Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Tenth sitting)

Naz Shah Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 12th February 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Rebecca Paul]

Just to clarify, I am not questioning that they were not telling their truth. I completely believe that, from their perspective, they honestly believe they have never seen a case of coercion. Maybe I am more of a glass-half-empty kind of girl than some other people, but I question whether that is really the case. In my 45 years on this planet, I have learned enough about humankind to know that these things do happen, but different people will take different views when it comes to detecting them.

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady has made some important points. I repeat something I said yesterday in response to another Member: the word “coercion” and the idea of encouragement were not even in the vocabulary in this place until very recently—only 10 years ago. I do not want to dismiss people’s expertise, but for me it is quite a leap of faith—I wonder whether she shares that idea—to believe that in that jurisdiction, zero people were coerced, when every other jurisdiction records people being coerced and people saying they feel a burden.

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[Rebecca Paul]

My hon. Friend is very knowledgeable about these things and is well qualified on the legal side. I value his contributions on this matter. The reason I want to include “unduly influence” is because it deals with those more subtle forms of coercion. Arguably, it could be included in “coerced or pressured”, but by including “unduly influence” in the Bill it becomes more explicit that a clinician has to be looking for it. In the absence of the language, clinicians will not be required to look for those more subtle forms of influence.

The provision is something that is included in the assisted dying laws of other jurisdictions. We have the opportunity here to learn and benefit from jurisdictions that have already implemented it. We heard various witnesses give us very useful evidence during the sessions. For example, California includes “undue influence” in the law. We should recognise that there is value in including it here. It is a well-established legal term that is used in myriad situations, so it is relevant that we include it.

[Naz Shah]

May I take the hon. Member back to the point of clause 24, and the issue of suicide and the terminology there? Perhaps the Minister could respond as well, although I am not sure how that would work in this Committee. What I think we are doing in clause 24 is to decriminalise encouraging suicide. That is my understanding. So can we have some clarity? Are we trying to decriminalise encouraging suicide? That is what clause 24 says, so in that case it would be absolutely right to talk about the word “encouragement”.

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[Rebecca Paul]

It is helpful to understand the Government’s position. If the amendment is not made, I hope that the Minister is right, but one thing that I have learned in my time is that different judges will have different views on these things. Personally, I would prefer to see this provision in the Bill, as it would absolutely ensure that the protection is in place. We all know that decisions in the courts can sometimes go a different way from what we expect.

[Naz Shah]

I have a concern about what the Minister says. As one psychiatrist put it, the Bill is very novel and untested. The MCA has not been tested. Now the Government say that this will work, without consultation or any impact assessment. I struggle to understand that. Does the hon. Lady share my concern that this does not feel right?

[Rebecca Paul]

It is reassuring to hear that I am not the only one worried about this, so I thank the hon. Lady for that.

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[Naz Shah]

Does the hon. Lady share my concern? My understanding is that, in normal parliamentary business, if the Government announce any changes to the law in the press first, they are usually rebuked by Mr Speaker in the Chamber. I appreciate that this is a private Member’s Bill, but a Guardian piece yesterday outlined how we will now scrap the involvement of a High Court judge and have a panel instead, with an amendment to be tabled to that effect. I am happy for my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley to clarify how the system is going to change.

Once we have debated the amendments on undue influence and coercion, we have debated them. We cannot then come back to them, because of the nature of private Members’ Bills. Does the hon. Lady share my concern that, as we said yesterday, the horse has bolted? We are having to go over things and we might not be able to revisit this issue, which is why it is even more important to have probing conversations on the record so that, if nothing else, we can refer to them on Third Reading, for which we have only five hours.

[Rebecca Paul]

I completely agree with the hon. Lady. We should not make the mistake of assuming that certain amendments will be accepted. Until there is a Division, we do not know what the Bill is going to look like. It is incredibly difficult to table amendments early on when we do not know whether other fundamental things are going to change. That is why it is important that we are really thorough and improve the safeguards as much as we can, clause by clause. I do not want to get to the end of this process without our having accepted any of the improved safeguards, only for the Bill to be turned on its head at the end when there is a Division on something fundamental. As the hon. Lady rightly says, we do not get the opportunity to come back and review the decisions we have made on the back of that.

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[Rebecca Paul]

I thank the right hon. Lady for that really helpful intervention. That is exactly the kind of advice that is extremely useful to us new MPs undertaking this process. I will have to make the decision on that question in a matter of minutes, and it is very difficult, but I will do my best to make the right decision.

