Danny Kruger MP: speeches

Speeches

• 11 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Once again, it is a shame that we are feeling our way in the absence of that assessment. Nevertheless, I think we all have experience and we can draw on the evidence. The hon. Member for Bradford West made a very powerful point, and she was absolutely right. I spoke earlier about the evidence on suicide among the male prison population; I have experience of working with women in prison as well. There is a genuine danger of chronic, almost epidemic, self-harm among the female prison population. Likewise—this is a fact that we need to bear in mind throughout the debate—suicide is itself contagious. That is why it is so important to discuss it in a responsible way. The option—I use the term advisedly—of assisted suicide is itself dangerous in the context of a prison population in which these ideas are contagious. My right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire talks about the need to assess each case on its own merits, individually. I recognise that, and in principle of course that is what we should be doing. Nevertheless, that assumes that the safeguards in the Bill are adequate to the challenge of dealing with people in such particularly vulnerable circumstances. I am concerned that they are not adequate anyway. I believe very strongly that they are not appropriate to people in these circumstances and that therefore it is appropriate to have what he calls a blanket ban. As I said in an intervention earlier, we have to treat particular classes of people in the same way. We do that all the time, with respect specifically to the prison population. The fact is that we have to draw the line somewhere. We are drawing the line in all sorts of places in this Bill—around the age limit and around diagnosis and prognosis. I think it would be very appropriate, given the extreme vulnerability of these populations, to draw it around them and protect them from the vulnerabilities and dangers that I think all Members recognise might apply in certain circumstances. They will apply in heightened likelihood to these populations. I do not propose to press these amendments to a vote, but I am grateful to hon. Members for the points that they have made, and I hope that the concerns have been noted. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Amendment made : 179, in clause 1, page 1, line 13, after “provided” insert “in England or Wales”.— (Kim Leadbeater.) This amendment limits the assistance that may be provided in accordance with the Bill to assistance in England or Wales.

• 11 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the hon. Lady; her points are absolutely right. Even if the House concludes that the overall principle is right, as the hon. Member for Spen Valley suggested, if it is not possible to do it safely, we should not do it at all. My great concern is that proceeding with the use of the Mental Capacity Act as it currently stands in the Bill will make the Bill dangerous. Let me conclude my point about the difference between assisted dying and the withdrawing of treatment. To decline treatment is to assent to nature; it is to let one’s body do what it will. To commit suicide is to contradict nature; it is to do something to one’s body that interrupts its own plans. I recognise that the outcome is the same —it is death—but we are considering the process of decision making in the clause, and the decision is fundamentally different.

• 11 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend articulates the point well. I do not think it is a semantic decision: there is a real distinction. The fact is that unplugging the ventilator leads to death, but what kills the patient is not the administration of any treatment or drugs that have been provided. The patient dies naturally, whereas the administration of drugs designed to kill them is a qualitatively different event. I agree that of course the ultimate effect is the same, but the act that is performed is qualitatively different, and indeed the intention of the doctor is different.

• 11 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The decisions will be recorded, but the conversations that the hon. Lady stipulates should take place under the Bill need further recording, in my view, with further evidence of what was discussed in order to ensure that the safeguards have been properly applied. I also point out that for the chief medical officer to effectively carry out the review under clause 34, they must have evidence available, not just a few schedules that have been signed off. Likewise, I am glad to say that the opportunity remains for a legal appeal, in so far as we still have a judicial process, but I am concerned that the lack of any documentary evidence makes the application difficult for any external party or the Court of Appeal to review. Currently, there is a great paucity of information that the High Court judge considering the application can request. I think it is important that the High Court judge—or, indeed, the panel, if we move to that approach—should have access to a much fuller range of documentation to ensure that the process has been properly followed.

