Assisted Dying

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2024 Westminster Hall

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

I thank you for your chairship, Sir Robert, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) for leading this important debate.

I am pleased to speak again on this issue to call for parliamentary time for assisted dying to be fully debated, and for MPs to have a vote on it. The blanket ban on assisted dying and on refusing terminally ill people the autonomy to make decisions at the end of their life forces them to suffer against their will while loved ones watch on helplessly. Some choose to avoid this fate and to seek assisted death abroad, but that comes at a substantial cost of some £15,000 to travel to Switzerland for that purpose, which highlights the systemic inequality where only those with the financial means have access to a choice over the timing and manner of their death. For the terminally ill, that should be a right, not a privilege.

That inequality forces many people who do not have other options to take their own life. Each year, up to 650 terminally ill individuals end their lives, with many more attempting to do so, often in secret and using unsafe methods at home. The lack of safeguards, regulation and oversight forces dying individuals to take matters into their own hands without adequate support for them or their families. As a humanist, I believe in individuals’ right to make informed choices about their own care and quality of life, and I do not believe that people should be forced into making horrible, lonely decisions to end their own life, something that the blanket ban on assisted dying in this country fails to recognise.

The legalisation of assisted dying for terminally ill, mentally competent adults must be introduced, with robust safeguards, to promote freedom of choice at the end of life. I reiterate: this is about choice. I agree that better pain management and much more support for palliative care are needed, but it is also about choice—if people wish to choose it. People deserve autonomy and compassion in their end-of-life decisions.

The public agree. Unwavering public support for assisted dying is exemplified by the 200,000-plus signatures on the petition calling for a parliamentary vote on this critical issue, and by the fact that reform is backed by the majority in every parliamentary constituency across Great Britain, including more than 60% of my constituents in Luton South.

I was encouraged to hear that the Leader of the Opposition has pledged to allow time for the next Parliament to consider assisted dying, if Labour were to form a Government. The public are counting on us as their elected representatives to ensure their right to freedom of choice at the end of life. As this is fundamentally an issue of dignity and compassion, we must use our power to alleviate the pain of thousands of suffering individuals and their families by ensuring a free vote in Parliament on assisted dying.