Naz Shah MP: speeches

Speeches

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

  More

  If we take that number, then that 30% or 40% who do not take that decision is maybe a few hundred people. However, the truth from Professor Sleeman’s evidence is that we are talking about thousands of people who are misdiagnosed every single year. She was talking about 3,516 who lived longer than expected. Yes, I recognise and value my hon. Friend’s comment that 30% or 40% of people do not take up assisted dying, but—perhaps I will talk about this when I move on to the next amendment—there is also a risk. If we go back to the Bill promoter’s intention to make the wording tighter, then surely this is a safeguard that she would support, just to ensure that we are making it as tight as we possibly can.

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

  More

  I thank the right hon. Member for his intervention. I have talked about that case, and the court concluded: “The prospects of her recovery overall approach zero… Given that it is extremely unlikely that Ms L will recover from her anorexia it is…in her best interests to” move to palliative care, as it was considered a terminal illness. In some ways, that makes my point for me: she was diagnosed as terminally ill. The purpose of the amendment is to close that loophole. The majority of these cases are young girls and young women. I do not want them to get to a stage where they qualify under the Bill because they have a terminal illness due to refusing food, because that can be treated. That is the point that I am trying to make. Let us say that only one or two people with anorexia have an assisted death if the Bill becomes law without my amendment. I hope that every member of the Committee would agree that even one such death would be unacceptable. Some might say, “Oh, but we must not make the perfect the enemy of the good.” That has been said in the debate, or sentiments have been expressed that reflect that sentence. That is a good argument to make when we are trying to persuade our teenagers to finish their homework for school and so on. It does not wash for me when we are trying to create a Bill with the strongest possible safeguards for vulnerable adults, and it is too close to the arguments made in favour of brutal actions across the globe. We say things like, “To make an omelette, you’ve got to crack a few eggs.” If we want to make the Bill the best it can be, we cannot use such arguments. Perfection is not the enemy of the good—perfection is absolutely what we should be pursuing in this Committee. Reference was made to one of the witnesses who gave oral evidence. I remember being aghast at the idea that these two people who died in Oregon were somehow a red herring and that there had been only two. It was really disappointing, and I was extremely angry at that comment. That is not something we should be doing or the standard we should be setting. We cannot be saying that. There is nothing good about letting people who have sadly reached an advanced state of malnutrition be given assisted dying. Surely we can agree on that. If this Bill does not include my safeguard, it will do two things. First, it will increase the dangers of anorexia. People already develop anorexia to such a degree that they perish of malnutrition. Allowing such people to apply for assisted dying will mean that more severe anorexics die. If we do not adopt my safeguard, we run the further risk that those who are not anorexic, but wish to hasten death, stop eating in order to qualify for an assisted death. Both of those would be truly malign. I would hope all Members of the Committee will accept my amendment to protect those who would otherwise be at risk of starving themselves to an assisted death. I also want to bring to the Committee’s attention a public letter that has been released this afternoon by nearly 40 individuals who work in the field of eating disorders. They have said, on the amendment to which I am speaking: “This amendment states that mental illness alone does not qualify as a terminal illness, but as the legal text (“Nothing in this subsection…”) makes clear it has no effect beyond restating that the condition must meet the requirements of clause 2(1). If a doctor holds that a mental illness meets the test in clause 2(1) for terminal illness, this amendment will do nothing to prevent that.” They further say: “Eating disorders are treatable. They are life-threatening when left untreated or poorly treated, but this risk is preventable, and deaths from eating disorders are not inevitable. As campaigners, clinicians, charities, and organisations working with those affected, we urge the committee to take these concerns seriously and ensure this bill does not put people with eating disorders at risk of premature death under the guise of assisted dying.” On my amendment 402, they say: “Amendment 402: Explicitly states that a person cannot be deemed terminally ill because they have stopped eating or drinking.” On amendment 48, they say: “Amendment 48: Clarifies that a person is only considered terminally ill if their death is reasonably certain within six months, even with all recommended treatment.” They are supporting those amendments, 9, 10, 48, 402 and 11. On that note, I will finish.

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

  More

  I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, but the truth of the matter is we have 10 cases that have gone to the Court of Protection. In nine of those 10 cases, judges ruled that the young people—women and girls, one was only 19—did have the capacity not to take treatment.

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

  More

  Actually, it was the other way around and I am happy to provide a reference to the right hon. Gentleman. Nine cases found lack of capacity, but still not in the best interest. One of the girls was 19 years old. The judge found that they lacked capacity to make decisions about their treatment. The question of whether they had the capacity to decide to end their life is completely different and not something we have asked judges to rule on before. The judge’s ruling clearly implied the capacity to refuse force-feeding even if it resulted in their death. I am happy to provide the references for that. It was against their best interest to force-feed them. Tragically, in nine of the 10 cases the judges accepted that that would inevitably lead to the deaths of those young girls. My hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley has repeatedly stressed that her Bill is modelled on the Death with Dignity law in Oregon.