• 11 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady might well be right. I totally take that point. I dare say it is people who are homeless. I think the question put was, “Should those who are homeless simply be able to ask for assisted dying?” People in this country say no. In Canada, asked the same question, a quarter of people say yes. The effect of the law has been to institute this principle of assisted dying being an acceptable choice under any circumstances, which is indeed, I am afraid, what happens. I will end with a powerful quote from Fazilet Hadi, who spoke to us representing disabled people. She said: “This Bill is not an abstract exercise; it will land in a society that is rife with inequality.” –– [ Official Report, Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Public Bill Committee, 29 January 2025; c. 185, Q242.] She said that the society the Bill will land in is the thing that needs to change, not the Bill. She thinks we need to change our society before we do anything like introducing assisted dying. I agree.

• 11 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady has expressed very well her whole purpose for the Bill. In a sense, all the debates we are having about safeguards, protections, process and eligibility are secondary to her purpose, which is to give autonomy to patients. One has to ask about the purpose of the safeguards, particularly the one on people having to administer the drugs themselves. In all jurisdictions where physician-assisted suicide is legal, that is the option that people overwhelmingly opt for—I certainly would if I were in that situation. The hon. Lady is right, and that is what she is trying to do: she simply wants the Bill to go through. I take strong issue with her implied point that our purpose here is simply to work out the Bill’s implementation. We are looking at each clause, line by line, to decide whether it is safe or not. As she said herself at the time, the decision on Second Reading was a vote in principle to continue the discussion, which is what we are doing now. We are closely and minutely examining whether every clause is safe.

• 11 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am very puzzled, on two grounds. The first is about the impact assessment. I simply do not understand the argument that the Government have to wait until the end of the Committee stage before they can have a view on the Bill and present it for Report. The fact is that the Bill could change again on Report, and the impact assessment would have to be updated further. Why on earth do we not have an impact assessment, which could advise the members of the Committee and the Government themselves on the appropriateness of the measures? That brings me to my second point of confusion: I simply do not understand what on earth the Minister means when he says that he is neutral about the clauses. He has just given the view, from his position, that he objects to the amendment and that he supports the use of the Mental Capacity Act. He is basing his view— I had understood that, as a neutral member of the Committee, he was not going to express one—on something. What is he basing it on? Secondly, how can he express a view when he is supposed to be neutral?

• 11 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  If the hon. Lady would like to intervene on me, I would be happy to give way.

• 11 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I have just a few points to make. I very much applaud the hon. Member for Broxtowe for her amendment, which would genuinely—demonstrably, I might say—strengthen the Bill. It does not seem in any sense hostile to the principle or purpose of the Bill; it supports it. To make a gentle criticism, I think that there is a concern about the lack, throughout the Bill, of a proper trail of documentary evidence following the applicant through the process. For example, the two conversations with the doctor would take place behind closed doors, and no record of their discussion would be made. I do not think that conducive to trust. There is no way to assess whether the safeguards are actually in operation.

• 11 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Me again, I’m afraid. The amendments in my name would exclude from eligibility people who are in prison and people who are classified as homeless. In this debate and in our evidence sessions, we have heard it said quite a lot that most people who opt for an assisted death in countries that have it are advantaged—they are middle-class, in our idiom—but the plan is to offer it to everybody; it would be a universal right. My amendments would address some of the most disadvantaged people in our country. I have had a very privileged life, but for 20 years I have run a charity working in London prisons; I spent about 10 years as full-time chief executive and have spent another 10 years as chairman. I have known hundreds of prisoners and ex-offenders, and I still do. Although I firmly believe in criminal justice—indeed, I think we need to be tougher on certain categories of offender—I recognise from my personal experience the dignity in all prisoners and the absolute necessity of respecting their dignity. In fact, I once wrote a speech for a Conservative leader of yesteryear that made some of those points and got headlined “Hug a hoodie”.

