Government Travel Advice: Laos

Tom Rutland Excerpts

Tuesday 20th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Jim Dickson]

I thank the hon. Member for that moving intervention. Our hearts go out to Kirsty’s family; it was a pleasure to meet her mother just now. I pay tribute to them for the work they have been doing since their loss. I agree very much with the hon. Member that more needs to be done to strengthen the curriculum, particularly to ensure that young people are aware of the risks involved in methanol. But there is much more that we think the Government can do, and I will suggest some ways in which they can do that later in the debate.

Following Cheznye Emmons’s tragic loss in Indonesia, Cheznye’s family, including her mum Pamela and her sister Measha, have been campaigning through their “Chez—Save A Life” campaign to warn of the dangers of counterfeit alcohol. I hope we can use this debate—I know other Members wish to participate—as an opportunity to widen awareness of the significant danger that methanol poisoning can pose. That is especially crucial for travellers heading to countries where organised crime, as I said, seeks to profit from using methanol as a cheap way to dilute spirits.

I hope that there will soon be progress in the case of the death of Simone and other tourists who died in Laos. I hope very much that those responsible will be swiftly brought to justice, but I know that the case is ongoing and the outcome is uncertain. I am optimistic that with the Government’s support we can take important steps to prevent more families going through what Simone’s family has experienced. I know they would like to see the dangers of methanol much more widely communicated, especially to young people and other inexperienced travellers heading out on those incredibly important first trips abroad.

In Australia, the Government are taking steps to increase awareness of alcohol-related risks in overseas travel and are launching a dedicated advertising push to reach young Australians. The Smartraveller hub is a website provided by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. It will roll out a specific marketing campaign to raise awareness and educate Australians on the signs of methanol poisoning and how to protect themselves from drink spiking, and on broader alcohol safety, as well as warning young people that they must travel knowing the risks and watch out for their mates.

[Tom Rutland (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. The case he raises touches the hearts of those across the world who have also lost loved ones in the tragic circumstances of methanol poisoning. Would he agree that it is imperative that we must build awareness of how to stay safe abroad among all those preparing to travel, regardless of their age, to ensure that these tragedies are not repeated?

[Jim Dickson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This issue does not just affect young people. It is important that we get messages across to young people, and I am suggesting a variety of ways to do that, but travellers of all ages could be at risk from methanol poisoning, and other alcohol tampering and spiking. I will also suggest some ways that the Government could deal with that issue.

I would like the Government, as part of their ongoing work, to reform the curriculum, perhaps through personal, social, health and economic education, and to consider how we can build awareness among young people of how to travel safely. If they are looking for inspiration, they might want to look at the Australian campaign and lessons on alcohol safety. I know that Simone’s friend Bethany currently has a petition on the parliamentary website to that effect.

I appreciate that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has updated the health section of the travel advice on its website, but I hope that we might be able to review what could be done to make the warnings clearer and more explicit, and that information more readily available. The Government’s Travel Aware website has an informative section on methanol poisoning, but could more be done to make that advice and guidance better known to young people before they travel? Someone really has to search for it to find it.

I also hope that the Government might explore whether one of the big players in the travel industry—we all know that big brand names are involved in the travel industry—might consider funding an awareness-raising campaign to educate travellers about how to stay safe as they explore. I look forward to the Minister’s response. I hope that she may be able to answer some of the questions I have raised, and further reassure Simone’s family that everything possible is being done to protect and inform young people of the dangers of methanol poisoning. I commit not just to listening to the response to this debate, but to continuing the campaign to make sure that the different parts of Government that have to work together to solve this problem genuinely do that.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Tom Rutland Excerpts

Friday 16th May 2025 Commons Chamber

“be given the ability to exclude themselves from the act of an assisted death.”

[Tom Rutland (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Lab)]

I rise to speak in support of new clause 10, which is about choice. In fact, the Bill is about choice: choice at the end of life and choice to have a dignified death. It is about a choice that is currently being denied to many in untreatable, excruciating pain at the end of their lives—a choice that the majority in this country would want for themselves.

New clause 10 is in that same spirit. It would offer practitioners a choice, by ensuring that there was no obligation on any person to provide assistance to a terminally ill adult seeking an assisted death. That includes those such as my constituent Aimee’s grandmother, who repeatedly asked her, “When will it end?” from the bed in her hospice, where, despite the best efforts of staff, they were medically unable to treat her constant pain and legally unable to make good on her wish to, in her own words, be helped to go.