New clause 5 seeks to define encouragement for the purposes of the Bill and includes some exclusions. We have already talked about some of the challenges with exactly what encouragement means, and clearly there are certain acts that we do not want to be captured by it. The aim of the clause is just to ensure that it is only intentional, targeted and effective encouragement that is covered. I am very open to working with the Government to ensure that the drafting reflects the intent; it may well be that some other things go in there to address some of the concerns raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire around support being given by families. No one wants to see that included in this definition—I think we all agree on that.

In summary, I hope hon. Members will view these amendments, incorporating undue influence and encouragement into clause 1, favourably, in order to bolster the safeguards in this Bill. It is vital that subtler forms of influence are addressed, to protect patients and to ensure that it is not just the obvious signs of coercion that are looked for. I also welcome amendment 113, tabled by the hon. Member for Broxtowe, which is very much in the same spirit as amendments 23 and 82 and would insert the word “manipulated”. I hope we will debate it because, if accepted, it would certainly improve the safeguards in the Bill.

[Naz Shah]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Lady. Just to put it out there, to begin with on amendment 23, the Court of Appeal, in the case of “Re T (Adult: Refusal of Medical Treatment)”, held that undue influence was relevant to medical decisions and said that doctors must check for it. Undue influence is about power imbalance, rather than outright coercion.

That brings me nicely on to the points we discussed in some detail yesterday. The right hon. Member for North West Hampshire talked about having a conversation with his family, with his wife and children and so on. I will give another example. Say there is a woman who has been the victim of domestic violence—we know this happens; we know two women a week are killed in this country, to this day—and she is subtly encouraged: “Sweetheart, you’ve got a diagnosis and the option is to have this.” There is a fine line, and the fine line conversation has been mentioned quite often as well, but I would rather stay on the side of caution with that fine line conversation when it comes to domestic abuse, coercion and the power imbalance in a relationship.

Let me come back to that woman or elderly person whose loved ones have the conversation—and they indeed have the conversation; it happens every day. Ask any victim of domestic violence. On average, it takes a woman 40 attempts to leave an abusive partner—that is the fact—because we do not even recognise it.

I know somebody who recently left an abusive partner—that took three years of encouragement because she did not recognise that what was happening to her was about power and control. It is when power is juxtaposed with vulnerability that there is the potential for abuse. That happens—it happens every single day. Victims of domestic abuse are not just younger people; according to Age Concern, over 375,000 older people are at risk of domestic abuse.

The abuse of people is a cancer in our society, and that very subtle power imbalance is where the fine line is crossed. Given that the Court of Appeal has ruled and is already saying that medics have to look out for undue influence, I would argue that amendment 23 actually strengthens the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley has repeatedly insisted that this Bill needs to be the tightest in the world. How does the amendment not complement her view? How does it not strengthen the Bill, to protect victims?

[Sojan Joseph (Ashford) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend mentioned domestic violence and vulnerable people. Do we not also need to think about the many people in hospital beds and nursing homes who may not have any relatives? They might get influenced or encouraged to choose this route by professionals because of the pressure on the NHS and hospices. Amendment 23 would strengthen the Bill in that respect as well.

[Naz Shah]

I would like to hope that that would never happen; I have a huge love of the NHS and of the people I know in it who make decisions every day, particularly given all the cuts—even more so, post covid. But there is that risk; I would like to hope that it is very small.

When it comes to mental health, the debate is similar to the one about capacity: it is the same conversation about whether something is fit for purpose. Just because something already exists does not mean that it will necessarily suit what we are doing here.

On International Women’s Day, the Minister for Safeguarding and Violence against Women and Girls, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), eloquently reads out a list of victims of domestic violence who have been murdered. There are two a week—I make no apologies for keeping coming back to this. Only yesterday, there was an article about women’s charities that support victims of domestic abuse citing their concerns. The amendment speaks to those concerns. How could it not be supportive?

I am not convinced by the idea that the amendment would introduce an element of jeopardy. People make decisions with their families every day. We sit and have conversations. I speak from a position of privilege—as we all do in this place, frankly. We speak from positions of privilege about how we could have these conversations with our families. But we know that inequalities exist and that some people do not have those privileges. We know that society is unequal. We know that domestic abuse, elder abuse and mental health issues exist.