• 11 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I will conclude my intervention very quickly. I fear that I may have mischaracterised the hon. Member for Bradford West when I said that she is opposed to the Bill in principle; in fact, I do not think that is the case. I am not sure what the difference is between opposition in principle and opposition to the detail, but I recognise that she is certainly not opposed to the Bill in principle, so I apologise to her. Does the hon. Lady agree that the Bill would take a great leap in the dark by legalising assisted dying? At the moment, that leap lands on the uneven ground of the Mental Capacity Act. Does she agree that, if we want to do this properly, we should prepare a solid, cushioned, safe landing space that is appropriate for the Bill, rather than the inappropriate mess that the Mental Capacity Act would induce?

• 11 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move amendment 353, in clause 1, page 1, line 12, at end insert “, and (e) is not a prisoner”. This amendment makes prisoners ineligible for assisted dying.

• 11 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  In the circumstances my right hon. Friend is describing, the prisoner would be eligible for the compassionate release scheme.

• 11 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Sir Roger. I wonder whether you can advise me. I am perplexed about the position of the Government Ministers. It is an absolute pleasure to have them here, but I am confused by this Jekyll and Hyde character. They seem to have two personalities on the Committee, voting as private Members but speaking as Ministers. I wonder whether there is any precedent for that in any private Member’s Bill, or indeed any Bill, and whether Parliament admits the split personas that they have. I totally understand the rationale for having Government Ministers here. It makes me query the whole concept of this being entirely a private Member’s Bill, but I recognise the role of the Government in it. However, if the Government want Ministers present at this Committee, there are Standing Orders that enable Law Officers to attend in their official capacity but not vote. That seems to me to be the appropriate way in which Ministers should be represented here. If they want to speak on the appropriateness of particular measures in terms of Government policy and applicability, that is perfectly appropriate, but I do not understand why they are also voting on this amendment in their capacity as private Members. I wonder whether you can advise me, Sir Roger.

• 11 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  rose—

• 11 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I recognise that, and that the Bill makes a distinction in respect of euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide, which would be the doctor doing it to us. The Bill specifies that the drugs must be self-administered. I do not understand the logic of that distinction, but I recognise that there is an attempt to make the Bill more palatable and that the distinction has been preserved. Nevertheless, the Bill would enable a doctor to prescribe lethal drugs with the purpose of ending a life. That is an act that is performed: a person is prescribed drugs to end their life. Whether they take the pills or press the syringe themselves, the act has been performed, and the prescribed drugs kill the person.

• 11 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is a great stickler for doing things in the right order. I am grateful to him for calling us to order on that point again. I dare say that he is absolutely right. All these issues are rather interwoven through the Bill. I will finish on a point about the role of the Court of Appeal. A rejected application—although not an approved application, I am sorry to say—can be appealed under clause 12. For the Court of Appeal’s review to be substantive, it must surely be able to review the evidence as fully as possible on what happened throughout the terminally ill person’s application.

• 11 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  That is what I hope would happen if it was necessary for the prisoner to be released in order to avail himself of opportunities on the outside. If he is terminally ill, that is what should happen.

