Coroners and Justice Bill

Several noble Lords have suggested that this is a narrow amendment. It is not a narrow amendment: it is about assisted dying. We heard this clearly from the noble Lord, Lord Low, a moment ago; he expressed with some passion what he hoped might be his options were he to become seriously and terminally ill. We heard this from a number of other noble Lords as well. This is clearly a question about what this country should be providing its legal system; that is what is motivating the amendment. The law may be unclear at the moment and some problems may need to be addressed, but there are many areas which are not clear in the amendment too. Attention has already been drawn to the lack of clarity about what terminal illness means, to the qualifications and nature of the doctors who have to provide the certification, and so on. If the law is unclear, tidying it up is not a reason for turning a major moral traffic light from red to green, to use the striking imagery that has been used. This is a stalking horse for a more fundamental moral question that we need to deal with head on in open and frank debates rather than in a way that almost makes that inevitable but in a hidden and stealthy way.