Assisted Suicide

Richard Ottaway Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Richard Ottaway]

In the 24 years for which I have been a Member of Parliament, I have witnessed many dramatic debates in the Chamber, but this has been probably the most remarkable in which I have taken part. It has been a constructive and intelligent debate, featuring some unbelievably well-informed speeches. There have been no personal attacks on anyone—although I must confess that this is the first occasion on which I have been accused of talking cant, which I understand to be insincere talk about religion or morals; but we will put that to one side. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies), who said that we could disagree with each other with respect. That is what has happened today, and that governed the whole tone of his speech.

Without a shadow of a doubt, much the most moving speech was made by the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield). One could not help feeling for him and for his conviction. That illustrates the difficulty that Members have in addressing the most difficult of subjects. It is hard to imagine being in the position of those about whom we have been talking, but the hon. Gentleman came closest to it by far. I think everyone would agree that his speech was incredibly powerful. At the other end of the spectrum, I thought that the speech of my lifelong political friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) was also particularly powerful and impressive. By sheer coincidence, one speech followed the other, which made a strong impression on me.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), who has campaigned on this issue for many years. She has shown great courage in regard to a very difficult subject, and I congratulate her on what she has done over those years. I am also deeply grateful to the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Dame Joan Ruddock), who has taken much of the fire today. I think it important that she tabled her amendment, but I also think that at the end of the day, following what I think was an historic debate, she was right not to press it to a Division.

What I have endeavoured to do is build a consensus around a set of guidelines which I think command substantial support. They have compassion at their heart, and I think that if the motion is carried, it will be a small step for Parliament but a big step for a modern society.

Amendment (a) negatived.

Amendment made: (b), in line 3, at end add

‘and encourages further development of specialist palliative care and hospice provision.’.”—(Fiona Bruce.)

Main motion, as amended, put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House welcomes the Director of Public Prosecution’s Policy to Prosecutors in Respect of Cases of Encouraging or Assisting Suicide, published in February 2010, and encourages further development of specialist palliative care and hospice provision.

Dr David Kelly

Richard Ottaway Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

I am most grateful to the hon. Lady for her kind words. I appreciate them and I have no doubt that they will be appreciated by all those who have been involved in reviewing this case.

The hon. Lady raises a number of important points, which I shall do my best to answer. First, I very much hope for the sake of all concerned that this will produce finality, but it is absolutely right that if some new and compelling evidence were to come to light at some point in future that suggests that there might be something wrong in the original inquiry findings, it would of course be possible for the matter to be looked at again, as in the case of any inquest or inquiry. In that sense, there is no bar as a result of the statement that I have made today.

Secondly, the hon. Lady asked me to explain my legal powers a little. The background is that the inquest process was replaced originally by a decision of Lord Falconer to have an inquiry, pursuant to section 17A of the Coroners Act 1988. That decision was never challenged at the time—somebody could have done so if they had wanted to, and there is no reason whatever to suppose that there was anything improper about the decision. Indeed, as I understood it, the decision marked the seriousness with which Lord Falconer took the matter at that time, and it marked his desire to have an inquiry that would be capable of going further in its scope than an inquest, particularly in respect of looking at some of the surrounding circumstances, which an inquest would not be particularly well placed to do.

Lord Hutton did indeed look at those surrounding circumstances, but they were not really the subject of this review. The review arose from the representations of the memorialist doctors who indicated that they thought that the lack of certainty specifically as to the cause of death was such that I ought to exercise my powers under section 13 of the 1988 Act to make an application to the High Court for the inquest to take place—we may have to face up to the fact that no inquest took place, because it adjourned without being completed.

I do not wish to get involved in legal technicalities, but those powers are of a slightly technical nature. However, I approached the matter on the basis that if there was an evidential basis for calling into question the inquiry’s findings on the cause of death, I would make such an application, whatever the technical difficulties might be, because of my view that in such circumstances, the Court would be minded at least to find a way to allow the matter to be reinvestigated. That was the basis on which I operated. That we have taken some time and, I must say, a lot of trouble, to look at this matter very carefully is a reflection of the seriousness, in my view, of the allegations that were being made, and of the fact that the allegations were being made by apparently sensible and reasonable people. I am grateful to them for bringing those problems forward.

That is the basis on which I operated, but having operated in that way and having reviewed all the evidence—the hon. Lady has seen the schedule, which I hope will be helpful to hon. Members who go to the Library to look at it—I decided that the evidence was overwhelming that this was a tragic case of suicide, and that suicide caused Dr Kelly’s death for the medical reasons that were correctly identified at the time that the death certificate was made out.

[Richard Ottaway (Croydon South) (Con)]

As a member of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs that took evidence from David Kelly in 2003, I have never doubted that he committed suicide. I have always believed that Lord Hutton was right on that, even though his conclusions on the war have subsequently been challenged.

I have known the Attorney-General for many years, and I know that he will have done a perfectly thorough and diligent job. Will he accept that the evidence is clear, and that it is time to bring closure to this matter and move on?

[The Attorney-General]

I certainly think that the evidence is clear, and indeed that there is no evidence to the contrary—that point will be quite clear to anybody who looks at the schedule—in the sense that I could see perfectly satisfactory answers to every question that was raised with me, all of which led inexorably to the suicide verdict.

I agree with my hon. Friend. I hope that this will enable us finally to draw a line under the matter. It was clearly a matter of huge and legitimate public concern for a variety of reasons, and everything took place in a very difficult political environment. However, I believe that my review and its findings are very clear-cut. This was not a question of my having to make a balancing decision and coming down on one side or the other. I reviewed all the material, and the outcome is that it is quite clear to me that the original inquiry’s findings were correct.