Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)

My Lords, I signed the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Frost, which seek to probe the ways that we can make this Bill more transparent to the public. That is my main driver—I believe in plain speaking. The public deserve to know what this Bill involves. As it happens, I think the noble Lord’s wording would add clarity. His proposal is to replace “assistance to end their own life” with “medical help to commit suicide by provision of lethal drugs”. That wording is factually accurate, even if it makes you gulp. The reason it makes one gulp is because it is factually accurate, and we do not often recognise what is being advocated here. There is a danger that the Bill’s terminology creates ambiguity rather than clarity, and it is important that we are frank and open. Why use the word “suicide”? As has already been explained, the Bill needs to amend the Suicide Act precisely to carve out the legal space to allow this type of assisted suicide, as mentioned in the Bill, to be within the law. That is accurate. But I am wary of having a culture war over the word “suicide”—I use the term “assisted dying” all the time, so I do not want to be called out for hypocrisy here—because I am aware of the fact that suicide as an issue is far too serious and tragic to be glib about or to have verbal ping-pong over. On the other hand, I am worried that avoiding the word “suicide” in this debate, and making it verboten, might desensitise public debate. Let us be honest, language choice can influence opinion. “Assisted dying” sounds softer, palatable and more sympathetic. It is interesting that evidence shows that support for assisted dying changes if you call it “assisted suicide”; it drops significantly when the terms are plainly defined. Some may flinch at the proposed words used by the noble Lord, Lord Frost— “medical help to commit suicide by … lethal drugs”. As I have said, it is hard to accept that. It makes you think. Is there going to be a complete change in the way medicine is operated, so that medics could hand you poison and lethal drugs? The answer is yes. When people hear that phrase, it might hit them what a fundamental shift this will be for medical professionals and so on. That is exactly why a number of us are not prepared to nod this Bill through. It is perfectly reasonable to completely disagree with what I have just said, but I want everyone to know what the Bill is about and why it is a very big change in our society, causing all sorts of ethical discussions. The public deserve to know that, and therefore we should be as clear as possible. I recall that, on the first day in Committee—and subsequently, but particularly on the first day—there was a lot of tut-tutting and reprimands, with a lot of people being shouted at when Peers used the term “assisted suicide”. A lot of people stood up, saying, “You can’t say that. You’re just being emotional, manipulative and so on”. But clear language promotes public and patient understanding. In a way, I advocate a patient-centric approach rather than a euphemistic approach, which could, arguably, be seen as an act of misinformation in some instances.