• 11 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Before the break, the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge gave a helpful account of the operation of the Mental Capacity Act 2005, with particular reference to the concept of “best interests” that applies in that Act. She explained that the best interests consideration kicks in only once the capacity test has been failed—once it has been concluded that someone does not have capacity. Therefore, there would be no best interests consideration in the case of assisted dying. Either a person has capacity and that is that—a rather low bar, which is, as we have discussed, appropriate for buying a cup of coffee, is got over, and they are off to the assisted dying commission, or whatever process we eventually try to set up—or they do not have capacity and are ejected from the system, and there is no best interests consideration. I reference that because my whole point is that the Bill does not use the Mental Capacity Act; it just uses the definition of capacity that is in it, and that definition is very weak. It is designed to assume capacity in the patient and, as we discussed earlier today, it can include somebody who has impaired judgment—they could be depressed or even suicidal. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull West and Shirley said earlier, very honestly, that he would be content with somebody who had depression accessing assisted suicide, as would be possible under the legislation. The point is that once the test of capacity has been passed, there is no best interests consideration. It is a great abuse of the Mental Capacity Act, the whole purpose of which is concern for the vulnerable, for that purpose to be ignored once the usefulness of the Act has been fulfilled. This Bill does violence to the Mental Capacity Act in using it for this purpose. The fact is that that Act was designed for the opposite situation: to protect people from having things done to them. I will conclude shortly, Sir Roger, but that brings me to the point we have discussed at length already today: the crucial question of whether the decision to have an assisted death is different from the decision to decline or to cease treatment. I start by pointing out that case law specifies that to decline treatment is not to commit suicide —I recognise that the hon. Member for Spen Valley does not like the term suicide, and I apologise, but we are using legal terms here. The fact is that there is a distinction in law between the act of suicide and the decision to decline treatment. I refer in particular to the famous case of Airedale NHS Trust v. Bland in 1993, and quote Lord Goff, of the House of Lords, who said that “in cases of this kind, there is no question of the patient having committed suicide, nor therefore of the doctor having aided or abetted him in doing so. It is simply that the patient has, as he is entitled to do, declined to consent to treatment which might or would have the effect of prolonging his life, and the doctor has, in accordance with his duty, complied with his patient’s wishes.” I also quote Sir Thomas Bingham, as he then was, who said that in the case of Tony Bland it was plainly not suicide, and that “it was not the discontinuance of artificial feeding but the patient’s condition and its underlying cause which caused his death”. In the withdrawal of treatment, it is not the act of withdrawing treatment that kills someone, but their disease, or the condition they have, whereas in assisted suicide it is the act that kills them. That is a crucial distinction, and that distinction is apparent. We heard it this morning in remarks from my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull West and Shirley and my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire, and I think from the hon. Member for Spen Valley, who pointed out that there is a difference between the two cases, as is evident with respect to advanced directives that allow for the withdrawal of treatment. They do not allow for the active administration of treatment; they allow for the withdrawal of treatment. They would not allow for assisted dying, as the hon. Member for Luton South and South Bedfordshire accurately said. This goes to the heart of the matter. There is a difference between being left alone and demanding that something is done to us. The state protects our right to be left alone. It does not yet give us the right to have something done to us simply because we asked for it.

• 11 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  My objection is not on the basis of criminality, innocence or guilt. I would not deny criminals this right because they are criminals. I would deny them what I regard as a dangerous opportunity because they are vulnerable. Whether guilty or not, whether they are on remand or not, they are in an equally precarious position and equally vulnerable, and that is why they should be excluded.

• 11 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member is making such an important speech, and I am very grateful to her. This is a crucial discussion. The hon. Member for Ipswich suggested that the amendment would make things worse because it would apply a new test.

• 11 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am happy to give way to the hon. Lady.

• 11 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I trace our liberties to an evolution of British law, and of English law, that recognises the essential nature of our individuality as being socialised. We belong to one another and we derive our freedom from other people. Our autonomy, Magna Carta and all the liberties of the individual proceed from that. None of us, no man, is an island. That is what I suggest to my right hon. Friend. His point was about treating everybody as solitary individuals, making independent private decisions. That is not the way any of us operate; it is certainly not the way people in the most vulnerable circumstances operate. What actually happens is that we are heavily influenced by the people around us, by our circumstances and by the choices before us. To descend from the abstract, let us consider an actual case, albeit a hypothetical one. Someone is in prison. They have committed some crime, or they have not committed a crime but have been remanded. Their whole family life has been smashed to pieces over the years, or just recently. They then get the terrible diagnosis of a terminal illness. A doctor says to them, because they are allowed to do so under the Bill, “You know, one of your options is an assisted death.” I think that that would be incredibly influential, to the point of serious concern, for those of us who know how vulnerable people in prison are. The same applies to people living on the streets, the people my right hon. Friend was describing.

