Coroners and Justice Bill

My Lords, I have three things to say. I will not indulge in any generalities, my distaste for assisted suicide having been well enough advertised in earlier debates. We had a wide-ranging general debate earlier that, with respect, I should have thought might have pre-empted the debate that we are having tonight. I thought that the debate was going to be about an amendment, as was advertised by the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, but it is actually a debate of a very general sort—so we are back to where we were a while ago. I wish to say three things. First, the amendment singles out sick people for special treatment under the Coroners and Justice Bill and proposes, in effect, that they be more eligible for assistance with suicide than the rest of us who are fit, well and healthy. It is very discriminatory in that sense, and that surprises me. The provision under the noble Lord’s proposed clause may possibly suit a small number of highly resolute sick people who want assistance to end their lives, but it would afford a lesser standard of protection under the law to others who may feel under pressure to end their lives, whether from others or from within themselves. As such, I regard this provision as both discriminatory and highly dangerous, as the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, has just said so clearly. It is axiomatic that the law must afford equal protection to all citizens regardless of their age, sex, ethnic origin, religion and, indeed, state of health. That is why I regard this suggestion from the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, as essentially highly discriminatory. Secondly, and here I am a mere echo to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, the task of assessing applications for would-be suicides’ assistants’ licences is manifestly not a job for a coroner. The noble and learned Baroness has clearly explained to the House that the role of the coroner is to investigate and record causes of death, not to hand out licences to those who wish to help death to occur. Thirdly—and I am deeply shocked to learn from the noble and learned Baroness that the coroners themselves have not been consulted; I thought that that happened automatically in the practices of your Lordships’ House—to the best of my knowledge, coroners do not generally have the professional skills that would be necessary properly to investigate whether an apparent wish for assistance with suicide did indeed, represent, ""the free and settled wish of the person that they bring their life to a close"," with all the medical, psychiatric or psychological training that that demands. I am extremely surprised that the noble Lord should have brought forward these suggestions in a way that has obviously caused great offence and concern to those who work as coroners to help us, let alone set them within a framework that is so discriminatory in its design.