In my constituency, it takes 14 months just to get a child and adolescent mental health services referral for a young person; I appreciate that we are not talking about young people. My point is that there is a real backlog in the NHS—in terms of waiting times and pain medication, for example. Palliative care is not equal, as I said yesterday. I am genuinely asking Committee members: which bit of the amendment can we not support?

[Sarah Olney]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful speech. She referred to an article she read yesterday about domestic violence in relation to the Bill; it may have been the article by Sarah Ditum in the New Statesman, which I also read yesterday. It cited two cases in which people had been on trial for murder and had pleaded mercy killing, or said that they had carried out the killing of their spouse or partner on the basis that that person was suffering greatly at the end of their life. In both cases, when the evidence was examined, the men were found guilty of murder, because it was very clear that that was what had actually happened.

The article had a profound impact on me, because it demonstrated the risk that we are running: that people will be able to use the Bill in instances of domestic violence. We have to take that very seriously and consider the implications.

[Naz Shah]

I thank the hon. Member for her powerful intervention. She is right: that was the article I mentioned. Reading about such stories does have a profound impact.

[Kim Leadbeater]

My hon. Friend is making some powerful and important points about, sadly, a lot of the ills in society, which we all deal with.

Let us take the example of a woman who has a terminal illness and is coerced and pressured by a loved one to end her own life. At the moment, we have no idea whether that has happened, because there is no legal framework around that dreadful situation. The Bill would create a legal framework, so that conversations would be had with that woman prior to that point and, hopefully, that point would never come. She would speak to two doctors, potentially a psychiatrist, and other experts to ensure that that did not happen. At the moment, there is no legal framework around that. The Bill also includes a criminal offence of coercion, for which someone could go to prison for 14 years. At the moment, that just is not there.

[Naz Shah]

I thank my hon. Friend, but I feel that the point is being missed. It is true that there is no framework, but for somebody to get to this point in the first instance they need to have a terminal illness. There is a framework around domestic violence, and domestic violence laws exist for everybody. Frameworks already exist for women fleeing domestic violence, and there is no shortage of attempts to try to get those legal frameworks right across society. That is why we had the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, why we have committed to halving violence against women and girls, and why the Prime Minister made a personal commitment in that regard—and rightly so.

There has already been a test case in which a judge said that medics have an obligation in this context. An hon. Member referred yesterday to assisted dying being a treatment, although I disagree, and we had that conversation later.

[The Minister for Care (Stephen Kinnock)]

That was a misunderstanding; I was talking about “treatment” as a legal term.

[Naz Shah]

No, I was talking about another hon. Member, not the Minister. We already have laws to protect people from domestic violence, but that does not mean that they necessarily access them.

[Daniel Francis]

From what I understand from the promoter of the Bill, the argument is that we should put these measures in place to protect from coercion people who have less than six months to live, but we would not put those protections in place for people who have nine or 12 months to live. If we are putting the measures in place for someone with six months to live, why are we not doing so for someone with nine or 12 months to live?

[Naz Shah]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. There has already been a test case, and the Court of Appeal has ruled that undue influence is relevant to medical decisions and that doctors must look at it. If that is already a ruling, I struggle to understand the resistance to adding the words “undue influence” to a Bill that, in the promoter’s own words, should be the safest in the world. A judge has already ruled on it. We already know that we are not going to get to a judge. I struggle to understand this.

[Kit Malthouse]

As the Minister pointed out, the concepts that the hon. Lady is trying to embed in the Bill are already covered by what is a settled legal interpretation and a framework that, over the last 10 years, has become used to dealing with those issues. Do not forget that families who are going through such situations will be advised and will examine the legislation quite carefully. I am nervous about injecting yet another level of consideration for them that might mean that conversations are interpreted—by them, but not necessarily in a legal sense—in a way that is not beneficial to the patient.

I understand the group that the hon. Lady is seeking to protect—that is what we are all trying to do. But what about the majority of people in such circumstances, who might say, for example, “Darling, I am thinking about taking an assisted death because of my horrible disease. If you were me, what would you do?” If I then say, “Well, painful though it is for me, I would do exactly the same thing,” how would families interpret that?

I also want to respond to the hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford. He made a strong point, but I am not sure he is exactly right. I think that if at nine months I have a disease that is progressing, and somebody in my family says to me, “When it comes to it, Kit, you have absolutely got to take an assisted death. We really want you to,” and then when I get into the six-month period I do, and I tell the doctor, my interpretation is that would be covered under the Bill.

