Kit Malthouse

I will not. Some of those Members had just a few months before been specifically rejected by the electorate and replaced in this House by others, and I am afraid that they cannot be trusted not to do the same thing again. I grant my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) that this is a less than ideal situation. However, I know that the sponsor in the House of Lords is willing to entertain amendments being tabled in the Lords, which will come back to the House for conclusion. Before I conclude, I want to deal with a couple of other issues. The first point is about the notion of palliative care, which we discussed extensively on Second Reading. I am pleased that this legislation has stimulated a strong debate about palliative care. The Health and Social Care Committee of the House of Lords found that in territories that have assisted dying, palliative care generally improves, because people become less afraid of talking about death. But we must be careful not to say that perfection is a precondition for those who are dying; perfection has to be an objective for those of us who will carry on living. We cannot delay and indulge the dying in their agony because we are not satisfied with the state of palliative care. We have to deal with the choice that those people are facing at the point of their death, and give them the choice that so many of them seek. The second point is about coercion. The Father of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), talked about love. One of the most affecting people I have met over the last 11 years of campaigning on this issue is Warwick Jackson, who came to our party conference a couple of years ago. Warwick’s wife, Ann, was diagnosed with terminal peritoneal cancer. She basically knew that she was going to die a slow, suffocating death at the end. As Warwick watched her dying and heard her begging her palliative nurse to end it all for her, he contemplated smothering her with a pillow. The only thing that stopped him was that he did not want her dying thought to be that her loving husband had brought her life to an end. That is the conflict of love that we pose to people by perpetuating this appalling status quo. We have heard time and time again that the situation that thousands of our constituents live with every single day is so horrific and appalling that even the best palliative care cannot alleviate their pain. I urge colleagues to consider what their vote may mean today. As we said on Second Reading previously, a vote against this Bill is not a passive act. It is not something neutral; it is a vote for a status quo of misery, degradation and cruelty for so many. We know that the British people support this measure. We know that there are lots of territories around the world that we respect and admire that have assisted dying and have operated it for many years successfully. It is not beyond us to get our democracy operating as it should and to design something that will work for the British people. We cannot give dying people more time, but we can give them mercy and love. I urge Members to vote for the Bill today.