Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Peter Prinsley Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 29th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)]

I asked the ear, nose and throat nurse I have worked with for 20 years about assisted dying, and she said it is an essential change. There is no doubt in her mind. Like me, she has seen the unbearable distress that some head and neck cancers cause, and she knows of the very difficult deaths of some of our patients, despite excellent palliative care. It is this experience that has changed my mind. When I was a young doctor, I thought it unconscionable, but now I am an old doctor and I feel sure it is the right change.

I have seen uncontrollable pain, choking and, I am sorry to say, the frightful sight of a man bleeding to death while conscious, as a cancer had eaten away at the carotid artery. It is called a carotid blowout. I know the terrifying loss of dignity and control in the last days of life. I am speaking here of people who are dying, not people living well who have chronic or terminal diseases. We are talking about people at the end of their lives wishing to choose the time and place to die. This is not some slippery slope. We are shortening death, not life, for our patients. This is not life or death; this is death or death.

Coercion and manipulation have been spoken about and are no doubt feared, but the danger of no change to the law is a greater fear for those who are dying and wish to have choice. The very real fear of loss of dignity and control are at the heart of it. Do not underestimate that. There are strict safeguards in this tightly written Bill, and I fervently hope there will be the opportunity to refine them as it progresses.

[Steve Witherden (Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr) (Lab)]

Assisted dying is already occurring in unregulated ways, with up to 650 terminally ill people taking their own lives each year, often in traumatic circumstances, causing additional pain for their loved ones. The Bill promotes freedom of choice at the end of life in a controlled and regulated manner. Does my hon. Friend agree that legal assisted dying would provide essential safeguards where there currently are none?

[Peter Prinsley]

I thank my hon. Friend for that timely intervention. Some may say that we do not have the resources to introduce this change, and many may say that we must invest in palliative care, which of course we must. But I see assisted dying as complementary to, not an alternative to, palliative care.

[Melanie Ward]

My hon. Friend briefly mentioned coercion, and the well-held fears of many of us in the House about the risk of coercion, particularly for vulnerable people. What does he make of the fact that in Washington state, where the relevant law is restricted to terminally ill people like this Bill, last year 59% of those who went through with an assisted death did so because they feared being “a burden” to “family, friends or care givers”? In Oregon, the proportion last year was 43%.

[Peter Prinsley]

I respect my hon. Friend’s report of the statistics, about which I have no further information.

Colleagues know the gravity of the law that we are discussing and might feel that the moral weight of such a change is simply too great to bear; they may fear that our wisdom is insufficient. But I urge us to be brave today and allow the Bill to progress in this new Parliament.

Finally, a prison chaplain told me only this week of a gentle old man he met in prison, serving life for agreeing against every instinct in a last act of love to suffocate his wife, who was dying in uncontrollable agony. We are a compassionate people and we can do much better than that.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Peter Prinsley Excerpts

Report stage
Friday 20th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)]

As a young doctor, I would have found the measures that we are debating completely unconscionable, but now that I am an old doctor, I feel sure that this is an essential change. That is because of what I have seen over 45 years in hospitals. Our patients are at the centre of my thoughts as we consider this profound change.

We must of course invest in palliative care, and we have some of the best palliative care in the world in this country. Some will say that there are no limits to the comfort that expert palliative care can deliver, but that has not been my observation, particularly as I think about some of my patients with advanced, disfiguring head and neck cancers, and about the terrible loss of dignity and autonomy that I have seen. That is what people fear, and that is why I believe that we are right to give people a choice—a final autonomous choice.

I applaud the Bill Committee, and thank the many witnesses who contributed, for this is not easy work. The House has spent hours debating the amendments. The panel of the legal expert, the social worker and the psychiatrist will ensure oversight and scrutiny, and I have no doubt that this is better than a single judge, no matter how distinguished or wise. Family circumstances, free will and mental state will all be considered. I do not think we will see coercion to undergo assisted dying; families are more likely to talk patients out of it.

I call this a Bill to assist people who are dying. The measures are not for people who are not dying. People who are terminally ill may live for a long time. They are not yet dying, and the measures are for them until they are. All of us must make the very best of every day, whether our lives be long or short. Of course, that is especially true for those with a terminal diagnosis.

The vulnerable must be protected, and I believe that the Bill will indeed protect them—people who are disabled, and who have mental health disorders. Profound sadness as our lives are ending is quite normal, and clinical depression should be treated, but my observation is that the patients we are talking about are clear-headed and very rational. The idea that we risk opening a floodgate or some sort of mission creep is quite wrong. People will have a choice, and will make arrangements to be used only if needed. That will give final peace of mind—it is a final insurance policy.

Let me come back to the patients I have treated over my long career, and to the wise words of the nurse who has been my compassionate colleague for many years. She said this was an essential change. There was the matron who recalled the carotid blow-out of her patient as a student many years ago—an image that never left her. There is the absolute sanctity of human life, but we are not dealing with a choice between life and death; we are dealing with death or death. There is also the sanctity of human dignity, and fundamental to that is surely choice. Who are we to deny that to the dying?

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Peter Prinsley Excerpts

Report stage
Friday 13th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Gregory Stafford]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am conscious of those comments and will try to limit my remarks to new clause 13 and some of the amendments to it.

The Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Royal College of Pathologists, the Association for Palliative Medicine and the British Geriatrics Society have all said that there are problems with this Bill, and I have heard nothing from its sponsor, the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater)—despite trying to intervene on her a number of times—about what she has done to ensure that their concerns have been addressed. This brings us directly to a fundamental concern: namely, the means by which assisted death would be carried out under new clause 13. The impact assessment for the Bill recognises that

“The safety and efficacy of those substances used for assisted dying is currently difficult to assess”.

[Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Member agree that the barbiturates that we are considering are conventional agents? They have been used in anaesthesia to cause loss of consciousness and suppression of respiration for generations. These are not novel substances.

[Gregory Stafford]

I obviously respect the hon. Gentleman, given his medical background, but as far as I am aware those substances have not yet been used for murdering people, which is what we are going to do here. That leads me neatly on—