Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Rebecca Smith and Simon Hoare

Report stage
Friday 13th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Smith]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention and I completely agree with him. These are the sorts of safeguards that even the promoter of the Bill is saying should be there. I do not think that they are in the Bill and my amendment to new clause 15 would make them much stronger.

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend is right in what she says. Those of us who are opposed to the death penalty, for example, are against it because we do not believe in the infallibility of the state. The state can get things wrong; professionals can get things wrong—and when they do, there should be a proven, clear path as to how that wrongdoing can be identified, to try to ensure that it does not occur again.

[Rebecca Smith]

I thank my hon. Friend. The statistics I quoted earlier are pretty clear on the point he makes. Let me make some progress.

The work undertaken by the coroner is not a box-ticking exercise or a bureaucratic hurdle. In the context of assisted dying, it is an extremely powerful deterrent against abuse and malpractice. Again, to quote Judge Thomas Teague KC, in a letter to The Times on 7 May this year, he said that the removal of

“any realistic prospect of an effective inquest...would magnify, rather than diminish, the obvious risks of deception and undue influence”.