I think what the Minister was eloquently trying to establish was that we have to be careful about the clarity of the legal language, and not make it embroidered in a way that makes interpretation by laypeople as well as by lawyers more difficult and complicated. I will come on to this in the next grouping, but we must not use language in a way that skews behaviour, or that makes what should be healthy and fulsome discussions within families guarded and nervous.

[Naz Shah]

I have to respectfully disagree with the right hon. Member that this is a settled position. I also challenge, on the record, what the Minister said. I struggle to understand how the Minister and the Government can say that this is a settled position without having gone to consultation on the Bill and without having an impact assessment. That does not satisfy me. My role when I agreed to be on the Committee was to come in to scrutinise and help strengthen the legislation. In doing so, these are the things that I am pointing out, because the safeguards are not strong enough for me.

I come back to the Court of Appeal. This would be a medical intervention, albeit to end somebody’s life. It would be administering a lethal drug to end somebody’s life, and it would be done by medics. Medics are involved in every stage. If there is case law that has already established that doctors have to look at undue influence in medical decisions, then I say to every single person on the Committee: what are we resisting? When the Court of Appeal has already said so, why is the Committee debating keeping this language out because it makes things complicated?

Let us go back to the words of Dr Jamilla Hussain, who gave evidence to the Committee. She is a clinician, and she absolutely accepts that there are some people who would really benefit from this law. As a clinician, she wants to get there. Indeed, I spoke to Professor John Wright, and he said, “Naz, absolutely—this is where we need to be.”

[Sean Woodcock]

My hon. Friend is making a very powerful argument. She is absolutely right to focus on protecting the vulnerable people who this law might apply to. She has touched on medics. I also want to mention the state and its role in what we are talking about. For example, I am opposed to capital punishment, and I link this discussion to that because we are talking about the state providing an individual with a method by which they can end their own life, such as by handing them a pill. I am concerned that, if we are not taking these safeguards seriously, we are abandoning vulnerable people by allowing the state to aid and abet the misuse of the Bill against them. Does my hon. Friend share my concerns?

[Naz Shah]

I share my hon. Friend’s concerns about the Bill not being tightened and fit for purpose. We cannot afford for those people to slip through the net. One woman’s death is one too many. One older person’s death is one too many. That is the bar we have to set.

I come back to the words of Dr Jamilla: she said, “Yes, absolutely.” Every single Committee member, and anyone familiar with this debate, found it heartbreaking to listen to those who came in to give testimony about how members of their families died. Those stories will stay with us forever, and rightly so. That is why, in principle, I am supportive of where we need to get to with the Bill. However, as Dr Jamilla said, we cannot get there by ignoring this big lot of people with vulnerabilities and inequalities, who would absolutely need this legislation. We need to fix the inequalities first.

Let us be honest: as legislators, we know that we will not fix every ill in society, otherwise we would not need a police force. We would not need laws if everybody behaved as they should and supported each other. However, it is incumbent upon us, as legislators in this place, to try our best.

Nobody came to this Bill Committee thinking it was going to be a walk in the park. We certainly did not know that we were going to get evidence throughout it, and plenty of challenges are popping up. We came to this Committee—I came new to the subject—because it is of such importance. I sat in the Chamber for five hours on Second Reading, bobbing, but I did not get the chance to speak—and that happened to another 100 colleagues, who also did not get to speak. However, those who made contributions—whether they were for the Bill, concerned about the Bill or were clearly not going to support the Bill—did so because they feel very strongly about it. That is our responsibility.

I come back to amendment 23, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Reigate: we should really consider adding it to the Bill, because that would strengthen it. The amendment does not dilute the Bill, and it does not add another hurdle given that the Court of Appeal has already said that there is a responsibility to look for undue influence. I do not understand the resistance to the amendment, which I will support.

[Jake Richards (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

This debate has been very interesting and has reminded me of my life before being elected. When I was a barrister in court, I was often junior counsel and, by the time I stood up, all the best points had been taken. I feel a bit like that this morning.

I have some observations, the first of which is on what is in the Bill currently. My central submission is that the Bill does more than enough in this area, and that simplicity is what is required, especially when dealing with very complex and difficult subjects, which coercion is. There are two sides to the coin of coercion: one is about acts by third parties, such as family members or society at large, and the other is the individual making the decision.

Clause 1 is clear that, as part of the assessment made by the doctor, judge or panel, the person must have

“a clear, settled and informed wish to end their own life”

voluntarily. That precisely echoes words from the Crown Prosecution Service guidance on whether to prosecute that is currently in operation. That guidance has been in use for some time, and it seems perfectly rational and logical to continue that.