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

  More

  I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central; I was actually incorrect. The girls did not have capacity, so he was correct. However, in the cases that went before the court, those nine girls did not have capacity yet the judge made a decision that they should not be force-fed to keep them alive, and they should be allowed to die. Perhaps the Minister could comment on how the amendment would not meet that criteria. Would it fix that loophole?

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

  More

  Sorry—would my hon. Friend like to intervene?

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

  More

  I am happy to withdraw that comment, given the welcome intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley. When intervening on me in a previous sitting of the Committee, she stressed that most of the assisted deaths of people with eating disorders took place in the Netherlands and Belgium. The survey that Ms Roff and her colleagues carried out did find that the Netherlands and Belgium had more assisted deaths of people with eating disorders than Oregon, but it also found that Oregon itself had more than one such case. California and Colorado have also accepted people with eating disorders as subjects for assisted death. I remind hon. Members that, as I noted earlier, Oregon has a considerably smaller population than England and Wales. In 2023, the last year for which we have full data, Oregon had a population of just 4.25 million. By contrast, England and Wales had a population of 60.85 million—more than 14 times higher. Perhaps it is the case that Oregon has had two assisted deaths for anorexia sufferers, as one witness told the Committee. In England and Wales, we have 14 times the population of Oregon. If it became legal for sufferers of advanced-stage anorexia to take their lives by assisted dying, we would almost certainly have more cases than Oregon.

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

  More

  Absolutely not. That is not the point that I am making. Eating disorders are reversible, but it has been found that where this kind of legislation has been enacted, across the globe, somebody who has anorexia and decides not to eat then falls within the scope of assisted dying because it becomes a terminal illness.

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

  More

  My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech, and I agree with what he says about autonomy. As I said earlier, autonomy does not necessarily have to lead to pain, and it could be that I do not want to get to that stage. People will never know whether they could have lived longer. Does he not agree?

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

  More

  Will my hon. Friend give way?

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

  More

  Does the hon. Member agree that one point that is really important in this afternoon’s debate is that a person has a right to refuse treatment, and indeed food and water, if they have capacity, but that malnutrition is practically reversible? The argument has been made by doctors in Oregon around the voluntary stopping of eating and drinking that doctors cannot legally force a person with capacity to eat, and if they refuse food, their condition can be considered irreversible and terminal. That is the crux of the point. Does he agree with me?

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

  More

  Thank you, Mr Dowd. I have it in evidence and I am happy to provide the reference.

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

  More

  I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. If we take that 30% to 40% figure, and the figure—she might correct me if I am wrong here, and I am happy to be corrected—that there are about 600 people on average going to Dignitas, for example—

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

  More

  I accept that the majority of those 60 cases are in such jurisdictions, but to me it does not matter whether it is the majority or one—one death is too many, as I am sure my hon. Friend will agree. In Oregon, the evidence was that it was two, but it is also important to reflect on the fact that Oregon does not record these things. There is no record of the people who had anorexia—by and large, it is women—and who felt that they fit the criteria for assisted death, or that they were on a trajectory to fit it, because they had decided not to eat. So we cannot exactly rely on the two cases that have been found—and those were found only because of the research that was carried out. That does not quite satisfy the question.

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

  More

  In the cases that went before the court, the judges, in nine out of 10 cases, found that all those young ladies did indeed have capacity to refuse their food, and it was as a result of that that their deaths became inevitable. Will my hon. Friend comment on that?

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

  More

  The hon. Member talks about the amendment being probing. Does he know why we went for six months? Was it was based on research? I am not sure whether he is aware or can help me understand that.

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

  More

  Before we adjourned, I was talking about the two obvious problems with amendment 181. The first is that it would remove references to the Equality Act 2010 and the Mental Health Act 1983, which previously defined who did or did not have a disability or mental disorder. The amendment would remove those definitions, and the Bill would not define disability or mental disorder. What definition would medical practitioners, and indeed applicants, use to determine who does and does not have a disability or mental health disorder? I appreciate that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley explained, that was done on the basis of advice she took to remove the references to the Equality Act because people with cancer could also declare themselves to be disabled people. However, that leaves a real opening, which weakens the clause even further. I cannot understand why we would remove one clear definition but not provide a replacement. That is a serious concern. However, there is a bigger problem with the clause as it would be changed by my hon. Friend’s amendment. In referring to someone who could not be disqualified from assisted dying, the clause would still use the word “only”—again, I emphasise the word “only”. That leaves the door open for individuals with mental health disorders or disabled people to qualify for an assisted death based on the physical consequences of their condition. If the goal is to prevent people with mental illness or disabled people from qualifying, this amendment fails to do that. It weakens, rather than strengthens, the Bill’s safeguards. As we heard in oral evidence, there are now 60 documented cases of individuals with eating disorders who have died by assisted death internationally.

