Victims and Prisoners Bill

Lord Winston Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 31st January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions. I appreciate that this places the Minister in a somewhat interesting situation; yet again, he finds that the Committee is united on this issue, as I think we are.

As when I last spoke a few minutes ago, when I first read this amendment, I thought, “Oh, for goodness’ sake”. What is the problem with people having access to the transcripts of the case that affects them as victims? As this debate has proceeded, and I have learned more about the barriers and what happens to people—supervised listening and people discouraged from going into court to listen to proceedings—I feel even more that this is an important matter which would enormously strengthen our victims’ code and the way victims are treated.

Let us think about how every single word that is said in public in this place is available to watch, and re-watch if you really want to, and to read—the committee transcripts may take a little while to be published, but they are there—and how important that is for our proceedings and for us to be able to do our job so much better. It is not a difficult thing to do given technology today; it is not difficult for those things to happen in this place. Think how much more important that would be for somebody who was the victim of crime.

In many ways, access to information about the proceedings that affect them is symbolic of victims’ rights. I accept that child victims would need to be considered because, apart from anything else, we would not want a child to be able to be identified through transcripts of their proceedings, but it is not beyond our wit to sort that out. A pilot is good, but there is a matter of principle here that the Government will need to address.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, as my name has just been mentioned in this short debate, I will make a quick interjection and give the example of medical treatment of patients. It is extremely common to have a detailed conversation with a patient who has listened and apparently understood exactly what has been said, but then you find that they have understood nothing at all and are later really confused about their treatment.

Perhaps I may tell a very short story. I once had an extremely well-off woman who was totally infertile; she had no chance of a pregnancy. I spent an hour and a half talking to her explaining why this was the case and that there was no possibility of her being pregnant. However, 18 months later, she came into my clinic— she had flown in from another country—and said, “Dr Winston, I am pleased to tell you that, as you predicted, I am now pregnant”, and she was. I was a complete fool; I was wrong. It is really important to understand that, because this is a situation that happens quite often, and it is significant in terms of a court when you are very anxious.

Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Lord Winston Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 22nd October 2021 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Winston]

At end insert “but that this House considers that the bill should refer to euthanasia rather than assisted dying.”

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, is a great privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, for whom I have huge respect. In my career delivering babies, I have also seen some of the terrible and moving things she describes. I have great respect for her important speech and her great work in moving this Bill. But many noble Lords have received vast correspondence, and it is clear that there is massive public interest in this debate, as almost never before, and many misunderstandings about its implications, which can be seen from what has been written. It raises the most important moral question and needs clarity without euphemism. “Assisted dying” could equally be applied to palliative care, so the Bill’s title does not represent what is really intended. The word “euthanasia”—from the Greek “eu”, meaning well or good, and “thanatos”, meaning death—is what we are actually talking about.

I met a teenager in a school last week who asked me this question: do you think we should strive for a perfect society? She went on to ask whether that is really desirable. I said that, in an imperfect world, we have to do the best we can, and this is what we are to debate today. I hope that we do so in a respectful and thoughtful manner. I will say no more but will hear what other noble Lords have to say. I beg to move.

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[Lord Lipsey (Lab)]

My Lords, I am a complete unbeliever in religion. I raise the fact that in this long and very distinguished debate, religion has been the Banquo at the feast. We have hardly heard anything about religion, even from the Bishops’ Bench.

Like all noble Lords, I have received a tsunami of emails putting forward arguments why I should oppose the Bill. Some of the arguments are valid; some are not. I replied to many of them and asked a simple question: are you religious? Most answered. All those who answered said they were religious. Of course, religious people’s views on this matter are as valid as anyone’s—not more valid, but as valid—but I am disappointed that not one of them chose, on initially contacting me, to say that they were religious, allowing me to look at the argument from that point of view.

The other thing that worried me about this correspondence was how much of it contained—I do not know whether inadvertently or not—untruths. A whole lot said that a majority of doctors oppose euthanasia. I asked them for their evidence. First, they sent me a survey of palliative doctors, who were indeed opposed. That was very interesting, but palliative doctors are a tiny minority of doctors with a particular interest. When I pressed further, I was referred to a survey on what people wanted doctors’ organisations to recommend on this legislation. That is not about whether you are for or against assisted dying; it is about what the BMA and so on should do. In any case, the facts are quite clear: a narrow majority were against doctors taking up a position against this. It was a bit of fake news, I think.

