Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty First sitting)

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 11th March 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Naz Shah]

The truth is—I said this in my previous speech, which I will not repeat, as instructed by you, Mrs Harris—that neither of the safeguards is strong enough. As it was, the Bill was not strong enough—that has been recognised and changes have been proposed—but neither is the idea of a commissioner.

There is another great problem raised by this set of changes to the Bill: they seem likely to increase the prospect of group-think when it comes to members of the panel. I would argue that that danger has been greatly increased by the move away from the High Court judge model that was originally in the Bill.

When my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley introduced the Bill on Second Reading, she reassured the House that all assisted dying applications would have to be examined by a High Court judge. There were problems with that proposal, which is why she abandoned it. But there was one strength in making a High Court judge the arbiter: the Crown does not appoint High Court judges on the basis of whether they agree with assisted dying. We could all reasonably expect High Court judges to have a range of views on assisted dying; there is no reason I can think of that would mean that High Court judges, as a body, were biased in favour of assisted dying.

Something different will happen if a commissioner selects people to serve on these panels. Anyone serving on a panel will know that they will have to approve some applications for assisted death. We do not know how many applications for assisted death the Government expect to have. We also do not know how many social workers, psychiatrists and lawyers would be unwilling to approve any assisted death applications at all—I do not want to repeat myself, but I will be referring back to psychiatrists in another amendment. However, the number of psychiatrists who are strongly opposed to assisted death is very high, according the Royal College of Psychiatrists. We have also heard strong reservations expressed by the Association of Palliative Care Social Workers. Therefore, many professionals will choose not to sit on these panels, because they will not want to approve any cases. That means that some panel members are likely to end up dealing with dozens of cases per year. That poses the danger that some of the people who sit most on these panels will be advocates of assisted dying and will approve applications that other members may not have.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South and South Bedfordshire) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for discussing her view of the approach of the proposed panel members. Does she recognise that all three of those professions have professional requirements to act with integrity and in accordance with the law? It is highly unlikely that they will push forward, as she seems to suggest, and risk their professional accreditation.

[Naz Shah]

I am not questioning people’s integrity; I am putting it to the Committee that people have biases. We all have subconscious biases. We have things that we like; we know that that exists, whether it is a subconscious bias or a conscious bias. As human beings, we all have that. In this instance, I am suggesting that if we have members of a panel who choose to be there because they have a fundamental belief, which is different from that of those who oppose assisted dying, there is a risk of subconscious bias and group-think.

[Rachel Hopkins]

rose—

[Jake Richards]

rose—

[The Chair]

Order. I call Rachel Hopkins for an intervention, but we need to keep to the point and not labour one particular thing.

[Rachel Hopkins]

The point I was making was that no professional would want to risk their professional accreditation and career by allowing a complete bias to take over any decision making. In fact, I would suggest that some may want to prove their integrity by being involved in these decisions and making them in line with their professional practice.

[Naz Shah]

I disagree with my hon. Friend. Subconscious bias operates in society; this is not about being held to account. People are not doing these things deliberately, but because they have a subconscious bias.