The Bill allows doctors to choose not to participate in the assisted dying process if they so wish. The new clause would improve it by extending that provision to all registered medical practitioners, health professionals, social care professionals, pharmacists and pharmacy technicians. It would also make it clear that no person is under any duty to act as a witness or a proxy in the process. It would further amend the Employment Rights Act 1996 to ensure that no one could be subjected to detriment by their employer for providing assistance to those seeking an assisted death or for choosing not to do so. That is a good thing: it respects people’s choices.

Some will not want to aid someone seeking an assisted death because of religious or other principled objections, but some, like my constituent Karen, will want to. Karen wrote to me setting out her father-in-law’s terminal diagnosis of a brain tumour, his fear of losing control of mental and bodily functions as his condition progressed and his hope that the Bill would pass in time for him to benefit from it.

Karen is not simply a relative of a terminally ill person; she spent years working in palliative care, watching people lose their independence and dignity as a result of their terminal illness, with patients asking her how they could end the suffering for both themselves and their families. She was heartbroken to witness their distress and pain over days, weeks or even months, knowing that nothing could be done for them. In their painful final stretches, some felt suicidal and some felt a burden. For that reason, I must oppose new clause 16, which would rule ineligible for assisted dying anyone who is substantially motivated by a number of factors, including feeling a burden, or suicidal ideation.

[Sir John Hayes]

I am surprised by the hon. Gentleman’s objections to new clause 16, given that we have been assured throughout that the Bill would apply only to people who were terminally ill with six months to live. Is he really saying, therefore, that he does not want a new clause that would rule out from assisted death people who feel that they would be a burden on others, people with a mental disorder and people with a disability? His argument for choice is exactly the argument that in other jurisdictions has led to the expansion of assisted death to just those kinds of people.

[Tom Rutland]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention, because it allows me to continue making an argument that will address those points. First, substantial motivation is vague, undefined and legally imprecise. This new clause is a blunt instrument and an attempt to shut the door on entire groups of people accessing an assisted death. How would one establish what a substantially motivating factor in any individual case is? No motivation exists in a vacuum, and feeling a burden can co-exist with physical deterioration and untreatable pain. Secondly, if suicidal ideation is to think about dying by taking one’s own life, would that not encompass everyone considering assisted dying?

[Dr Sandher]

I think today of Norman Ward, who in 2020 shot himself while terminally ill because of the terrible pain that he faced. Does my hon. Friend agree that under subsection (f) of new clause 16, Norman Ward would have been unable to access the choice that would have ended his suffering?

[Tom Rutland]

I agree with my hon. Friend.

Similarly, I cannot support amendment 102, which would require doctors to ensure that there were no “remediable suicide risk factors” before conducting a preliminary discussion with the patient. There is no clear legal or clinical definition of the term “remediable suicide risk factor”, and the Bill already includes multiple checks on mental capacity and mental illness, including by independent doctors and a specialist panel. The vagueness of this amendment risks wrecking this much-needed Bill.

I emailed Karen again yesterday to ask if I could refer to her in this speech. Her father-in-law had sadly died in the time that had passed between her initial email and our exchange yesterday. The Bill was not passed in time for him and he could not benefit from it. However, Karen hoped that his story could make some small contribution to changing the law. There do not need to be more people in Karen’s father-in-law’s position, or in Aimee’s grandmother’s position—they can have choice at the end of life, and our brilliant palliative care workforce, like Karen, can have choice on the kind of care they provide too.

[David Smith]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Tom Rutland]

I am afraid I must make progress.

I therefore hope that Members across the House will join me in supporting new clause 10, strengthening the Bill and reinforcing the fact that choice, for patients and practitioners, is at the heart of this legislation, and I hope they will oppose the amendments and new clauses that would wreck the Bill and put that choice at risk.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Conflict in Gaza

Tom Rutland Excerpts

Thursday 20th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

I thank my hon. Friend, and I recognise the strength of feeling in the House about wanting to see, alongside Israel, a home for the Palestinian people that is safe and secure. However, as I have said to her before, we keep this issue under review, and we work with close allies such as France on these issues. My own judgment is that the moment will be right when there is a process that actually leads to two states. I had hoped that, as a result of the ceasefire back in January and our getting to phases 2 and 3, we were getting close to that process, and I will do everything I can to get us back to that place in the coming days.

[Tom Rutland (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Lab)]

Like many, I was horrified to see the resumption of airstrikes in Gaza and the loss of so many innocent lives this week. Civilians in Gaza and the remaining Israeli hostages, who were abducted in the appalling Hamas terror attacks of 7 October, desperately need a ceasefire back in place, and the hostages must be released. Will the Foreign Secretary join me in condemning comments from the Israeli Defence Minister, who threatened the total destruction of Gaza? Will he also be clear that the terrorists of Hamas can have no role in the future of Gaza?

[Mr Lammy]

Yes, I will.