Assisted Suicide

Debate between Nigel Evans and Tony Baldry

Tuesday 27th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Having heard pretty much all the speeches this afternoon, I think there is an almost unanimous consensus on the DPP’s guidelines. On the one hand, the current law expresses and safeguards the fundamental principle of respect for life—everybody’s life—and on the other hand, the guidelines express the principle of compassion. I think there is a general agreement that the present situation gets the balance between law and compassion just about right.

During this debate a number of right hon. and hon. Members have said that the law should change and that assisted suicide should no longer be a crime. However, they should reflect on the role of doctors in all this, and what a difficult position any change in the law would place the medical profession in. The medical profession is clear on that point. In its evidence to the Commission on Assisted Dying last April, the Royal College of Surgeons made two clear statements:

“The law is it currently stands should not be changed and no system should be introduced to allow people to be assisted to die…The College does not recognise any circumstances under which it should be possible for people to be assisted to die.”

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff, who has been a hospice doctor for a number of years, reminded the other place that the Royal College of Physicians had made it clear that the doctor’s role

“does not include being, in any way, part of their suicide”.

Indeed, she observed that the guidelines put in place by the DPP have made it possible for doctors and patients to have better conversations, saying that

“conversations are now more open than ever before, ensuring that healthcare professionals work with their patients to improve living, to cease futile treatments and to support patients during dying. The vast majority of hospice doctors do not want physician-assisted suicide. The policy is clear, firm and compassionate.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 13 February 2012; Vol. 735, c. 632.]

In so far as it is humanly possible to get this right, it would seem that the law, taken together with the DPP’s guidelines, manages to achieve that.

We have not, however, spent sufficient time reflecting on the role of palliative care in easing the difficulties of people when they are dying. The fact is that, at some point, we are all going to die. The difficulty is that hospital medicine these days sees death as a failure, but we are all going to have to recognise that it is a reality. I suspect that, given the choice, we would all like to die at home. That is not always possible, but we spend very little time working out new ways of providing palliative care.

That is why I was pleased that so many right hon. and hon. Members from both sides of the House were able to attend the event in the House last week for Marie Curie Cancer Care, at which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health announced that the Government were funding a number of new pilot projects for innovative palliative care. That shows that the Government recognise that palliative care is not as good as it should be, and that a lot more needs to be done. Most innovation in this area in recent years has been done by the hospice movement—an excellent movement that is usually funded and run by volunteers—but we need to ensure that the national health service and all of us spend a lot more time focusing on how we can all, as far as is humanly possible, die well.

I salute my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) for tabling her amendment, and I think—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. To facilitate more Back-Bench contributions, the time limit is being reduced to four minutes.