Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Simon Hoare and Diane Abbott

Report stage
Friday 20th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

This may be the most fateful Bill that we discuss this Parliament. It is literally a matter of life and death. I have heard talk today of the injustices of the current situation. What could be more unjust than someone losing their life because of poorly drafted legislation?

We hear about panels. The people talking about panels presumably have not had much to do with them. I would not put my life, or the life of anyone dear to me, in the hands of a panel of officials. I stress, right from the beginning, that it is perfectly possible to support assisted dying, as I do, but not be prepared to vote for this Bill. There is so much that is problematic about it.

First, as I believe is widely understood, there has not been enough time to debate the Bill. Secondly, a Bill of this seriousness should be given more time.

[Simon Hoare]

Does the right hon. Lady find it rather peculiar that the previous Parliament spent 746 hours discussing the death of a fox and about 98 hours discussing the death of fellow humans?

[Ms Abbott]

There has been a lot of talk about there being no evidence of coercion, but within the family, the most powerful coercion is silence: it is the failure to answer when a question is put. If police cannot spot coercion in domestic violence, how can they be expected to spot coercion in assisted dying?

The Royal College of Pathologists and the former chief coroner have pointed out that without a role for a coroner, the Bill raises the possibility of foul play. When an amendment was tabled in Committee to deal with that, however, it was opposed. The Bill would allow private for-profit contractors to run an assisted dying service with no profit cap and no transparency, but when an amendment was tabled in Committee to deal with that point, it was opposed.

We have heard—and we will hear over and over again in this debate—about choice. This Bill may produce choice for those of us, like almost everybody in this House, who have for the entirety of their adult life been confident in dealing with authority and institutions, but even then, the Bill would need amendments. But what choice does the Bill hold for someone who, all their life, has lacked agency, particularly in a family context, which may be particularly the case in certain cultures and communities? And what choice does the Bill offer to those who lack access to good palliative care?

As the former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has put it, our law should not

“focus on the few who wish for assisted dying and do too little to support the majority of those facing their final days who want—and deserve—access to the best of palliative care.”

What choice is it for those who think that, because their doctor raises it with them at all, they are being guided in that direction? An amendment that might have addressed that issue was rejected in Committee. It is a possibility that proponents of the Bill do not take seriously at all, but anyone who knows how institutions work should be watchful of it.

I came to this House to be a voice for the voiceless—that has not always been favoured by my own leadership, but that is why I came to the House. Who could be more voiceless than somebody who is in their sick bed and believes that they are dying? I ask Members in this debate to speak up for the voiceless one more time. There is no doubt that if the Bill is passed in its current form, there will be people among the most vulnerable and marginalised in our society who lose their lives unnecessarily. I therefore implore the House to reject this Bill—not because I am opposed to assisted dying in principle, but because my concern is for vulnerable and marginalised persons and communities.

Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

Debate between Simon Hoare and Diane Abbott

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons
Monday 11th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms Abbott]

I accept the need for a programme that does what Prevent purports to do, but there is a danger. If we do not review the activities of Prevent, it may prove counterproductive in the very communities we want to work with. As for the question of local authorities becoming referral agents, at least the police have had some training in this matter, whatever we think of the programme, but local authorities have no expertise in counter-terrorism. The danger is that pointless referrals and what seems, I am afraid, to be useless deradicalisation counselling will snowball.

[Simon Hoare]

I am listening carefully to the right hon. Lady. Just to clarify, is she saying that she would review the Prevent strategy, or, given the data or allegations she has repeated—from, I think she said, a lawyer—that she would press the pause button on Prevent, stop it and invent something else? If it is the latter, what is the something else? I think that goes straight to the point made by the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker).

[Ms Abbott]

I said quite clearly that we would seek to review it. We could not at this point press the pause button, but the data we have about the effectiveness of deradicalisation programmes and what we know about how Prevent is regarded in some parts of the community means that we would want to review it.

One of the most worrying aspects of the Bill is the creation of powers of detention, interrogation, search or seizure without any suspicion whatever of crime, but simply while people are crossing borders. That is to treat anyone, British citizen or not, as a potential terrorist simply in the act of crossing the border. Such powers should be granted only with due care. All inhibitions on the rights of the citizen by the state must be based on evidence or reasonable grounds for suspicion. They must be subject to challenge—[Interruption.] I hope the House will allow me to conclude my remarks. If suspicion-free detention, interrogation and search is allowed, then it cannot be challenged. If there is no basis for challenge, there is likely to be no basis for detention. How does that accord with the Government’s claim to be building a new, global Britain?

Windrush

Debate between Simon Hoare and Diane Abbott

Wednesday 2nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms Abbott]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention. I was going to make that point in the course of my remarks.

The Windrush generation were the first cohort to come here, but then there was south Asia, Sri Lanka—there is a whole series of Commonwealth migrants who, unless the Home Secretary does what it takes, will suffer the same humiliation as the Windrush generation.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

At the moment the right hon. Lady has not said a word that I have disagreed with, and I thank her for how she has said it. She referred to an issue that will not go away. Another issue that will not go away is, of course, the issue of illegal immigration, which is absolutely embedded within this whole debate. Can or will the right hon. Lady be—

Investigatory Powers Bill

Debate between Simon Hoare and Diane Abbott

Tuesday 1st November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

I rise to speak to the group of amendments and to Lords amendment 15 in particular. I pay tribute to the work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), who did so much work, on a cross-party basis, to bring the Bill to its current position. However, we still need to investigate unfinished business concerning the relationship between various authorities and the media. That is why the Labour party fully supports the Lords amendments, particularly Lords amendment 15.

The Minister has told us about his landmark consultation, but we are baffled as to why it is needed when we already have the Leveson report, which had so much time, effort and expertise poured into it. It seems to me that the Minister’s vaunted landmark consultation is merely a stalling exercise.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is new to her position, as is the Minister. I served on the Bill Committee and she is right to point to the work that the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) did to build cross-party consensus on what could have been a difficult Bill to land. If the Lords amendments are ultimately rejected by this place and the other place caves in, will the Opposition continue to support the Bill, or will the hon. Lady use that as a crutch on which to base the withdrawal of their support?

[Ms Abbott]

We are not in the habit of artifice or crutches. Let us see what Members in the other place do with the Bill, and then we will make our position clear.

The Opposition have consistently called for the Leveson recommendations to be implemented in full. The public have waited long enough. In 2013, following extensive consultation with victims of press intrusion, a new system of independent self-regulation was agreed by what were then the three main political parties. It is therefore disappointing that Members in the other place have had to table an amendment, and that we have to debate it, to get the Government to honour their promises. It is disappointing also that the Minister calls legitimate amendments, which have been passed in good faith in the other place, blackmail. What kind of way is that to talk about our friends in the other place?

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Abbott]

I do not deal in supposition. Let us see what Members in the other place do with the Bill, and at that point we will debate it and the House will hear Her Majesty’s Opposition’s position.

[Simon Hoare]

I have heard the hon. Lady say in other places what a future Labour Government would deliver. That, surely, is a supposition. She should deal with the supposition in question.

[Ms Abbott]

When the hon. Gentleman heard me say those things, I was not yet shadow Home Secretary.

There were concerns when section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 was not commenced in summer 2015. The right hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), the then Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, was asked about it by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, but he refused to be drawn on it. He said at the Society of Editors conference in October 2015 that he was not minded to commence section 40. We believe that that is a breach of the cross-party agreement and that it breaks the promises made to the House and, perhaps even more importantly, those made to victims.