwise, might be needed.