The focus of the assessment should be on the individual and whether they make the choice freely. Clause 1 makes that clear, and I presume purposefully echoes the language from the CPS guidance. It then says it must be established that the person has

“made the decision that they wish to end their own life voluntarily and has not been coerced or pressured by any other person into making it.”

That must of course be read with clause 26, which introduces a new offence:

“A person who, by dishonesty, coercion or pressure, induces another person to make a first or second declaration, or not to cancel such a declaration, commits an offence.”

That carries a sentence of up to 14 years in prison.

[Naz Shah]

I am trying to understand the expertise my hon. Friend is speaking from. Was he a criminal barrister?

[Jake Richards]

I am very happy to share my CV afterwards. I practised as a barrister mainly in family law and Court of Protection law, but back in the day I also practised criminal law as a very junior barrister in the magistrates courts up and down the land.

I do not want to delve into the criminal element too much, because we are on clause 1, but it appears to me that the criminal offence set out in clause 26 is far stronger than the Suicide Act 1961, which talks of an act of encouragement. That is not included in clause 26, which talks about inducement—a much more holistic and wider concept than that of an Act probably drafted back in the late 1950s. In my submission, that brings the law far more up to date with modern concepts of coercion and pressure.

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[Jake Richards]

I did not draft the legislation, but my understanding is that the reason why the word “dishonesty” appears in clause 26—I do not know whether the Minister wants to comment on this—is that when there is a criminal offence, there needs to be a mens rea. The person who has committed the offence needs to have been intentional or reckless in doing so. As I say, I was a criminal barrister only very briefly; I am sure my law tutors are shaking their heads.

[Naz Shah]

The principle of statutory interpretation means that by mentioning one thing, we exclude others, so it is my understanding that having the terms coercion and pressure in the Bill excludes undue influence. Will my hon. Friend, who has clearly gone through this in detail, also comment on the fact that section 2A of the Suicide Act says that encouragement includes pressure?

[Jake Richards]

With respect, I think my hon. Friend is wrong: it is certainly not an exhaustive list of factors to be taken into account. The courts—this is why we have a common law system—interpret the language used in legislation.

[Naz Shah]

To build on that, I referred to the Court of the Appeal earlier, but when it comes to someone giving their organs, I think from the age of 12 or 13—I will try to find the reference—the words “undue influence” are used in the legislation. It comes back to the crux of my argument; I would like to understand why my hon. Friend is so concerned, from a legal perspective, about putting in the words “undue influence”, when they already appear in legislation.

[Jake Richards]

The issue I have is that if we open the door to all different types of terminology, it will never end. The law is best served when it is clear, simple and straightforward.

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[Juliet Campbell]

rose—

[Naz Shah]

In response to the intervention of my hon. Friend, we are here to make the Bill as safe as possible, but this is a new thing. When the Bill returns to the House, I have to make a decision on whether to support a new Bill that is of such huge magnitude to our communities and the whole country. This Committee is the only process available to us, and words matter.

I support the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe. The concept of manipulation, as she set out, is very important. I come back to the issue of abuse, particularly in respect of women. I have never heard the phrase “Fifty Shades of Manipulation”—that is an interesting one—but this happens every day, across society. I encourage people to talk about these words. We, as parliamentarians, benefit from that: we are better people for understanding other experiences, because different people bring different experiences to this conversation. I have certainly learned a lot, and it strengthens the House itself when we speak from positions that we have debated. That is the whole purpose of us being here. I am not concerned by talking about adding language—I hope my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe shares my view—because that is point of us being here in the first place.

[Juliet Campbell]

To reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud, I understand that the writers, promoter and sponsors of the Bill want it to be as simple as possible. The thought is that if we make it as simple as possible, there is less room for confusion and misinterpretation, but there are times when we can make things so simple that we allow far too much interpretation. Words such as those that the hon. Member for Reigate wants to be put into the Bill are really important. Manipulation is really important. Coercion and pressure are not measures of every type of controlling behaviour that happens to individuals.

[Juliet Campbell]

I thank my hon. Friend for looking that up so swiftly. I still think that those additional words need to be included in the Bill. “Coercion” and “pressure” are used as a catch-all for manipulation, but the Bill does not allow people who are using it in their everyday life—doctors, clinicians, nurses and social workers—to understand that.

