Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Jonathan Davies and Ellie Chowns

Report stage
Friday 13th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ellie Chowns]

I thank the hon. Member for raising that issue and giving me the opportunity to speak about the detailed evidence given by my constituent Emeritus Professor Sam Ahmedzai, with whom I spoke at length yesterday about precisely this detail. I have reviewed a number of tables of data about this. Any substance has side effects but, as the comments made today have indicated, in reality those substances are being held to a far higher standard than substances routinely used in palliative care.

We have to recognise that there is a huge amount of evidence about the efficacy of the substances that are talked about in relation to assisted dying. There is a huge amount of published, peer-reviewed evidence about the effectiveness of those substances, and people like Professor Ahmedzai, who has 40 years of experience and is a global expert in this area, point out that we know how to assist people to have a peaceful, compassionate death effectively, and that is what the Bill is about: helping people who are terminally ill to die with dignity and to face those final moments with the support, love and care of their family around them; not in agony, but in whatever degree of peace is possible when facing death.

As the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Dame Harriett Baldwin) said, new clause 14, which relates to advertising, has been developed in consultation, as a result of concerns raised by opponents to the Bill, to try to ensure the crucial fact that assisted dying is not an advertised service. There is a crucial distinction between advertising and information, and this new clause will ensure that assisted dying remains a careful, clinical process and not something that would be promoted commercially. It is a balanced, cross-party safeguard supported by people on all sides of this debate.

[Jonathan Davies]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Ellie Chowns]

I am very short of time, so I think I had better continue.

Turning to new clause 15, which relates to the role of coroners, if the Bill is passed, assisted dying would be a very strictly regulated process—the choice of an individual; not a death caused by others, but by the individual themselves. As Aneez Esmail has pointed out, this would be the most scrutinised type of death in the country, and it therefore makes no sense to require another legal process at the end when there have already been multiple layers of scrutiny before the death.