Peers urged to ‘err on the side of caution’ and raise minimum age limit in assisted suicide bill

Peers have been urged to “err on the side of caution” and raise the minimum age limit for an assisted death from 18 to 25, as part of a controversial bill that aims to legalise the practice.

As the House of Lords again debated some of the hundreds of amendments proposed to the terminally ill adults (end of life) bill, peers were told that a minimum age of 18 was “contrary to the mounting evidence of when the brain is fully formed”.

Labour peer Baroness [Luciana] Berger told fellow peers last Friday (5 December) that social media had become “a powerful driver of harm” and that research showed young people in vulnerable situations were “disproportionately exposed to posts that glamorise suicide or present suicidal thoughts as normal, appealing or even fashionable”.

She said she was “haunted” by the words of a young disabled woman who had said in evidence at an earlier stage of the bill: “I’m in care. I’ve got disabilities. The government will pay for me to die under this bill, but it won’t pay for me to live.”

Baroness Berger reminded peers that the children’s commissioner, Dame Rachel de Souza, had said she would “far rather that we erred on the side of caution, protecting those who have had terrible lives, terrible experiences, have been abused, have had their families turn them out, protecting those [with] extreme mental illness, protecting those with special educational needs and disabilities, protecting anorexic children who are heading into adulthood”.

Baroness Berger said: “I am clear that we must continue to say to children and young people: ‘Yes, your life matters. Even if it will be a short life, it matters.’”

Labour peer Lord Falconer, who is sponsoring the bill in the Lords, said he believed 18 was still the right age, but that “maybe the answer is some assurance that there is a more intense assessment for people aged between 18 and 25”.

The issue is likely to be debated again at the bill’s report stage.

Meanwhile, the disabled Conservative peer Lord [Kevin] Shinkwin warned of a further attempt to “weaken” the bill’s protections after Lord Falconer proposed an amendment that would affect the adjustments that must be made for those with language and literacy barriers, including people with learning difficulties.

The bill currently states that doctors assessing someone for an assisted suicide “must first ensure the provision of adjustments for language and literacy barriers”.

But Lord Falconer suggested in his amendment that doctors should instead “take all reasonable steps to ensure… effective communication”.

Lord Shinkwin said he failed to see how the change would “do anything other than weaken this bill” and would “fundamentally weaken one of the bill’s safeguards, such as they are”.

He said the bill “makes a mockery” of the Labour party’s “fine, noble and honourable tradition” of “advancing disability rights”.

He said: “It shreds a tradition that deserves to be preserved, not sacrificed in such a profoundly cynical and misleading way as to make out, as the amendment does, that this is somehow only a drafting change.

“There is a reason why not one organisation of or for disabled people supports the bill; they know that disabled people need the bill like a hole in the head.

“I marvel that the noble and learned lord does not seem to realise that the bill is dangerous enough already without the removal of provisions that would at least acknowledge the obligation to first ensure that communication adjustments were made; for example, for people with learning disabilities or users of British Sign Language.”

There was also criticism of Lord Falconer’s proposed amendment by Baroness [Nuala] O’Loan, the human rights expert and former police ombudsman for Northern Ireland, who said his amendment would introduce “a far less specific test, and consideration must be given to setting standards for the level of communication which is required”.

She asked Lord Falconer whether his amendment would “inadvertently disadvantage those with specific learning difficulties and similar vulnerable groups”.

Lord Falconer insisted that the amendment was “not a watering down at all” but he said he would discuss Lord Shinkwin’s concerns with him before the next stage of the bill, although “at the moment, it looks to me to offer just as good, if not better, protection”.

Peers have now dealt with only six groups of amendments, out of the – currently – 84 they will need to get through to move onto the next stage of the bill in the Lords, with further debate planned tomorrow (Friday).

The Hansard Society said this week that if the Lords continued at its current pace it would “far fall short of what is needed to complete the remaining groups in time”, with parliament’s current session due to end in the spring, probably in May.

Picture: Lord Shinkwin (left) and Lord Falconer speaking in the debate

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