Assisted Dying

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) for the very sensitive way she opened the debate. I also commend the powerful speeches we have heard so far.

I oppose the view expressed in the petition, essentially for the following reason: if we were to legalise assisted dying, we would impose an awful moral dilemma on every conscientious frail person nearing the end of their life. We have probably all known a number of such people. They have a lot of anxieties at that stage of their life. They worry very much about being a burden on their children, needing care from them and consuming resources that their children would otherwise inherit. If ending their life early were legally permissible, many who do not want to end their life would feel under great, probably irresistible, pressure to do so. There is no way to stop that happening.

[Sir George Howarth]

Knowing my right hon. Friend as I do, I know he is sincere in his views. He talks of the group of people who are at the end of their life and might feel under pressure to conserve the inheritance of their children or not to be a burden on them, but there is another group, rarely talked about, who put pressure on their parents or loved ones to stay alive. They do so out of love. Would he accept that both sides, more often than not, act out of love, rather than for venal reasons, so does not one argument cancel out the other?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I accept wholly the point my right hon. Friend makes. I think a lot of the people I am concerned about, and expressing a worry about, are deeply loved by their children but do not want to put an undue burden on them. I am not saying that those children want to hasten their death or anything like that. I do not think that is often the case, although occasionally it might be.

I do think that conscientious and frail elderly people will feel that they ought to avoid being a burden, and they will feel a pressure to end their lives prematurely as a result. I would say that we ought not to impose such a burden on vulnerable people nearing the end of their lives. The penalty that would come from doing so would be significantly greater than the considerable benefits we have heard set out in the debate.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Member give way?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I will make a bit more progress.

In setting out this view, I am mindful of the stern instruction we all received last week from the National Secular Society, which wrote:

“Dire warnings about the coercion of disabled, elderly, sick or the depressed can mask true motivations for opposing a change in the law…disguising religion objections as secular concerns, rather than seeking ways to mitigate potential risks of legalising assisted dying, opponents can exaggerate the risks, weaponising them to spread fear.”

The National Secular Society will probably regard me as one of the guilty parties here, but I do not think the concerns I am expressing are apparent only to religious people. Disabled people’s organisations have been very clear—in the interests of all the people they represent, and certainly not on any religious grounds—that legalising assisted dying would be a deeply damaging change. I think they are right.

[Matt Hancock]

I have heard that argument made a couple of times, and I respect the associations involved, but how would the right hon. Member reflect on the fact that, according to polls, 86% of people living with a disability are in favour of a change? That figure is greater than in the population as a whole, so I do not understand the point he is making.

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I have not seen the polls that the right hon. Member refers to, but I think it is the case that all the major organisations representing disabled people in the UK oppose this change in the interests of their members.

There are good and compassionate arguments—we have heard a number of them—in favour of the change that the petition calls for. I do not agree with those arguments, but let us be clear that they are not the only arguments for the change. In some minds, they are clearly not the decisive arguments either. As we have been told, in some countries where the change has been made, it is explicitly about saving the health service money.

My party introduced the national health service, which is our proudest achievement. It needs to be adequately funded. The fact that it is not being adequately funded at the moment must not become an excuse for giving up and accepting that painful deaths are unavoidable. Instead, as all right hon. and hon. Members have agreed so far in the debate, we need to invest in palliative care, where there have been big advances and where there could be many more, and to ensure that adequate care is provided to everybody who needs it.

I agree with the organisation Care Not Killing that we want

“a funded policy for comprehensive hospice, community and hospital specialist palliative care services across the country with a duty placed on NHS trusts to ensure these services are made available to all who need them.”

I visited my local children’s hospice on Saturday—we have heard from a number of Members who have made such visits—and it had a fête to raise funds, because it is struggling for cash. In my view, it should not have to do that.

“In Place of Fear” was how Nye Bevan summed up what had been achieved in founding the NHS. Let us not give up now and decide that we can no longer afford the relief from fear that he rightly promised.

[Danny Kruger]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I cannot give way again.

We should renew our determination not to impose fear and an awful moral dilemma on frail and conscientious elderly people approaching the end of their lives, and insist on modern palliative care for those who need it and a properly funded health service that supports living.