Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 29th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Kim Leadbeater]

I will take one more intervention.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

Is it not the case that the conversations that patients will have with doctors will bring out whether they have been coerced or are suffering intolerably? The criteria are about suffering, not whether somebody worries that they are a burden.

[Kim Leadbeater]

I agree absolutely. Those conversations, which are not taking place at the moment, are very important. I will make some progress.

There has rightly been a lot of discussion about palliative care in recent weeks, and I am convinced that a significant amount of that discussion would not have taken place without the introduction of the Bill. It is a long overdue conversation, and I am very pleased to see it happening.

I have met with the Association for Palliative Medicine, Hospice UK, Sue Ryder and Marie Curie, and last week I was delighted to attend the inaugural meeting of the all-party parliamentary group for hospices. I also attended the fantastic Kirkwood hospice, which serves my constituency of Spen Valley. I pay tribute to the dedicated staff and volunteers across the country in the palliative care sector, who do some of the most vital work in society. We must do more to support them, and I look forward to working with the Government and colleagues across the House in that important endeavour. That is why I have included in the Bill a requirement for the Secretary of State to report to the House on the availability, quality and distribution of palliative care.

Of course, assisted dying is not a substitute for palliative care—it is not an either/or. We have some of the best palliative care in the world in this country, and, when it can meet the needs of terminally ill people, it is second to none. However, when it cannot, surely the choice of an assisted death should be one component of a holistic approach to end of life care.

The comprehensive report by the Health and Social Care Committee, published earlier this year, found no indications of palliative care deteriorating in quality or provision in places where assisted dying had been introduced.

--- Later in debate ---

[Danny Kruger]

The hon. Lady makes a very important point. I will not get into the question of public opinion and the polling, because it is so contested, but there is clear evidence that the doctors who work with the dying—the palliative care professionals—are opposed to a change in the law by a great majority. They see the damage that it would do to the palliative care profession and services, and they see the danger for vulnerable patients.

[Wera Hobhouse]

I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman talks to us as a medical professional and we need to listen to his views. But is it not true that any medical assessment is an approximation; something that cannot be said for certain? For this decision too, we cannot be 100% certain, but that is life. We cannot make legislation that is 100% good because at some point we have to make a decision, on balance, whether something has merit or not. For that reason, we should vote for the Bill.

[Danny Kruger]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, especially for promoting me to the status of doctor; I am actually a charity worker and political hack by background. It is good of her to credit me with those skills—perhaps I should set myself up as a medical practitioner. She is right that medics and indeed judges have to make difficult judgments all the time. I think it would be very dangerous and inappropriate to give them the power to do so in this case.

The whole question of the six-month cut-off is very important. I acknowledge all the points that have been made, but there is another problem with the definition of terminal illness. Almost anybody with a serious illness or disability could fit the definition. I recognise that these are not the cases that the hon. Member for Spen Valley has in mind—of course they are not—but that is the problem with the Bill. All that someone needs to do to qualify for an assisted death—for the definition of terminal illness—is refuse treatment, such as insulin if the person is diabetic. In the case of eating disorders, a topic on which I have worked with the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), a person just needs to refuse food. The evidence from jurisdictions around the world, and our own jurisprudence, shows that that would be enough to qualify someone for an assisted death.

--- Later in debate ---

[Danny Kruger]

I am sorry if offence is given, but the fact is that the value of having a Bill in black and white is seeing what the law really is. What the Bill would do is amend the Suicide Act 1961. It would allow people to assist with a suicide for the first time. I respect the hon. Lady’s concern, but I am afraid we do need to use the proper language here.

The Bill’s scope is very broad. Members who think that assisted suicide for people with anorexia or other conditions that would not be regarded as terminal could not happen here should consider the young people in the UK today who are given a diagnosis of terminal anorexia and put on a palliative care pathway—essentially, assigned to death. Of course these are extreme cases—

[Wera Hobhouse]

rose—

[Danny Kruger]

I am not going to give way again.

There are a great many of these cases, I am afraid, and I mention them to show how wide open the Bill is. [Interruption.]