Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Viscount Eccles Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 22nd October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Eccles (Con)]

My Lords, that is a difficult speech to follow. My family home is over the hill from Vernham Dean; it is a lovely part of Wiltshire.

I think we all have an interest to declare in that we would all like to die peacefully; I am sure that I have that interest to declare. However, my provisional conclusion is that there is no tidy way of guaranteeing that this will happen. Autonomy does not do it because you cannot control the illness that you suffer from.

As we are considering legislation that is for everybody, the first thing is that we do not have a tidy solution to this dilemma. Principles are very valuable but not enough. It is the detail of the implementation of any legislation that lies at the heart of whether we have done a good job.

In 1936, the first voluntary euthanasia legislation Bill was in front of this House. Archbishop Lang concluded his speech by saying:

“I cannot but think that it is better to leave this most difficult and delicate matter in the hands of the medical profession… rather than… to drag it into the open and regulate it by elaborate official procedure.”—[Official Report, 1/12/36; col. 489.]


I suggest that the situation today is not dramatically different. If this Bill is passed, it would morph into a voluntary euthanasia Bill. In an age of social media and when things are very controversial and the controversy does not go away, we must think very carefully about the wider social implications on the medical profession, the NHS, and what might happen if one section of society or more decided that “This is for you, but not for me”.

Thank goodness that this House is good at scrutiny. When we are in Committee, as I hope we will be, we will consider these matters in great detail.