Plaid Cymru Member of Parliament for Dwyfor Meirionnydd, Liz Saville Roberts has confirmed she will support the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill at Second Reading in the House of Commons today.
Mrs Saville Roberts said that she was minded to support the Bill at Second Reading provided there is a guarantee of sufficient scrutiny if the Bill passes to Committee stage.
Speaking in the House of Commons, Liz Saville Roberts MP said:
The starting point for many of us today is how to resolve the dilemma of ‘what I want for myself’ with the fear of enabling potentially terrible consequences for others. There is a rational fear of how institutional pressures, lack of resources and - appallingly - culture within the NHS will ramp up the convenience of death as an affordable option. This is not a new fear: Baroness Neuberger’s review into the Liverpool Care Pathway said, ‘In order that everyone dying in the acute sector can do so with dignity, the present situation has to change.’ That was in 2013. We know in the aftermath of covid how little has changed. Death as an institutional convenience has never been and never will be right. It is our duty to demand good palliative care. But this is not a licence to side-step today’s ethical question. The people of England and Wales now expect us as legislators to provide an answer in principle. It is our job to provide that answer not only in principle but also in process. With this in mind, I will support this bill at second reading if there is a guarantee of sufficient scrutiny to stitch together a complete garment out of what is presently threads and patches that could be rent asunder in court. If bill committee scrutiny cannot make this bill robust, I will reconsider my support at future votes. Can this House ensure that there is both cross-party and small-party representation on the bill committee rather than conventional party proportionality? The implications for Wales – where health is of course devolved – cry out for proper consideration. This is equally true for both remote and deprived communities where ill and dying people already suffer disproportionately inadequate health services. I want to pay tribute to Iola Dorkins of Morfa Nefyn whom I have known for over thirty years, and who is dying of motor neurone disease. She wears a brace which her husband has adapted to make her more comfortable. Today, she is in respite at a hospice in Holyhead, fifty miles from her home. That is the reality of people's lives as things stand. We need a change in the law.
Mrs Saville Roberts added:
I believe in a compassionate and dignified approach to assisted dying. Forcing people to endure life with severe physical or emotional pain is inhumane, and decriminalisation could bring better safeguards and regulation. Alongside these considerations, we must improve palliative care, both before and after any vote on assisted dying. Assisted dying should never be seen as an alternative to addressing the failures within the NHS in supporting patients and their families during some of life’s hardest moments. Nor should the Government prioritise decriminalisation of assisted dying over efforts to improve the dismal state of social care. We must ensure that there is sufficient scrutiny of this legislation, which is set to make a fundamental change in the nature of the law related to the legal primacy of protecting the right to life. Good law is dependent on detail and clarity, especially in the definition of terms such as capacity, and the responsibility of individuals. This is the most far-reaching piece of home legislation for which this generation of MPs will be responsible: we have a duty to ensure that we do this to the best of our abilities.
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