Coroners and Justice Bill

The Committee has been fortunate to have been able to listen to an outstanding debate on a matter of the highest importance. The debate and amendment raised complex and profound issues. This afternoon we have heard, to our advantage, passionately held views on all sides. For this, I congratulate my noble and learned friend on tabling this amendment. However, as I indicated at Second Reading, it is the Government’s view that the Coroners and Justice Bill is not the appropriate vehicle to liberalise the criminal law as it applies to assisted suicide. I note from their letter in the Daily Telegraph on 29 June that the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, together with the Archbishop of Westminster and the Chief Rabbi, share that view. That said, my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton and his supporters are absolutely entitled to table this amendment and to ask the Committee’s view on it if they choose to do so. It falls to me to briefly set out the Government’s position. As I indicated in the debate on the previous group—in fact, I did not, because the amendment was not moved—the provisions in Clause 49 do not change the scope of the current law. Our aim is to simplify the law by bringing together two existing offences and to modernise the language to add clarity and understanding. Assisting or attempting to assist suicide would remain illegal. In contrast, it is our view that this amendment seeks to make a decisive shift in the law. The Government believe that any change to the law in order to decriminalise assisted dying is a matter of conscience and for Parliament to decide. As such, the Government do not of themselves have a position on the moral and ethical issues thrown up by the amendment. It follows that, on our side, too, this is a free vote, as it will be—and should be—across the Committee. However, taking a neutral position as the Government do on an issue of conscience is not the same as having no view. The Government must be concerned with the fitness for purpose of any legislation proposed. It is with that in mind that I turn to the detail of the amendment. Everyone knows what my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer is seeking to do in Amendment 173; I do not need to go through that. As the law is commonly understood, an offence under Section 2 of the Suicide Act is committed even where the suicide occurs abroad but only if aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring takes place in this country. However, aiding or abetting of suicide abroad is wholly outside our jurisdiction. So, in our view, proposed new subsection (4) is unnecessary, as indeed my noble and learned friend said in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan. My noble and learned friend has suggested that the current law is not sustainable given that the Crown Prosecution Service has failed to prosecute over 100 cases where people have been given assistance to travel to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland. However, in its judgment in the Purdy case, the Court of Appeal referred to evidence given by the Crown Prosecution Service that, as far as it could ascertain, only eight such cases were ever referred to it and all but one of those failed to meet the level of evidence required for a prosecution. Since that evidence was produced, one further case has been considered and not prosecuted on public interest grounds. As noble Lords will know, that case concerned the very sad story of a young man who, although tragically injured, was not in fact terminally ill. We are not talking about a long line of cases where the CPS has decided that there was prima facie evidence of an offence but decided not to prosecute. Everyone understands the motivation behind this amendment. We have nothing but sympathy with those who are faced with the sort of difficult choices that none of us would ever want to make. However, even the most limited step in this area is an important one—a crossing of a clear line. Setting aside the wider ethical issue, we have concerns about the proposed clause as drafted. My noble and learned friend dealt with the term "terminally ill" but we still have some concerns about that definition and, indeed, about the definition of "capacity" and who would constitute a close relative or friend. Moreover, while the debate on assisted suicide as a whole is, rightly, one of conscience, the Committee will want to reflect carefully on a number of important policy questions thrown up by my noble and learned friend’s amendment. Can we be sure that legislating to allow assisted suicide in these particular circumstances would not set an awkward precedent? Would we not, in effect, perhaps be creating a situation where there is one law for those who can afford to go abroad for an assisted death and a different one for those who cannot? For these reasons, the Committee will wish to consider whether legislating to take advantage of other countries’ laws is a sensible way in which to address this very complex issue. There is one other suggested undesirable consequence of the amendment. If the amendment were passed, in the case of persons assisting others to travel abroad for suicide, the criminal law would appear to operate in different ways depending on where the suicide occurred. It would remain the case that a person who assisted the suicide of another in England and Wales would still be guilty of an offence. A person who assisted another to travel abroad for a suicide in a third country, such as Canada, where assisted suicide is unlawful, would also be committing an offence. However, a person who assisted another to travel abroad to Switzerland, where assisted suicide is lawful, would not be committing an offence under the terms of the amendment. That would be a rather arbitrary outcome. There is no doubting the commitment of noble Lords to this issue or the compassion that drives them and others who are similarly committed to changing the law in this area so that terminally ill, if not other, people have the right to seek assistance to die. Nor is there any doubt that there are others who are equally committed to opposing such legislation. Even if one accepts that the law should change, there is no consensus on where a line should be drawn and what safeguards should be in place and for whom. I end by reminding the Committee that the Government’s view is that this Bill is not the appropriate vehicle for what would be a shift in the law on assisted suicide. We are the better for the debate today, but I ask my noble and learned friend to consider withdrawing his amendment. If he wishes to pursue the matter thereafter, I respectfully suggest that he do so through a Private Member’s Bill in the next Session. This subject is certainly worthy of at least that. As I have said, if he seeks to test the views of the Committee, these Benches will have a free vote on what is fundamentally a matter of conscience.