As a non-believer, I do not pretend to understand—I can get elucidation afterwards—the theology that persuades so many Christians that suffering at the end of life is God’s will. I do not need to, because nobody wants to force assisted dying on anyone, whatever torture they are undergoing; I certainly do not. What I find so distressing is that these people, who I readily concede are of the utmost good faith, want to impose their faith on the rest of us.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

No, they do not.

[Lord Lipsey (Lab)]

The noble Lord says no. I am not saying it is all of them; I said many of them. Why he wants to do it, I do not know.

To many of us, choice in dying—dying in dignity—is an essential human right that individuals can opt for or not opt for according to their personal creed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

I just want to pay my deepest and sincere compliments to the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, whose humanity and speech were quite remarkable. We fully understand where she stands and have a huge amount of sympathy with what she says.

In moving my amendment, I was fairly careful to adopt a neutral position, but one thing in this debate that remains a problem for me is how it has been assumed that it is the autonomy of people who are dying, or are likely to want to die, that is at stake. The problem is that, in spite of what the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, said, it is about the autonomy of a lot of other people—health service workers, carers, people in the street, people who clean hospitals and, most importantly, our society.

It is very important that the people who have written to me—I have tried to reply to nearly all the letters, as far as I can, but there has been a vast number of them and it has been difficult—understand that there has to be further discussion of the Bill, that it should progress in the normal way and that the convention of the House, which is usually respected, is that we do not move amendments at the end of a Second Reading.

When we come to the next stages of the Bill—if we do—it is important to recognise that the Bishops’ Bench is extremely important in this. I am not a Christian—I am a Jew—but the influence the bishops have on the moral compass of this debate is extremely important. I am not going to deal with any cognitive geometry, as the Minister suggested, but it is not an argument about religion; religion is irrelevant. The debate is about how we understand what our ethical standards should be and how we maintain the ethics of our society. That is perhaps more important now than it has ever been before, with the problems, for example, that technology produces. Having said that, I do not want to detain the House any longer. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment withdrawn.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

House adjourned at 5.56 pm.

Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Lord Winston Excerpts

Friday 16th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, that was a very powerful speech. The Bill as it stands seems to me to involve no lack of clarity whatever. Clause 1(1) is perfectly clear:

“A person who is terminally ill may request and lawfully be provided with assistance to end his or her own life”.

What does assistance mean? Clause 4(1) is perfectly clear:

“The attending doctor of a person who has made a valid declaration may prescribe medicines for that person to enable that person to end their own life”.

There is no lack of clarity there. We may disagree over whether this is a desirable or an undesirable Bill, but the idea that people in the country do not understand the issues because of the wording of the Bill is simply fanciful.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, with great respect to my noble friend Lord Pannick, I disagree, and totally agree with the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill. There is another issue beyond clarity here. One of the issues that was raised at Second Reading and, I think, on the first day in Committee was the concept that fragile and possibly deranged, angry and distressed elderly people coming into hospital have of the nature of their status as patients. The use of the word “suicide” brings clarity for them, because it makes a very big difference to medical and nursing practitioners, who can quite clearly see that they will not be involved in a process of assisted dying. It is, effectively, suicide, and that limits any notion of how they might feel when they feel that somebody is not really worth supporting in hospital. This is a major problem and will become an increasing one. We see the increasing difficulties in the health service when dealing with cancer care at the moment and the provision of drugs. There will be pressures on budgets and increasing pressures on patients who will feel under pressure to take a decision that is not entirely theirs. I therefore support this amendment.

[Lord Mawson (CB)]

My Lords, I agree with the previous speaker. I do not believe there is clarity in the country about this matter at the moment. This is the first time I have spoken in Committee on the Bill, and I think I was the only person at Second Reading to draw attention to the practical implications of the Bill for modern multicultural Britain. Today in this country we are privileged to share our lives with virtually every nationality and culture on earth. This is a great privilege but also a considerable responsibility when it comes to the life and death issues captured in the Bill. It is from within this context, having spent the past 31 years working in the East End of London, that I speak today.

On an issue as sensitive and as important as the state helping people in modern Britain to sign their lives away, it is very important that the national debate about these matters is carried out as fairly and objectively as possible, so that British people can make balanced and informed judgments about these important matters that affect both them and members of their families. One of my primary concerns in speaking today is to ensure that the hard facts are all on the table and can be seen in the clear light of day. In that regard, the words we use in the Bill and what we mean by them really matters when we have to translate their meaning and purpose into the languages and dialects of every nationality on earth—but more of that later.

