On Friday 11 September I was present in the Chamber for the Second Reading of the Assisted Dying Bill. I have received a large number of letters and e mails on this subject; the vast majority of which asking that I oppose the Bill and leave the law as it currently stands. The debate was clearly a highly charged one in which many MPs spoke from their own personal experiences with deep emotions showing.
Of course I fully accept that suicide, assisting or encouraging suicide, assisted dying and euthanasia are all subjects on which it is entirely possible for people to hold widely different but defensible opinions. This is why the substance of the law in this area was not a matter of party politics but of conscience. Should the law in this area ever be altered, it is neither a matter for Government to decide nor a matter for the judiciary, but ultimately a matter for Parliament and therefore it was designated as being a free vote.
Everyone agrees that terminally ill patients should receive the highest quality palliative support and end-of-life care, and that they and their families should be certain that their end-of-life care will meet all of their needs. With that in mind I have welcomed the Department of Health’s End of Life Care Strategy which is intended to improve access to good quality palliative care and encourage the Government further to develop specialist palliative care and hospice provision.
I accept that there are imperfections and problems with the current law, but I think that these can be dealt with sensitively and sensibly without having a new law that actually brings in euthanasia. Although the DPP’s policy makes clear that assisting a person to die is still illegal, I remain worried that by not prosecuting those assisting in the suicide of others we will encourage demands for legalising assisted dying and euthanasia. The lives of the terminally ill and the frail are of equal value to anyone else’s. They deserve equal protection under the criminal law.
In researching for this important debate I noted that the vast majority of doctors and nurses, as well as those superb people who care for our relatives and friends as they approach the end of their lives locally in places like St Christopher’s Hospice, were against changing the current law. I took huge note of their views as they deal with such sensitive matters on a day to day basis.
In the debate itself I made one point and said: “If there is just one mistake, and one person dies who should not have done, this House will have failed in its duty”.
I know most of my postbag on this awesome matter asked me to vote against changing the law but I am equally aware that some letters and e mails from constituents urged me to go the other way. To those who wanted change to the law as it stands I apologise because I honestly felt I could not support that for the reasons I have outlined already.
I was one of the 330 MPs who voted against change. There were 118 who voted for it. Accordingly there will be no changes to the law.