Assisted Dying

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2024 Westminster Hall

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) for her introduction to the debate.

When Frank Field spoke in one of the first major debates on euthanasia, he told the story of how Barbara Wootton, who founded the national assistance scheme, made him promise that were she in hospital with a terminal condition, he would empty her medicine cabinet and bring her all the things that together would make a poison so that she could end her own life. She lived perfectly conscious in hospital for six months and never did that.

On 22 October 2021, Frank Field had just come out of a hospice and was reported as saying that he had changed his mind: in the past he had been against euthanasia, assisted dying or medical assistance in death—however one wants to call it. He said that two-and-a-half years ago. When I saw him over the last months, he did not raise the issue at all, so I think people can understand that people’s views are not always as intense as they sometimes appear.

I am a great fan of Dame Esther and collaborated with her—at least, she manipulated me when I was a Minister in 1986, when we were campaigning for a really good policy on child restraints in cars. Were she to put the case for better hospice care, she would do it with the same verve that we have heard her speak with on the broadcasters in the last few days. I would like to go on and debate with her, if she were willing. I would ask how many people the campaigners thought would qualify under the kind of terms suggested in this petition.

There are about 5,000 to 6,000 suicides a year in this country. Do people think we are talking about 100 people a year extra or 1,000? I put it to the people here that if we had a Dutch level of medical assistance in death, we would add 15,000 deaths a year—we would treble the number of existing suicides and, including the existing figure, take it up to four times.

People talk about the safeguards and conditions. There is a list of all the conditions and safeguards that other countries are taking away. It starts with, say, the people who cannot afford to go to Dignitas and expands to those who are depressed. All MPs and their staff know what it is like to try to help somebody who rings up or writes and says, “I’m going to do away with myself because of the condition I am in”, or says they will because of how they feel. We do not say, “We are in Westminster Hall debating making it easier for you to carry that out.” We say, “Can we talk? Can we pass you on to somebody else you can talk to? This help might make your life different and changed.”

I am at the sort of age that means that I am an orphan—my parents have died. My father died aged 93. After he came out of hospital having been badly shot up in the war, he did not spend another night in hospital for the rest of his life. He knew that he was dying. He had stopped eating and drinking. A few hours before he died he came out of unconsciousness and said, “Am I still alive?” When he was told yes, he said, “I’m so sorry”, and went back to sleep. He then died.

My mother died three days after a diagnosis. She had had the benefit of a wrong diagnosis six months before, so she lived her last six months happy rather than being mucked about in hospital. When she was told she would be dead within three days, she said, “Can we talk about the funeral?” My father said to my wife, “Look, Virginia, you are the Health Secretary—you are rather busy. Which day is convenient for you?” This was said in front of my mother—a perfectly normal conversation. I think conversations about death are ones we ought to have.

I conclude by telling the story of a member of my family who died last week. The hour-by-hour reports from those sitting with her in the care home, which had a hospice end-of-life service, and from those in my family would make a lot of people think twice before charging down a route that could lead to an increase in the number of suicides in this country by three times.