The Second Reading debate in your Lordships’ House and the first day in Committee demonstrated the House at its best and brought to the surface the very real, practical and complex issues for all to see, if only members of the public were allowed to both hear and see them. This House, packed as it is with so much experience and knowledge, is probably the only place in the country where a debate such as this can take place in a way that addresses the detail in all its glory.

That said, I have been concerned during the process of this debate in the country that some of our media, which have a responsibility to educate and inform the general public about all sides of this argument, have simply gone into campaigning mode. It would be interesting to ask how many of the journalists and commentators have actually read Lords Hansard and dug down into the issues with us, and then honestly and fairly communicated their findings. This issue sadly lends itself to lots of sentimental stories on all sides, but the hard realities are far less palatable in a media-driven age that skims across the surface of our lives.

I am concerned that much of our media are not covered with glory with regard to setting out clearly the complex choices and practical issues that need to be understood if members of the public are to seriously engage with the issues and make informed choices on this matter. I have tested this at home with members of my own family and got the sense, before they were encouraged to look further, that, for them, going for this injection would be a bit like going to the optician or dentist. Of course, the dentist analogy carries with it far more personal experience, I suspect, and fear.

There have been considerable sentimental stories about individuals in our media who, of course, have gone through terrible times, without the necessary balance given—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Dobbs]

The Bill is nothing to do with going off into a corner and getting someone to assist you in a death like that. This is a totally different legal and medical environment. We will all die.

[Lord Winston]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord, who has been constantly interrupted, for giving way yet again. Very briefly, does he not accept that many noble Lords have had well written letters from numerous people who are very confused about the nature of what is being proposed? That is one of the problems. Many of them with confused elderly relatives are worried that they are at risk. It is very clear that there needs to be the kind of clarity that the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, has talked about.

[Lord Dobbs]

That is precisely the sort of clarity that the proponents of the Bill wish to bring about. We are trying to change the law and any change in the law involves in the short term a degree of confusion. But once the Bill has been passed, as I know it will be eventually, I believe that the country will clearly understand what this is about. If we look at the way that this is being operated in other parts of the world, such as Oregon, there is no confusion.

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[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for that intervention. If they have been misinformed—it is not the diagnosis of the disease that is wrong but the prognosis—and they then take the lethal drugs, they are not there to outlive the wrong prognosis.

[Lord Winston]

I might be able to assist the noble Baroness’s arguments slightly. Is not the whole House aware of one of the most famous cases, the person accused of the Lockerbie bombing? He was examined by numerous doctors, in particular Karol Sikora, who is probably the leading cancer expert in the country, who, after great consideration, considered that this man had only three months to live. He was therefore allowed to leave the United Kingdom. In fact, I think he survived for either three or four years.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for that illustration, which is very clear and well known to all Members of the House. It is for that type of reason that I have proposed the removal of the word “reasonably” from Clause 2(1)(b) of the noble and learned Lord’s Bill.

A number of clinicians have tried to predict prognosis—for instance, whether to take the risk of a heart or lung transplant, and when to introduce palliative care in non-cancer services for the frail elderly. However, they have found that they just cannot determine time. Prognostication is reasonably accurate on the population level but, as the noble Lord, Lord Winston, has just illustrated, it is not accurate at an individual level at all. It is no better than tossing a coin. Indeed, different studies have shown that a prognostication expecting someone to live for more than a year is not too awfully wrong. Similarly, expecting somebody to die within a month is more likely to be accurate than inaccurate. However, in the interval in between you honestly could toss a coin on it. It is for that reason that I suggested that, if the prognosis in the Bill really is to deal with those people who are distressed during their dying phase, the prognosis section should be shortened to six weeks.

There are other aspects to prognostication that I will point out to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer. The national clinical director for end-of-life care told the commission that he chaired that predicting the course of a terminal illness is “fraught with difficulty”. In 2004 the RCGP made the same point to the Select Committee chaired by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay:

“It is possible to give reasonably accurate prognoses of death within minutes, hours or a few days. When this stretches to months then the scope for error can extend into years”.

The Royal College of Physicians, giving similar evidence, said that,

“prognosticating may be better when somebody is within the last two or three weeks of their life … when they are six or eight months away from it, it is actually pretty desperately hopeless as an accurate factor”.

