Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)

My Lords, this House has debated assisted dying this century on nine occasions, first in 2003 and then in 2005. There are very few members in the House today who spoke in those debates, with the possible exception of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff. She was a very devoted opponent of the Bill of those days, just as I was a devoted supporter of it. But all those debates were about Private Members’ Bills that originated in this House. What we have now is a Bill coming from the House of Commons; it is not a government Bill, but it received a great deal of debate, amendment and improvement, and then it was sent to us. However, we do not exist as a House to frustrate the determined will of the House of Commons. Our task is to examine Bills—which they do not do themselves in a measured way today—to improve them and send them back. This has been frustrated by a relatively small group of people; just seven noble Lords has tabled nearly over 1,000 amendments. That is a tiny minority by any standard. I believe that the prolonged filibuster they embarked upon is a constitutional farrago. It is a denial of democracy and an attempt to give this House the wrecking powers that were taken away in 1912. I congratulate the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, for the very patient way he dealt with the repetitive speeches that were full of absurd exaggerations and extravagant fantasies. He did not lose his cool, and that is quite remarkable. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for his effective contributions towards improving the Bill. He came forward with several proposals, but he too is frustrated from implementing them currently as a result of us returning the Bill to the House of Commons in the way we received it. I support this Bill for two reasons. First, it will reduce the suffering of many elderly people who are experiencing a prolonged death, and nothing was more eloquent than the speech that my noble friend Lord Markham made about that. We are particularly well suited in this House to debate this sort of measure because, on the whole, we are rather older than most MPs and we have experienced the deaths of friends, colleagues and relatives. Just this week, one of my closest friends, who was a Cross-Bench Peer in this House, died. I had tea with him the previous week. Robert Skidelsky was my close friend. We lived close to each other. He was a brilliant economist, but he was also a very good bridge player, and I shall miss him enormously. He is one of the lucky ones, as it were. As I said, one reason I support the Bill is that it reduces the suffering of people when they slowly begin to lose control of their own bodies. It was very interesting to hear what the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle said, because in previous debates the main argument was about the sanctity of life. It is only the Bishops who continue to make that argument; no one else will make the argument because what we are concerned with are the safeguards, and this Bill will reduce the suffering of people. As we slowly lose control over our own bodies, people can no longer get up and dress, wash or feed themselves, or prepare their food, or walk or run, or engage in any life whatever; they then lose control of their bowels and bladders, and it is a very unpleasant way to die. If you can get palliative care, you can anaesthetise pain, but you cannot anaesthetise indignity. This Bill allows people to die in a dignified, and sensible, way in their own homes.