Dr Andrew Murrison

I will not, because of time. I would get the evils from Madam Deputy Speaker. One in 20 deaths in Canada is assisted. If that were translated to this country, it would mean a huge extra cost, and the money would have to be found from other frontline services. Which ones? Likely it would be taken from Government support for hospices, which are already reeling from national insurance increases that have yet to be fully offset. In my view, the moral, ethical, legal and practical issues that we are discussing today, complex as they are, are well beyond the scope of a private Member’s Bill. The only way to achieve a halfway safe and competent Act is to make this a Government Bill, mentioned in a manifesto. So far, no major political party has wanted to do that. It is true that, each day, lives are shortened by interventions aimed at easing pain or suffering, which is what the caring professions do. That is quite different from a deliberate and systematic state-sanctioned and delivered programme to end the lives of people approaching death. At the end of the day, we can rationalise the pros and cons of assisted dying, but most of us will go with what we feel in our guts. My instincts tell me that giving the state or its agents leave to end life in this way is wrong. They tell me that, however well intentioned, it would lead in one direction, and would, over time, leave a grisly trail of unintended and unforeseen consequences. That is why I oppose this Bill.