Member

Before confronting this, everything we do is about prevention of suicide. The Government have a suicide prevention strategy, and there was all that debate in this House on the Online Safety Act. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, referred to some of the online sites that promote suicide and make it sound like an okay thing to do. Your Lordships’ House was very exercised during the passage of the Online Safety Act by that sort of online content. There has been a general presumption in society that if someone wishes to die by suicide, we should take every step possible to persuade them not to do so. This legislation is a profound change to that, enabling people to assist someone to die by suicide, and that is why we should be clear and straightforward about the language to confront people with the enormity of that change.