[Naz Shah]

I thank my hon. Friend for being so generous with her time. To come back to the CPS’s terminology, does she agree that, in an ideal situation, the Bill would be so safe that we would not need to look at that CPS definition? The Bill would be so tightly defined that nobody could be prosecuted for coercing somebody into taking the option of assisted death.

[Juliet Campbell]

I absolutely agree that we do not want people not to understand what the Bill allows them to do or not do. We spoke earlier about making the Bill simple enough for professionals to understand so that they know how to deal with particular instances, but it is not here to make life easy for professionals; it is here to ensure that anyone who is vulnerable—anyone who has six months to live, or for whatever other reason—is protected.

A continuous theme of our debates and all our conversations is that we must make safeguarding as tight as possible so that people are protected. I believe it is not too much to ask to include those additional words to ensure that the wording is as tight as possible and protects the people who need our protection every single day.

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[Danny Kruger]

The risk of gaming—of patients playing the game, and doctors seeking out words to say or not say—is an issue throughout the Bill. That is a general problem with the Bill; thankfully, it is not just a free-for-all. However, in the scenario that my right hon. Friend suggests, that is exactly my concern: if the patient says that their spouse agrees with them or encourages them, that should be a red flag. Under the current Bill, it is not clear that it would be. There is no obligation on the doctor to record that there has been undue influence or to push back, because at the moment, the doctor is looking only for evidence of coercion. As I will come to later, that bar is too low to use, so if the doctor hears those words, I would like him or her to start asking questions, to push back, and to satisfy himself or herself that there has been no overt encouragement or undue influence. That is the point of what we are trying to do.

[Naz Shah]

To come back to an earlier point—I want to make these points, simply because it is really important that we get them on the record—my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley talked about undue influence and encouragement perhaps being archaic terminology. However, just last year, the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 cited undue influence, as did the Anatomy Act 1984. Acts passed by Parliament in the last few years have used that terminology, so does the hon. Member for East Wiltshire share my concern about the resistance to having those words added to this Bill?

[Danny Kruger]

The hon. Member is absolutely right—undue influence does exist in law, including in laws that have been passed very recently. I recognise that the hon. Member for Rother Valley is not impressed by laws that are more than 10 years old, but I hope he might be satisfied that a law passed last year is sufficiently up to date and modern for him to regard as morally valid. Undue influence is an existing term, and we should apply it in this case.

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[Danny Kruger]

I am sure that the hon. Lady will acknowledge that those investigations will still happen, because not everybody who commits suicide will be subject to the Bill; not everybody who is terminally ill and wants to take their life with the assistance of their loved ones will be caught under it. I am sure she acknowledges that it is therefore still appropriate to have safeguards against assisted suicide outside the law—in fact, the Bill strengthens those safeguards. Those will still continue. I also regard it as appropriate and necessary to have a law against assisted suicide, for all the reasons that we have been discussing.

The hon. Lady is right that it is appropriate for Parliament or the authorities in general to ensure that cases such as those we have discussed, and that have been powerfully testified to us, are handled sensitively. In an overwhelming number of cases, the police do handle them well and sensitively. It might be that we need to improve the guidance around prosecution, and that is an important question. I certainly do not want the families of people who have taken their own lives to be harassed and chased through the courts, and I think we would all agree on that. In that respect, the guidance for the CPS and the police will always evolve.

[Naz Shah]

The hon. Member may recall that we heard from the former head of the CPS in the oral evidence sessions, and I asked him whether the Bill would address concerns about such prosecutions. I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley that we want to address that. However, this Bill is not the route to address those issues unless they fall into that six-month bracket.

[Danny Kruger]

I think that is right. I do not accept the claim that this Bill is somehow a response to the problem of abuse, coercion or the pressure to end life in families. Tragically, in jurisdictions that have an assisted dying law, the number of unassisted suicides—suicides that happen outside of the law—go up, because no law can catch all the people who might want to take their own lives. Thankfully, there is no blanket support for any assisted suicide; all the jurisdictions have some restrictions.

More significantly, if the state said that some people’s lives are not worth living and that it is an acceptable choice for them to end their own life—which is not what the current law says; we have legalised suicide, not actually endorsed it—by passing a law that endorsed the choice of some people to take their own life, we would be sending a signal that we agree that some people’s lives are not worth living. The social consequence of that is clear in the evidence from other jurisdictions: suicide in the general population goes up as a result of an assisted dying law.