My Lords, I worry a little, because I do not quite understand some of the proposed legislation. It is very much about process, which is very important. However, it should also surely be about deterrents against wrongdoing. I recollect that, when I had responsibility for taking legislation through Parliament, some of which one or two noble Lords opposite will remember quite well, one of the things I had to constantly ask myself was, “What are the means of deterring people from wrongdoing?”.
This is about going to the High Court and all sorts of other things, with doctors doing this and that. Supposing there is wrongdoing, how do we deter it? At the moment, if somebody wrongfully puts pressure on, or wrongfully assists, a suicide, they know that the law is there and that its hand may fall on their shoulder. I may be wrong but, as I see it, if we enacted these measures we would only be adding to the procedures, not to the deterrents against wrongdoing.
I speak with some feeling. I have had the prime responsibility of the care of my wife for the last 30 years. She has been in constant pain. It is getting worse. She requires more and more care. I fear for the day when she will say again to me what she said to me a little while ago: “You know, you would be better off without me”. There are many ways in which pressure can be brought to bear to make people who are perhaps approaching the end of their lives—although I hope that my wife is not—to “do the decent thing”. These amendments do not do anything to avoid that, and that is what worries me.