More recently, we have seen in the report from the inquiry into the Liverpool care pathway, chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, how prognoses of death within 48 hours have sometimes turned out to be wrong. The report called for further research into improving the accuracy of prognosis within the last weeks to days of life.

Yet, in the face of all this evidence, we are being asked to consider legalising assisted suicide or assisted dying for people with a prognosis of six months. The only conceivable explanation is that that is what Oregon’s assisted suicide law says. However, Oregon’s law has been shown to be fallible in the matter of prognosis. Oregon’s own data show that the time from the first request to death by whatever cause, whether through physician-assisted suicide or natural causes, ranges from 15 to 1,009 days, which is two years and nine months. Washington’s data show that, among those being given a prescription for lethal drugs and therefore expected to die within six months, the range was three to 150 weeks. I note that, in every year of that legislation since it has been passed, patients have lived well beyond 24 weeks or six months. The percentage ranges from 5% to 20% of a request for death.

The plain fact is that prognosis of “terminally ill” is highly unreliable over a range of six months. The DS 1500 has been used as a way to allow patients to access benefits rapidly, without having to go through assessment hoops. However, as those who have filled them out know only too often, it is only a guesstimate. Very often, patients vastly outlive the prognosis. We have had to have difficult conversations about how they should now go through the complete assessments. I tabled a Question to ask whether the Department for Work and Pensions collected data on the DS 1500. Unfortunately, it does not. It would be interesting to know for how many months that benefit had been drawn.

The plain fact is that this is unreliable. As a practitioner in the field, I can count the number of terminally ill people whom I have treated. I have not tallied them up among the thousands that I have looked after, but I could bore this House for weeks with the number of clinical stories of people who were expected to die within six months and who stayed alive for much longer. Those are the reasons behind these amendments. I hope that those who are arguing sincerely that the Bill aims to try to improve the dying process in those last days and weeks of life will seriously consider that they are asking people to make a prediction on which there really is not a scientifically accurate basis.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Lord Winston Excerpts

Monday 20th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I apologise for coming in just after my noble friend Lady Meacher had started speaking, due to traffic congestion. I am most grateful to her for having put the amendment so clearly. I endorse the point that nobody, but nobody, thinks that wilful neglect is all right. It is not all right. It is not to be allowed to even happen let alone condoned. The problem is that the burden of proof on the individual and on the organisation that employs them has been set at different levels as the clauses are currently drafted. The requirement is to prove gross neglect for an organisation but that had not appeared in relation to the offence committed by the individual. The difficulty is proving intent.

I had a meeting with the Minister at which he spent a great deal of time—I am very grateful to him—and he replied fulsomely with a long letter following that conversation. I remain unconvinced that the Bill will not effectively result in healthcare professionals being hung out to dry—that was a phrase I used before and I use it again—by an organisation that does not support its clinical staff adequately when serious complaints come in. At the end of the day, it is not wilful neglect but it is interpreted and viewed by understandably distressed relatives as neglect of their relative who may have suffered serious harm within the system or become extremely ill because of the progress of the disease. Although the work conditions for the staff have made it extremely difficult for them to function well, they have not been guilty of wilful neglect.

I stress that I do not think this applies only to nurses and doctors. If a physiotherapist or an occupational therapist declines to comply with a request from a patient or their family, that could be interpreted by the family or patient as wilfully withholding something that they feel they need. There is then some unintended adverse incident further down the line that was not predicted and the complaint goes against that healthcare professional. No one should underestimate how damaging it is to a healthcare professional to have a complaint made against them, and how most extremely conscientious healthcare professionals can feel quite destroyed by a complaint. However, an accusation of wilful neglect that goes to the police would certainly destroy somebody’s professional reputation. Even if it proceeds no further, they will find it very difficult to shed the trauma of that experience of being referred to and investigated by the police.

I hope the Minister can clarify exactly how intent will be interpreted and implemented, and how it will be proven that an organisation has intent to neglect patients. I suggest that the organisation can prove that it did not directly intend to but, actually, if it is really badly managed and is not supporting its front-line workers, it is neglecting patients because it is not allowing its staff to do their duty properly. However, I can see that such an offence would be very difficult to stick anyway. Certainly, if the burden of proof is higher for the organisation than for the individual, as I said before, I foresee that people will be hung out to dry.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, I hope I will be forgiven a short interjection on the amendment, which I fully support, particularly the points raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Meacher and Lady Finlay. Perhaps I can best illustrate the point I want to make by telling a true story to the Minister, who I know is a very compassionate man. I think, like me, he will feel extremely angry about this particular incident within our health service.

