Coroners and Justice Bill

My Lords, like other noble Lords, I would like to speak on one small but none the less important part of this Bill, referred to in Sections 49 to 51, which seek to amend the Suicide Act for England and Wales and the Criminal Justice Act for Northern Ireland. These sections are designed to update the two laws in such a way as to outlaw internet websites that promote or encourage suicides. I am sure I speak for the whole House in condemning such unwholesome websites—they may well have been a factor in recent spates of suicides among young people—and in supporting the Government’s decision to tackle them. The subject of assisted suicide is a live one in the media at the moment, and there are those who wish to see it legalised for certain categories of people, such as those who are terminally ill or have chronic and degenerative conditions. As has already been referred to in your Lordships’ House this afternoon, we have debated this subject at length on three occasions during the past six years but have not been persuaded that a change in the law has to be made. The question of whether assisted suicide should be legalised is complex and controversial and, I suggest, not fully understood. I believe that this House has made its views firmly known, almost exactly three years ago to this day. Assisted suicide is far too important and complex an issue to be passed into law through an amendment to a Bill such as this which addresses a wide range of issues, and in which the Government’s proposals to amend the Suicide Act comprise just three clauses out of over 150. I hope therefore that the House will agree that it could not contemplate such a serious change in the law simply as a side issue to other legislation. There is one argument that the House may hear from those who want to see this Bill amended to legalise assisted suicide on which I feel I should comment. It has been suggested that there is a difference between malicious encouragement of suicide and compassionate assistance with it and that, while encouragement should be outlawed, assistance should not. This is, as I am sure the House will recognise, a wholly spurious argument. Yes, of course there is a difference between maliciously egging someone on to commit suicide and helping someone to do so who has asked for assistance in compassionate circumstances. But these are the extreme fringes of the spectrum. Most people who might seek assistance with suicide are in the grey area in between, and they are the ones who would be put at risk by an amendment designed to give licence for assisted suicide to a small minority of highly resolute people. The law is there primarily to protect vulnerable people from abuse—people who might seek assistance with suicide not because it is what they want, but as a result of pressures either from others or, more often, from within themselves. In any case, legalising assistance with suicide is tantamount to encouraging it. If Parliament were to say that encouraging suicide should be against the law but assisting it in certain cases should be legal, we would in effect be discouraging it for most people but encouraging it for others. What sort of message would that send from this House to seriously ill and other vulnerable people? I hope that your Lordships’ House therefore will support the Government’s amendments and resist any attempts to amend them further to allow assistance with suicide.