Assisted Dying

Peter Gibson Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) on leading today’s debate and on her carefully considered speech. I also thank the 262 people of Darlington who signed this petition. In addition to those signatories, I have also received correspondence from constituents with views from both sides of this debate.

I am not in favour of assisted dying. At the age of 14, I witnessed my own father die at home, suffering from cancer. Although it would be simple to form the view that it would have been “better” or “easier” for him to have been able to choose his time of passing, it never once entered our family’s minds that that should be done while medication could eliminate the pain he was suffering.

As a high street solicitor handling the affairs of many clients who were sick, infirm or suffering from terminal disease, I regularly attended upon those who were contemplating the end of their lives and often took instructions in a nursing home or at a hospital bedside. This was a deeply personal and private role in speaking to people about the most intimate of family matters. This role also often allowed me observation of those closest to them. Although the overwhelming majority of families I met in such circumstances had their loved one’s comfort and wellbeing at heart, I have seen the most rapacious of family members seeking to manipulate. I fear that even with all the safeguards possible, such individuals could exercise the most sinister of coercion were we to permit assisted dying.

The death of my father could have led me to change my view about assisted dying, but it actually cemented a firmly held belief in the choice of the individual to die at home and of the importance of the hospice movement in ensuring that such deaths are good deaths. Hospice UK has estimated that since the beginning of the pandemic, more than 100,000 people have died at home without receiving the care and support they needed.

I declare my interest as a trustee of a hospice and as the co-chairman of the APPG on hospice and end-of-life care. When discussing matters relating to death, it is important that we listen to those in the hospice sector and understand that one in four people do not receive the appropriate palliative care.

With an ageing and growing population, we know that more people will die at home. Hopefully, they will die in their own bed, surrounded by their loved ones, just as we would all want. However, in order to ensure that such good deaths happen, as a society we must commit to ensuring that our hospice sector is properly funded and resourced.

The Government rightly provided massive support to our hospices during covid. I see my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock) here, and I thank him for his engagement and the support he provided to our hospice movement during covid. I believe that now is the time to ensure that the postcode lottery of hospice and palliative care is ended, with a long-term plan to support our hospices.

I fear that if assisted dying is legalised, terminally ill people may feel pressured into ending their lives. I do not believe that we should place anyone in that position. Such a change in the law would have a profound impact on the relationship of terminally ill patients with their doctors. While I have every sympathy with those who, for the best of intentions, seek this change, I do not support a change in the law.