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Coroners and Justice Bill

My Lords, I, too, hope that we shall not proceed with the amendment, despite the power of the speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, and the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy. Many of the things that I might have said have been said much better by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and in her most powerful speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell. I want to take up two points from what the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, said. First, it sounded as though it was likely that those in this tragic and difficult situation would become the subject of court cases. There would have to be ways of discovering when an illness was confirmed "incurable and disabling" and what a "free and settled wish" was. Surely the experience of all of us who meet people in these sorts of circumstances is that the last thing that will be helpful for them, or which they want, is to become the subject of a court case. Secondly, I do not think that the parallel being made with the disability legislation is accepted. I believe that it is true, as others have argued, that any legalising of assisted suicide will inevitably put pressure on the sick and vulnerable. It is not so much that relatives or others will deliberately pressure them but rather that there will be those who seek assistance to end their own lives because they consider themselves a nuisance. That is a state of mind that those of us involved in pastoral work recognise only too well as dangerous and destructive to the life of that individual. Let us reject the amendment and increase our efforts to support and encourage palliative care and the work of hospices, which provide so much more appropriate a way forward for the tragic circumstances that the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, described for us.