My next-door neighbour was ill for years with Parkinson’s disease and, eventually, was so incapacitated that he had to be taken into care because he could not be looked after at home. His wife reluctantly saw him go into care. When eventually he became comatose, he was admitted to the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead. His wife went to visit him every day while he was comatose. She used to speak to him and a nurse came up and said, “Madam, I don’t know why you are speaking to him because, of course, he can’t hear a word you are saying”. The nurse did not recognise that an unconscious patient is often fully capable of hearing and at least mentally responding if they cannot physically respond. In a sense, that is a pretty neglectful issue.

After a while, my neighbour’s wife—I should say that her husband has since died—then went to the nursing station and said, “My husband has not been washed or shaved for five days. He is lying in bed in a very dishevelled state and I feel very unhappy about this”—she is a very polite woman. The nurse in charge said, “That is not my job. I have nothing to do with that”. She was then rather cursorily directed towards a ward orderly. She said to the ward orderly, “I wonder if there is any possibility that my husband could be washed and shaved”. The orderly simply said to her, “That is not my priority at the moment”.

Does the Minister feel that that is wilful neglect? It seems to me to be a question of definition. I am sure that he feels, as I do, that this is not a criminal offence and not suitable for punishment with imprisonment. It is certainly suitable for a reprimand and for proper management in a ward of a teaching hospital.

Sadly, this kind of incident is not rare. It goes on all the time and goes on particularly, as we all know, in wards with distressed, elderly people, some of whom are sometimes completely irrational and sometimes mentally disturbed and wandering. Often they are treated with grave disrespect at the least—and often they seem to be treated with a good deal worse. I do not believe that that is wilful neglect, but if this amendment is not passed or some form of it is not accepted, there is a real possibility that people who should not be in court and should not be charged by the police may find themselves charged with a criminal offence. That would be absolutely wrong and very bad for our National Health Service.

Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Lord Winston Excerpts

Friday 18th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, this is an eloquent and emotional debate. It has to be emotional because, essentially, the decisions that we make in this debate are largely emotional ones. Unlike the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, I do not think that this is a small Bill; it has massive implications. I have spoken before in your Lordships’ House about the experience of my mother. She was a brittle diabetic who, in the last six years of her life, was regularly admitted to hospital, often unconscious, in various degrees of decay. She was a brilliant woman, an amazing public speaker, a great mayor of a borough of London and an extraordinarily good thinker. But no one would have thought that had they seen her in bed in one of our local hospitals. She was never in a single hospital; she went to at least three during her diabetic episodes. What I am going to say about her experience under the National Health Service is not specifically directed at any one hospital, it is a universal experience, which is widely seen by many elderly people who cannot impress themselves on others in the ward.

In the four-bedded ward where she was last admitted, two patients were lying in their own excrement and urine for at least an hour, even though when I was visiting I pointed it out to the nursing staff. Food was supplied, but not actually fed to the patients who could not feed themselves. In my mother's case, she often missed her insulin as a diabetic and of course not having regular food did not help her diabetes. Drugs were frequently not given. But the key issue is shown very simply by a matter-of-fact thing that we see again and again with old people who are addressed invariably by their first name and not given respect in hospital as old people.

The problem is the attitude of staff, and attitudes such as this will get significantly worse with the increasing pressures that we are bound to have in healthcare in our National Health Service. No matter what the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, has just said, you cannot regulate against attitude, nor can you regulate against the attitude of patients who feel increasing anxiety in hospital or when they are not well.

Perhaps I might indulge myself briefly to tell noble Lords about my mother's death. For the last two or three years of her life we decided absolutely, given that there was modest and not inadequate medical care, that we would leave her at home and see to her ourselves and rotate regularly being with her. There was a 40-minute moment before her death when my mobile phone rang and it was my youngest son, Benjamin, who was with my mother in her bedroom. He said, “Dad, I don't think Granny is very well”. “Tell me what is wrong”, I said. He said, “She’s not speaking”. I said, “It’s possible, Ben, that she might have died”. He said, “What do I do?”. I said, “Stay there. I will drive as fast as I can and will be with you in the next 30 to 40 minutes. Just stay with her. You’ve been immensely privileged and so has she because she loved you very much and you are the last person she saw and she is the first person you have seen in this situation”.