• 11 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I respect that. The hon. Gentleman is suggesting that there would be a new test, but it is for a new situation. I want to alert the Committee to the purpose behind this amendment. I understand that we are in a slightly polarised discussion. The hon. Member for Bradford West and I both voted against the Bill on Second Reading, and it is not likely that we will ever support it. Nevertheless, I encourage hon. Members to consider that the amendment, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Richmond Park, who is not opposed to assisted dying in principle, is genuinely trying to ensure that the Bill is as safe as it can be. All that has been proposed, as the hon. Member for Bradford West suggests, is a strengthening and a recognition of the importance of the principles of the Mental Capacity Act, without the—

• 4 Feb 2025 · Social Security Benefits · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend replied, “No”, to the interviewer. We are not looking at means-testing the triple lock. She was talking more generally about the challenge of means-testing in our social security system, which is a legitimate question for us all to consider, as I shall go on to discuss. I did not want to get too partisan in this debate, but— [ Interruption. ] Here we go! No, I won’t, genuinely, because the challenge of our welfare system is a shared problem that we face across the House. I will note in passing that our party’s record on welfare is a good one. We introduced universal credit, rationalising the spaghetti web of benefits that we inherited from the right hon. Gentleman when he was last in office. We made work pay and helped people off welfare and into work, and we succeeded in that, with 4 million more people in employment in 2024 than in 2010. Let me point out that we had another mess to sort out in the public finances. When we took office, the Government were running a deficit of 9% and the Treasury was spending way more than it was earning. By the time the pandemic struck, the deficit was down to less than 1%. We were living within our means and were able to afford the generous uplifts made to benefits and pensions in the last Parliament, as well as the huge package of support that we provided during the pandemic. I want to be fair and admit that, as the Minister suggested, the welfare system is not working properly at the moment. Too many people are being consigned to a life of inactivity and dependency, especially via the categories of sickness benefit. It is bad for those people, their communities and the country as a whole, including the taxpayer, who spends £65 billion a year on incapacity and disability benefits, rising to £100 billion a year unless reforms are made by the end of this Parliament. So what is going on? Those terrible figures reflect the fact that we have bad rates of physical ill health, including obesity and, as is strongly evidenced in the statistics, bad backs because we simply do not move around enough in the day. The figures also reflect a rise in mental ill health, which we see in alarming rates in schools and among young people. We have to do more on those issues through all sorts of interventions that lie more with the Department for Education and the Department of Health and Social Care than with the Department for Work and Pensions. However, as the Lords Economic Affairs Committee reported last week, the rise in welfare claims cannot be attributed to worsening health or longer NHS waiting lists; the problem is growing far faster than that. Perhaps the problem is low wages that do not attract people into employment, and that is certainly a reality. Low wages have driven demand for the immigration that we have seen get so out of control in recent years. Profound changes are under way in the world of work, away from secure employment towards a more precarious jobs market. Labour is destroying jobs, taxing employment and discouraging new hires with its new Employment Rights Bill. However, the fact is that wages have risen sharply above inflation in recent years, which is why pensions are going up by earnings this year. Employers are offering good wages but are not filling vacancies. The issue is not health, although we have problems in health; the issue is not work, although we have big problems there—the issue is welfare. People are not being incentivised to take jobs because the offer from the welfare system is better. When I say welfare, I do not mean unemployment support. Thanks to universal credit and the last Government’s reforms, we saw record numbers of people move off unemployment benefit and into work. That is because we offered support to people to find work and imposed strict conditions that meant people had to actively look for a job. If they did not, they lost the benefit. That worked for a lot of people, but we found—here is the issue—that for a lot of other people, the incentives made them go the other way, further away from work into the sickness category, because that is where the good money is. In some cases, the money is double what they can get on unemployment benefit, and sometimes £3,000 more than the minimum wage. People almost certainly get it because the approval rates are high at over 90% for the limited capacity for work category. This is big and unconditional money. There is no expectation to do anything about the health conditions that mean someone is signed off sick. There is no expectation of being reassessed any time soon or, indeed, ever. That is the challenge, and I hope the Government will rise to it in the same way that we rose to the crisis in unemployment benefit in the last decade.