We have just listened to very powerful speeches by the noble Baronesses, Lady Campbell and Lady Brinton.
I would like to begin with an apology to all Members whose email inboxes have exploded over the last 48 hours. If it is any consolation, so did mine. I got the same emails, all of which were identical and came from the same email address, info@righttolife.org.uk. They began:
“Dear Lord Forsyth, I am making contact on an urgent matter. As you probably know, Lord Forsyth has tabled an assisted dying amendment to the Health and Care Bill, and this amendment will be debated next week. I am asking that you please oppose this dangerous amendment”.
The first point I would like to make is that it is very late at night, so I am going to keep my remarks brief. Contrary to what the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, said, this has got nothing to do with the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. The reason that they are grouped together is because I asked for them to be grouped together; otherwise, it would have come up on a Friday when I could not be here. There is no common link in the terms of these being about assisted dying, and the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, has explained why her amendment is not about that.
My amendment is not actually about the merits of assisted dying. It is true that I have changed my mind on this matter as a result of not just my own experience with my father but also because all the time that I opposed it I have felt a bit of a hypocrite, because if ever I was, for example, to contract motor neurone disease, I would want the right to assisted dying. I felt it was rather hypocritical to vote against something that I would want for myself. But I persuaded myself that I was doing so because there were certain protections that were needed. That is all I am going to say about that—and I was not going to say anything at all—because the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, raised it. It is an unusual position to be proposing an amendment when it has already been opposed, before you have even spoken to it.
9.45 pm
My amendment is not, absolutely not, about the merits of the case for legalising assisted dying. What it is about is trying to ensure that this Parliament is given the same opportunities as the Scottish Parliament to consider these matters carefully. I have to say to the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, that it really is disingenuous to suggest that the Bill of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, before this Parliament will be given proper consideration. Her Bill will receive exactly the same fate as every other Private Member’s Bill. I am told that something like 200 amendments have been tabled to the Bill of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, so it is not going to succeed. The same thing happened with the Bill of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer. The Private Member’s Bill procedure results in our inability to properly discuss the merits, the demerits and the protections that are needed, and over and over again this happens.
Many of the same people who, no doubt honestly and with real conviction, sent me all these emails, who did not actually have the courtesy to read my amendment, or even read whom they were sending their email to, will be encouraging Peers to table what are wrecking amendments to the Private Member’s Bill which prevent Parliament from having a view. It suggests to me that there are people in this debate who are determined to prevent Parliament being able to make a decision, and that cannot be right. So I have tabled this amendment.
In Scotland, the Liberal MSP Liam McArthur has taken advantage of the procedure which the Scottish Parliament has which allows for non-Government Bills to be given time and to be given assistance so that a consultation can be carried out with the public, so all matters can be considered. The Bill can then be brought before the Scottish Parliament and go through its whole process with proper protections from people making wrecking amendments to prevent the Bill being considered and voted on by those who are democratically elected—I am thinking here of the other place.
That procedure in Scotland has resulted in a very fine consultation document, the consultation period for which finished just before Christmas. There will be a Bill. I am told there is a majority in the Scottish Parliament in support of that Bill—although quite how people have reached that conclusion, given that the Bill has not been published, I do not know. Certainly, there have been several attempts in the Scottish Parliament to do this. My friend, the great SNP campaigner Margo MacDonald, herself suffering from a terminal illness, tried to get a Bill through the Scottish Parliament and did not succeed.
I think we need to have a little care here, because I am not particularly keen on opinion polls—particularly this week—and I realise that opinion polls are a crude method of working out what people think, but consistently opinion polls have shown that something like three out of four people and more in our country would like to see legislation in this area. I think it is quite wrong for people to try to deny Parliament the opportunity to carry that out.
Just to finish on the Scottish thing, as a unionist I am very nervous about a situation where a Bill was successful in the Scottish Parliament and there was some kind of procedure for a right to die for people with a terminal illness but the position in England was that we had not even been able to get Parliament to discuss the issue and consider a Bill properly. I do not think that would be a very good advertisement for this Parliament and for the democratic process in England.
I see my noble friend Lady Fraser of Craigmaddie, who wrote a very flattering article in the Times about me that was completely over the top, and then said that I was abusing parliamentary process by tabling my amendment. I have spoken to the clerks and have taken advice on this. I have a precedent for an Act requiring Her Majesty’s Government to publish a draft Bill. I must say it is not one I am particularly comfortable with, but the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 contained precisely such a provision. It might perhaps be unusual but there is certainly nothing unprecedented about having a requirement on the Government to publish a draft Bill.
Those people who have been going round saying that this is an absolute abuse and completely unconstitutional need to read the amendment: it is for the Government to publish a draft Bill. I cannot for the life of me imagine why anyone would be opposed to the Government providing help and support through a draft Bill. It could be considered as a Private Member’s Bill, or by a Joint Committee of both Houses, or be subject to a whole range of processes that would enable people to express their views. It does not commit the Government to supporting the legislation but would allow Members of the House of Commons and of this House to express their views.
I promised the Chief Whip that I would not talk for very long. I hope that I can persuade my noble friend the Minister, and that the Government will indicate that they are prepared to help the provision of a draft Bill. Perhaps they will also recognise that no Private Members’ Bills reach the statute book without some support from government. It is not a neutral position that the Government maintain on this matter of conscience; it is not neutral to persist in a position which means that any Bill which is introduced is going to fail and which prevents Parliament from reaching a view. A neutral position is one that says we will allow Parliament to take a view and that we as a Government will not promote or oppose it but will give the opportunity for Parliament to do so.
I say to my noble friend that perhaps he could make a commitment this evening—perhaps he might even accept the amendment, which is a probing amendment. For those people listening to this debate and wondering whether there might be any votes, I am not proposing to divide the House at the Committee stage of this Bill, because I am really hopeful that my noble friend the Minister will come forward with a proposal that meets the expectations that this amendment is designed to achieve, and it will not be necessary for me to come back on Report.