I got there, and my point is that we have been talking intensively in this debate about the dignity of a planned death. I do not believe in that planned death being dignified. There is much more dignity in many ways in being able to ensure that people wherever possible die with their relatives around them in an unplanned death in the way that my mother died, with her youngest grandson present.

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[Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)]

My Lords, I have been in your Lordships’ House for nine months, and this is by far the most important subject to have come to us in that time. I support the Bill because I believe in the principle that, with the right criteria and with the right safeguards and procedures in place, people who wish to end their lives should be allowed to make that decision for themselves. It should be their choice, and I am uneasy about saying to them, “No, you cannot decide this for yourself. We know better”.

Of course, I respect and understand the concerns that people have about the Bill. I understand, but do not accept, the argument that although the Bill could bring relief from intolerable suffering for individuals, there may be wider adverse consequences for society. I understand the fears that some people have about the “thin end of the wedge”, although I think that issue lies firmly in the hands of Parliament. I also very much understand that people have concerns about the details of the Bill. Are the safeguards strong enough? Are the procedures sufficiently precise?

However, today, I want to touch very briefly on one aspect, which was triggered by an article in yesterday’s Telegraph by the Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Mirvis, who opposes the Bill. He said:

“There is no greater value in Judaism than the sanctity of life … It is a gift from God and it is not ours to cut short. Life has an absolute value”.

He carefully used the word “absolute”—in other words, it is not qualified or diminished in any way and not relative. I stand to be corrected, but I have no reason to believe that the Chief Rabbi is a pacifist and I presume therefore that he believes in self-defence. If one believes in self-defence, you have to decide at what point the taking of life is justified to defend life; and, in deciding that, you engage in some form of utilitarian calculation. I question the Chief Rabbi’s use of the word “absolute”; as the noble Lord, Lord Alli, said earlier, there are no absolutes. Indeed, as we all know, there are many distinguished people with deep religious convictions, and many in this House, who support the Bill.

When the Chief Rabbi says there is no greater value in Judaism than the sanctity of life, we understand and totally respect that he would never contemplate ending his own life—

[Lord Winston]

Has it occurred to the noble Lord that self-defence is the preservation of life?

[Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury]

I understand that. The point I was making was that when you engage in self-defence, you are in the process also of risking and taking life for that objective. That involves a calculation.

When the Chief Rabbi says there is no greater value than the sanctity of life, we understand that he would not contemplate taking his own. But are these people who could never contemplate taking their own lives because of their convictions saying that people who do not share those convictions should nevertheless be bound by them? Surely not, if you believe in religious freedom. All of us have our own moral beliefs, and it is society’s job to decide where morality and the law should overlap and then to shape the law accordingly. That is what this Bill seeks to do.

The Bill is so important, and the practicalities so crucial, that it needs to be scrutinised in detail. I hope therefore that it will receive a Second Reading.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Winston Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

The amendment in my name is, as the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, has said, slightly firmer in that it leaves out the words “where practicable”, and asks that a constituency shall exist,

“which shall include the whole of the City of London”.

It does not mean only that, but it should certainly include the City of London. I have to confess that when I read the amendment in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Brooke, Lord Jenkin and Lord Newby. I did not understand it, which is why I tabled this amendment. I wondered at that time, “Dick Whittington, where are you when we need you? What is happening to the City of London?”. I was then taken to one side and it was explained that the amendment that has just been spoken to is in effect the same and is to preserve the City of London.

As the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, has said, the City of London has been a special case for longer than anyone’s memory, even in this sage House. Its rights and privileges, including its entitlement to parliamentary representation, were provided for in the Magna Carta, a copy of which I believe hangs behind where the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, is sitting—or not quite; I have just been corrected on the geography. The Magna Carta specifically allowed for the City of London’s privileges, which were preserved by an Act in the thirteenth century.

The present Bill removes the current bit of legislation that is set out in the 1986 Act, which requires there to be a constituency that includes the whole of the City of London and the name of which shall refer to the City of London. It has continued for centuries, not just more recently, as a constituency. Recently, however, the words “City of London” have to form part of the name of a parliamentary constituency. Even these words were inserted into the name of the GLA division, which is now, I think, City and East London. More recently, as has been mentioned, in 2000 the rules for redistribution of seats again preserved the constituency.

