Danny Kruger

I will not focus on assisted dying/assisted suicide this evening, because as the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler) said in a good opening speech, we are all united in this place in our desire to see improvements in the palliative care system, but I feel compelled to make this simple point of fact. Studies and research show that in jurisdictions and countries around the world that have introduced an assisted dying/assisted suicide law, the investment in and the quality of palliative care has declined, relative to those that do not have an assisted dying/assisted suicide law. That is for reasons that are fairly comprehensible. That is a fact. I implore the House: let us fix our palliative care system before we consider opening up the law on assisted dying. The United Kingdom is, of course, the birthplace of the hospice movement, and we have some of the best palliative care services and specialists in the world, but as we have heard this evening, our system simply is not working. We have demand for palliative care and hospice services on a scale that was never anticipated in the post-war years in which the NHS was developed. The challenges of growing demand have been sadly exacerbated by decisions that the Government have made, as we have heard.