Assisted Dying

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2024 Westminster Hall

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

Living with terminal illness is distressing and difficult for the person involved and for their family and friends. The cases we regularly hear about are truly moving and evoke the highest degree of compassion. When and how someone passes from this life is challenging and a very emotional topic.

When I raised this issue in Parliament back in 2011, I expressed my concern about how the practice of withholding water and food in order to accelerate someone’s death had been deemed lawful in court, although I was relieved that after the Neuberger review that was effectively stopped across the country. Assisting or encouraging suicide is a criminal offence under section 2 of the 1961 Act. That Act was updated by the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, and there was an attempt then to change the law to make assisted suicide legal in this country.

I was not in the House at the time of the 2009 Act’s passage, but fortunately that attempt failed. What did come, though, were guidelines for the Crown Prosecution Service, put in place by the then Director of Public Prosecutions—now the Leader of His Majesty’s Opposition —which seem to have stood the test of time. Back in March 2012, when this House debated those rules, it voted against the proposal to make them statutory guidance while adding its support for palliative care and hospital provision.

There has been a lot of talk about how somebody comes to the end of their life, but there is an overwhelming difference between clinicians knowingly giving medication to help accelerate someone’s death—mindfully setting out to kill—and giving something that may help deal with the pain. However, I think such ethical issues need to be considered as stand-alone Bills. Unfortunately, there are too many attempts to make quite significant changes to ethical issues through Government Bills that are often rushed through, and so significant changes happen with very little debate, if any at all.

On 11 December 2015, 330 MPs voted against changing the law, which is three quarters of the MPs who voted that day. That was not an insignificant debate, and 70% of the House participated in that Division. Since then, no Member of Parliament has come forward with a Bill for the House to consider, either through the ballot or by presenting a Bill. While I know that a lot of constituents would like a change in the law, I still think that the House would not make one. We have seen the issues that have put doubt into people’s minds.

Many Members have talked about the experiences of other countries. The evidence of the acceleration that has happened around the world shows exactly why we should not change the law. In Washington state in 2009, a quarter of people applied because they thought they were a burden. That rose to 59%.

[Fiona Bruce]

Is my right hon. Friend aware that, at the same time that this country’s Parliament voted against legalising assisted suicide, a different decision was made in Canada? In 2016, the first year of medically assisted deaths, 1,000 people chose to have one. By 2022, more than 13,000 people had availed themselves of that law, representing a 30% year-on-year increase.

[Dr Coffey]

My hon. Friend points out how this starts to increase quite significantly. It was also in Canada that a distinguished Paralympian who was looking for help with their disability was offered assisted dying as an alternative to adaptation of their home.

There has been a lot of discussion today about elderly people, but we are not just talking about elderly people. We are talking about vulnerable people. We are talking about people with disability. We are talking about people who could be taken advantage of to end their lives early and who may have that element of being considered a burden. People in this House have put forward the view of Matthew Parris that it is perfectly rational to say that you are a burden, and that you should potentially end your life. No one should feel such a burden on their family, their friends and society that they should end their life early.

While I will upset some of my constituents, I hold a different view from them on this matter, as I have done consistently, and I will continue to want to leave the law as it stands.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robin Millar]

That speaks to my concern about normalisation. If we introduce legislation that says, “It is acceptable to end life for a wider range of conditions”—the evidence before us in Scotland is that that interpretation is correct—we risk normalising suicide as a prescription.

[Dr Coffey]

My hon. Friend is making a perfect point in terms of clause 2 of the proposed Bill going through the Scottish Parliament at the moment. There is no mention of 12 months and no mention of a person dying at a particular time. It is simply about aspects of a condition from which someone is not able to recover and could reasonably expect a premature death. The worry that we have is the interpretation of the law. It has undoubtedly expanded around the world such that we have seen an increase in the number of people with assisted suicide.

[Robin Millar]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her intervention. I will conclude with this: we must never get to a point where assisted dying is seen as a prescription. We must never get to a point where we see death as a treatment.