My Lords, my name is down in support of the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, with the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, and I very much support the reasons he set out so cogently.
I was very glad to see the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, because it points in the right direction. I cannot support it, because I
believe that doctors should not be involved at all in the final decision-making process. Under the noble Lord’s amendment, the courts would check that a good decision had been made, and they may ask for witnesses, as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said.
We need, for all the reasons set out at Second Reading, to take doctors out of the decision-making process altogether. I remind your Lordships of points made at Second Reading about the erosion of trust if a Bill such as this went through Parliament, and the minority of doctors who are willing to take part in the system—four out of five doctors are totally opposed to taking part in it, so only a minority of doctors would be willing to do it. That would lead to a lot of looking around for the right kind of doctors. I do not want to get into the business of knocking doctors—they have been in my family for some time; my wife and my son are doctors, and my grandson is on the way there—or weighing the relative merits or demerits of rogue doctors and rogue lawyers. However, we are not talking about individuals, but about the Supreme Court. The Committee on Standards in Public Life carried out a series of polls about how the public regard various professions, which shows that trust has been eroded in so many professions, but not in judges. Trust in judges remains at about 80%. That is a very significant factor; decisions made by the court on this issue, if we eventually went down this road, would be trusted by the general public.
I would just like to mention one point that has not been mentioned. I have a quotation from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Neuberger, in the judgment that the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, was discussing. He said:
“Quite apart from the notorious difficulty in assessing life expectancy even for the terminally ill, there seems to me to be significantly more justification in assisting people to die if they have the prospect of living for many years a life that they regarded as valueless, miserable and often painful, than if they have only a few months left to live”.
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The reason for mentioning that is that, if we are moved by compassion for people who feel that their lives are intolerable with only a few months to live, how much more are we moved by compassion for people who have years and years? It is no secret that the people behind the Bill see it as the first step. Suppose that it eventually became the settled wish of this country to have some kind of system whereby people who, on finding that their lives were utterly miserable and unbearable, wanted to end it, the only system that the country as a whole would trust would be one set out along the lines set out by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. I do not support going down that road but, if it became eventually the settled wish of this country and people, moved by compassion, did not want to stop at those who were dying with a few months to live but who might have years of totally intolerable life ahead of them, the only way in which decisions could be made that would be trusted would be if they were made by the courts.
The noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, spoke of compassion, but we are all moved by compassion. I believe that everybody in this House on all sides of the
debate is moved by compassion—but there is not just compassion for people who have a few months of intolerable life to live. There is also the compassion for those who might be put under all kinds of intolerable pressure, whether it is meant or not, as was stated so movingly by the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit. In response to what he said, I believe that a court-based system would actually act as a deterrent. First, the number of cases that went to it would be relatively few and the tests would be very stringent. If people did not meet those tests and acted on their own, they would be liable to criminal prosecution. So I very much welcome and support the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, as I know the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, does as well, as he also has his name to it.