There is also the interesting constitutional point, which has been touched on, that the current Bill has been characterised as a constitutional measure and accepted as such by being taken on the Floor of the House in the other place. The early 1297 Act is also a constitutional measure, as has been mentioned, but there has been no provision to amend that.

There are, as has been referred to, many legal arguments. I will spare the House the details that I have here. What is interesting, as far as it affects this House, this Committee and the Bill in front of us, is that the existing provision for a constituency that will include the whole of the City of London, as well as the name, will cease to exist if the Bill is passed. It will not automatically mean that the City as we know it will be split, but it allows for that as an outcome, because there will be no preservation of the boundaries around that. It is important for this House to consider some of the same comments that were made earlier, in the case of the Isle of Wight, of an island surrounded by water.

[Lord Winston]

I am finding it quite difficult to understand the noble Baroness’s argument, simply because there is so much chatter around her. I am sure that it would be courteous to her if we listened to the argument that she is presenting to the House.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

I am grateful for that bit of advice, because I was finding it extremely hard to speak.

Historically, there has been a recognition, including in the boundaries, that the City of London is a special geographical area, that its boundaries are special and that that uniqueness should be recognised in the way in which the boundaries and the name of the constituency exist for election to the other place. The Bill would put an end to that and to the special nature of the City, which it is recognised should be a special part of the voice in the other place.

It is as important to take account of locality and the commonality of interests, which we have discussed, in this particular locality as in many others—as with the Isle of Wight. In the City we have an area with very special sorts of employers, its own police force and mayor. It has its own museums and theatres, too. When I was a member of the Financial Services Consumer Panel, I worked very closely with the financial world and took great recognition of how the City plays host to and is an ambassador for that financial part of our community. Of course, it has a small electorate, but for local elections it has a much larger one that is not recognised in the parliamentary boundaries. There is a recognition that, with the number of people who travel to work there and the identity of interests—it often has to talk to the Government—it is a very special area. It is also special in that it talks to the European Union, particularly on some of the negotiations over solvency or other things that different parts of your Lordships' House discuss at other times. This needs its own political representation.

Noble Lords might not expect to hear any of that from someone from this side of the House, but the issue is one of locality. It is similar to the commonality of interests, which I believe the drawing of boundaries for parliamentary representation should respect. I tabled Amendment 85C to recognise that special area at the very centre of the capital—of this great city of ours. We would be wise to preserve those boundaries, not necessarily as a single constituency but to ensure that the whole of the City is within the same boundary and that the name “City of London” remains with that constituency.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

That was a very accurate, rather long and not very helpful intervention from my noble friend. I ask everyone here to forgive him for it. I forgive him as well, because he has gone through a very painful experience. The football club that he supports—the lesser of the two Edinburgh clubs—when we were struggling through debate here the other night was beaten by lowly Second Division Ayr United in the Scottish Cup. So he is suffering a little and we understand that. In his lifetime and my lifetime—that is quite a long time for both of us—Leith and Granton and Newhaven have all been part of the city of Edinburgh. He was a distinguished member of the Edinburgh City Labour Party.

[Lord Winston]

Surely this is one of the best arguments for the complete separation of Scotland and England.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I will have to be very careful because I am not a nationalist and I do not want to do anything that would argue the case for separation, but the city of Edinburgh has a great history, as I am sure my noble friend would agree. I think there is a very strong case for it having five separate constituencies. My noble friend should take account of the fact that I am currently an elected representative for an area that includes the city of Edinburgh. I am putting forward my argument today because I have been approached by the four Labour Members in the city of Edinburgh, who represent four of the five constituencies and who feel very strongly about this. That includes Mark Lazarowicz, whose constituency includes Leith.

Because of the growth that I was describing in the Leith area we expect about 25,000 additional residents on the waterfront and Newhaven. Creating five constituencies in Edinburgh would in no way breach the plus or minus 5 or 10 per cent thresholds that we have discussed earlier—certainly not 10 per cent and probably not 5 per cent. It would allow those five constituencies to be agreed within the one local government area, the City of Edinburgh Council. Other constituencies in Scotland, apart from the Western Isles and Orkney and Shetland, which have already been dealt with, could be dealt with moving out from Edinburgh, creating them one after the other as we move around Scotland.

I hope we can give this kind of guidance to the Boundary Commission. If we are able to take special account of the special needs of the Isle of Wight, I hope we will also take account of the special needs of the city of Edinburgh.