My Lords, it is a privilege to open the Committee stage of this important Bill, the significance of which is demonstrated by the very large number of your Lordships who are present today. The Second Reading debate on the Bill was commended by many observers outside the House as illustrating the expert scrutiny that this House applies to legislative proposals, and I am confident that your Lordships will demonstrate again today the enormous value of this House.
In the first group I shall speak to Amendments 1, 4 and 24, which are in my name and those of the noble Baronesses, Lady Neuberger, Lady Mallalieu and Lady Shackleton of Belgravia. I shall speak briefly because we have much business to get through. I support the Bill, but I think that adequate safeguards are essential.
It would be improved, and some of those who are concerned about it may be reassured, if judicial safeguards were to be added.
These amendments would require that the person concerned must satisfy a judge of the Family Division of the High Court that they have made a voluntary, clear, settled and informed wish to end their life. Judges of the Family Division already decide the most profound questions of life and death. Can doctors separate two Siamese twins, knowing that one will die but that the operation is necessary to save the life of the other? Should the life support system be turned off for Tony Bland, a victim of the Hillsborough disaster who was in a persistent vegetative state? Judges already decide these questions of life and death—and, tragically, there are many of them—in a principled manner but also with great compassion, and, where necessary, they decide them speedily.
In the Nicklinson case, decided in our Supreme Court in June—I declare an interest because I represented the organisation Dignity in Dying—some of the judges suggested that a judicial safeguard for assisted dying would be appropriate and would provide greater protection for the vulnerable than they have under the present law. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Neuberger, the President of the Supreme Court, said at paragraph 108 of his judgment, that less protection for the vulnerable is provided by the current system of a lawyer from the DPP’s office inquiring after the event into the motives of the person who provided the assistance, and whether the individual concerned was voluntarily ending their life, than under a new law that would require a judge to be,
“satisfied in advance that someone has a voluntary, clear, settled and informed wish to die and for his or her suicide then to be organised in an open and professional way”.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilson, at paragraph 205, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale, at paragraphs 314 to 316, spoke to similar effect. I respectfully agree with them, and I hope that your Lordships will too. Amendments 1, 4 and 24 would provide for these judicial safeguards. I beg to move.
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