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

  More

  Can I not ask for it now while we are in the debate?

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

  More

  I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. That is not something I had spoken to the right hon. Member for Braintree about. Thinking about it, his point is valid: there is always an overlap in terms of whether this is the state interfering or not interfering. In this instance, it is about the state and legislation protecting the individual and ensuring that an autonomous decision, which is what we are trying to get to, was reached, without any coercion, undue influence or subtle manipulation—whatever word we choose to use in these proceedings—and not for the benefit of others. Too many arguments that I hear in support of the Bill seem to assume that all those who seek assisted dying will do so as a matter of autonomy—as a free choice. Honestly, it would be much easier to support the Bill if that were true, and I sincerely wish it were, because we would not have the issues we have been talking about all today and yesterday. However, we must pay heed to those who do not live their lives in that way. We in this House have a duty to protect those who feel like a burden to those close to them—or who are made to feel like a burden, whichever route that may take, and we have had plenty of conversations about that. The amendment tabled by the right hon. Member for Braintree would permit doctors to halt an application for assisted dying if they had good reason to believe that an applicant was not acting for their own benefit.

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

  More

  Many of us on the Committee are first-timers. My understanding is that in a normal Government process we would have gone out to consultation. We are talking about coercion and undue influence, and undue influence in particular is not something that does not appear on the statute books in other legislation, as the Minister may recall I said earlier. We would normally go out and consult and speak to charities, particularly domestic violence charities. As many Members have said throughout the last few days and this morning, we know that terminology changes. We did not previously have the vocabulary of coercion and the words that we have today. When was the last time, for any Bill—apart from in respect of Domestic Violence Act 2021 under the previous Government—that we actually went out to consult people? Given that there is no impact assessment, which we are so desperately missing and which is a huge chunk of this issue, I want to understand how we can be sure, and how the Government can come here and be absolutely sure, that this will work, given that this is a whole new concept. This is not domestic violence, with which we have some familiarity. We had one Select Committee inquiry in 2015, and my understanding is that it did not produce anything conclusive either to support or not to support the concept of assisted dying. We have not had the debates to tease this out. Other Members may be much more familiar with these concepts, but will the Minister comment on that?

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

  More

  My understanding is that the judges’ views on capacity relate to the fact that there are only 200 qualified palliative care social workers in the country.

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

  More

  Yes, Mrs Harris, I do want to push the amendment to a vote. In summary, the reference to “coerced or pressured” in clause 1 relates only to coercion or pressure by another person and does not cover internalised pressure. In written evidence, the Royal College of Psychiatrists said: “The Bill focuses on external coercion. That is, for example, coercion from family members with personal or financial motivations to hasten death. While this type of coercion may not always be clear, internal and societal pressures that may reach the threshold of coercion can be even more difficult to detect.” I am not going to rehash that. I appreciate where we are at with this conversation. The royal college says that the Bill does not address “more subtle forms of coercion, such as where a person may internalise a feeling of being a burden to others. How might such internalised pressure be identified or responded to in this context?” It is that important question that we are left with. It continues: “At what level would implicit or internal pressures amount to coercion? At what point would supporting a person to have capacity to make a decision to request assistance to die constitute coercion?” That coercion may be used for the benefit of others. That brings me back to the crux of this amendment: it is about the benefit of others. There is nothing to suggest that there would not be an incidental benefit for people; there can absolutely be an incidental benefit. For the avoidance of doubt, this amendment is not about that. We have had votes on adding language to the Bill, which I voted for. We have heard the Government responses, which I struggle with. Ultimately, I want to push this amendment to a vote because I feel that we need to strengthen the Bill. As it is, there are loopholes, and one loophole is one loophole too many. Question put, That the amendment be made.

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

  More

  The right hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech. In response to the comment by my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich, people can have, and will have, an incidental benefit when somebody with autonomy makes a decision. The Government could table tidying-up amendments to clarify that and make this amendment stronger, if it gives an extra safeguard for those who are seeking assisted dying, should the Bill become law.

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

  More

  The hon. Member makes a valid point: it could be an absolutely autonomous decision. In an ideal world, that is what we would like to get to, but we are not in an ideal world.

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

  More

  Thank you, Mrs Harris. Sticking to the amendment, can I ask whether the Government will have already taken a position on it before I get to the end of my speech? Can they not share that before I make my speech? Is that within the scope of the conversation?