Carla Lockhart

No, I will not. The Bill would fundamentally alter the patient-doctor relationship. For generations, people have looked to healthcare professionals for treatment and care. That trust is precious, and should never be diluted. The Bill drives a coach and horses through that relationship. The role of our health service should be to do no harm and to stand alongside patients in their darkest moments. I am not wearing rose-tinted glasses; I know that too many people struggle to access the end-of-life care that they deserve, but the answer to that failure cannot be to make death more available. The answer is to make care more available instead. We should be focusing our energy and resources on strengthening palliative care services and ensuring that nobody faces their final days without proper support. My opposition to this Bill is not only practical but moral. Life is precious, and it deserves protection from its beginning to its natural end. That is what my Christian faith teaches me, and that belief is shared by many of my constituents, and by countless people across this great United Kingdom. This House was founded on Christian principles, and this legislation is so far removed from those Christian principles. The true measure of a compassionate society is not how easily it facilitates death, but how faithfully it cares for those who are suffering. As I watched my dad take his last breath on this earth, tears rolled down his face. His pain had often been unbearable, but our NHS stepped up. His consultants, pain nurse and those caring for him rallied around him, because he wanted and deserved to live. He did not need help to die; he needed help to live, and when death came naturally, he needed care, compassion and dignity. That is what every vulnerable person deserves. I cannot support a law that would allow the state to be involved in ending human life, and that is why I and my Democratic Unionist party colleagues will vote against this Bill today.