Assisted Dying

Siobhan Baillie Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2024 Westminster Hall

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

I feel a heaviness of heart about this debate, in part because of my faith and in part because of the weight of seriousness of the issue and of ensuring that I represent the constituents who have contacted me in droves about it. I have not had a surgery in some time when someone has not come in about it. In a public question-and-answer session, a gentleman broke down in tears thinking about the death of his wife, and the memory of a lady carefully walking me through her experience of the death of her sister, culminating in a trip to Dignitas, and her description of that place, has never left me.

I have to say that, over many years of being the Member of Parliament for Stroud, constituents’ experiences have steadily changed my views. Arguments about choice, compassion and the ability to plan are very powerful to me, although my constituents know that I am careful in how I vote and I would need to see the legislation in front of me before making a final decision.

Constituents on the opposite side of the debate have also contacted me in a very powerful and thoughtful way. I refer to the article by Josh Glancy in The Sunday Times this weekend which sets out a number of the arguments that my constituents have also made. I will use my brief time to give the Chamber some examples of the very thoughtful correspondence I have had. A gentleman wrote to me:

“This is extremely personal to me and my wife…who has an incurable blood cancer…at the age of just 55. Neither of us want her to suffer the gradual progression through incapacity, pain and death without her being able to choose her time of death with dignity, whereas at present the only choice might be to travel abroad and seek an exit prematurely”.

Another gentleman, in a lengthy and thoughtful correspondence, talked passionately about his mother, a working-class Liverpool woman who became a curator at Historic Royal Palaces. I liked the fact that he said:

“You would have loved her.”

He said that the weeks of her illness were rather life-affirming. His mum considered taking her own life, as her best friend had done following a terminal diagnosis, but she did not and,

“later told us she was glad she hadn’t, because she would’ve missed out on the experience of so much love and goodwill from friends, family and carers.”

Yet she went on to plead for death in the final weeks. It took 16 weeks for her to die, effectively from starvation. I mention this gentleman because he said:

“When my Mum was dying”—

This is hard; we all get such emails—

“I promised myself that at the very least, I would write this letter, so that my bitter disagreement with the law…would be known. Thank you for taking the time to read it.”

I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Sir David Davis) that we need days of debate on this, with everybody involved. It has to be very well thought through.