Contribution
I pay tribute to the hon. Members for Rochester and Strood (Lauren Edwards) and for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) for their hard work on this Bill and the Bill introduced in the previous Parliament. I was a member of the Bill Committee for the previous Bill, and I tabled many amendments, sometimes much to the frustration of the hon. Member for Spen Valley.
I want to talk about a number of people who died without dignity and without choice. As a teenager, I remember my mum telling me the story of her uncle. He was terminally ill, and she cared for him at the end of his life. She went round to his house to check on him, knowing that the end was getting near, and tragically stumbled upon him; he had collapsed on the floor and died. That stuck with her to this day and informs her views, and my views, on assisted dying. The reason I use the words “stumbled” and “collapsed on the floor” is because my mum was led to believe that, in his final moments, he was making his way across the room to pick up the shotgun on the back of the door to end his life. That is the reality for people like my mum’s uncle and many others.
A number of years ago, I ended up dealing with a not dissimilar situation. I was living back home with my mum, next door to my gran, when we heard a loud bang. I ran across the road with my gran, and we found the neighbour, John, a pig farmer. He had been suffering unbearably with a chronic life-ending condition, and had decided to take matters into his own hands. That is the status quo—it is the reality for people who are in pain, have unbearable suffering and are terminally ill. We do nothing to protect them. That is why I am in favour of a change in the law. One of the things that has driven me to this place is the conviction that a law like this has to be better than what we have, which offers no safeguards or protections to people in their final moments. No one wants to die—it is not a choice they make—but we can give people a choice about the end of life and how they may see that end.
This is not just a choice for terminally ill people, but for people in remission, like my mum. A number of years ago, she had breast cancer. She had two independent tumours—stage 1 and stage 3—in the same breast. In my mid-20s, I faced having to have a conversation with my mum about what would happen if she, a single parent, were to pass away and leave me with my then five or six-year-old sister. That is not a conversation that I will ever forget, and it is one of the things that motivates me to talk about this issue as prominently and as much as I do. My mum made it clear that if the cancer came back and she were to end up with secondary breast cancer, she would not want to go through the ordeal and the trauma of the surgery and the chemotherapy that she faced. She has lasting nerve damage and a reduced quality of life as a result of the original cancer. It is something that causes her great concern every single day. Every time I speak about this issue, either in this Chamber or in Committee, I ring her first and ask for her advice. She has routinely said that when she goes to her breast cancer support meetings with friends who are also in remission, time and again they say that having this choice would bring them great comfort, even if they decided not to use it. That is why I have such clarity on this issue. The people who are living in those circumstances, and who did not have a choice, guide my views on this subject. If we were in that situation, I would fight tooth and nail for my mum to go through with surgery, chemotherapy or radiotherapy—whatever the treatment might be—but I respect that it would be her decision to make, even if I did not like the consequences.
As we revisit this conversation and this legislation, let me say that I do not see this as a final say on the Bill. Instead, we are restarting a process that was abruptly ended by those in the other place. We have heard a lot today about amendments not being accepted, but with the greatest respect for the hon. Members for Rochester and Strood, and for Spen Valley, although I am a supporter of the Bill, I consistently tabled amendments to the Bill in the last Parliament, including amendments to make it better reflect the realities of people with neurogenerative diseases. When we look across the globe, we can see that this Bill is the most restrictive and narrow legislation. To suggest that it will somehow cross a new frontier that has never been crossed before is simply untrue. We are lagging behind international comparators, and lagging behind in giving people choice. We know that people who have the means or the money can have that right now by travelling abroad, and we know that, all too often, people who do not have the money tragically have to take actions into their own hands and are robbed of a good death.
Today, I encourage all hon. Members, and in particular those who are genuinely undecided or wavering, that a vote for the Bill on Second Reading will continue the debate and allow hon. Members to table amendments on Report. Importantly, one thing that people keep ignoring in the debate is that if the Lords operates in good faith and sends us sensible suggestions, we will end up in ping-pong, where we will be able to pick up amendments that would strengthen the Bill further and allay those fears. The idea that that cannot happen is simply untrue. I encourage all hon. Members to ensure that we can continue the debate, and give opportunity and choice to people at end of life.