Rachel Hopkins MP: speeches

Speeches

• 20 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I am sorry, but we are short of time. The changes that have been made, including many proposed by Members who do not support a change in the law but which have been adopted by the promoter of the Bill, my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater), as well as those proposed during the process she has led in response to evidence submitted during the scrutiny process have led to a better Bill. The Bill has greater safeguards for more vulnerable people, with mandatory training requirements, including in relation to coercion and capacity. The Bill ensures judicial oversight of decision making by a range of experts, including psychiatrists, social workers and senior legal professionals. The Bill will set out statutory protections for those workers who do not wish to take part in the assisted dying process on the basis of conscience, and quite right too. The Bill will provide for one of the tightest, safest assisted dying laws in the world. Importantly, the Bill has compassion at its core by affording dying people choice at the end of life. I thank every one of my constituents who shared their views with me, whether for or against a change in the law. I particularly thank all those who have disagreed with me, because good democracy and the right to disagree respectfully is hugely important; perhaps it is a debate for another time. I also thank all those who have shared their personal stories of loved ones’ deaths, some brutal, painful and traumatic—a stark reminder that the status quo is simply unacceptable. Others have shared experiences with loved ones who, in other jurisdictions, such as Australia, were able to have a peaceful death, surrounded by loved ones and at a time of their choosing. As I come to a close, although not everyone would want to choose an assisted death, I believe that everyone should have the opportunity to choose one if they so wish. It really is time that this House takes the important, compassionate and humane step towards making that a reality by voting for the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.

• 20 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I rise to speak in support of the Bill on Third Reading, because at its very heart are terminally ill adults: people who are dying; people who have less than six months to live; people who have tried to stay alive, to beat a terrible disease with expert medical treatment, but to no avail. Now they face the inevitable: that they will die. In fact, that is the only thing any of us know we will ever do, really. I am sure that most of us think about and desire a peaceful, pain-free death where we slip off in our sleep at a ripe old age, having lived a good life, but the reality is that all of us and all our citizens—those for whom we legislate in this place—could face a painful and undignified death. That is why I believe that in the 21st century, like a growing number of other countries, we should change the law to permit choice at the end of life—or rather, choice towards the end of death—so that dying people can opt to have a death in the manner of their choosing and have an element of control over those last days. YouGov polling published yesterday again showed that the public—the citizens we serve—back it too, with 75% supporting assisted dying in principle and 73% supporting the Bill as it stands. As a co-sponsor of the Bill, and having served on the Bill Committee, I am pleased that it is had more scrutiny, challenge and debate than almost any other piece of legislation—over 100 hours, in fact.

• 10 Jun 2025 · Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme: Capital Disregard · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham and Penge (Liam Conlon) for securing today’s debate and congratulate him on bringing forward a ten-minute rule Bill on Philomena’s law. I am proud to put my name to that Bill as a co-sponsor, particularly as I represent a significant Irish diaspora in my constituency, with close ties between the UK and Ireland. I hope the Minister understands the importance of those ties. As has already been outlined, Philomena’s law is named after Philomena Lee, who was 18 when she became pregnant and was sent to the Sean Ross Abbey mother and baby home in Roscrea, County Tipperary, where she gave birth to her son Anthony and lived for three years before being forced to give him up for adoption. We have heard about the Oscar-nominated film “Philomena”, which told the story of her painstaking search to be reunited with Anthony. Philomena’s story sadly struck a chord for thousands of mothers and their children who not only suffered in those cruel institutions, but were ever changed by the lasting mark it made on their lives. With great thanks to Luton Irish Forum, which does brilliant work supporting our Irish diaspora, I am honoured to share a snippet of the story of my constituent, Christina, who is here today. She has been really courageous in sharing her story and allowing me to mention her in my speech. Christina was born in a mother and baby home in Rathdrum, County Wicklow. Christina’s mother escaped and ran away with her just weeks after her birth, but subsequently left Christina on the doorstep of a church in Dublin. Christina spent much of her life being passed from foster family to foster family, where she experienced physical abuse, taunting and humiliation, including from those caring for her and neighbours on the street where she lived. She eventually reconnected with her mother during her teenage years, after hiring a detective to track her down, and realised that she was living in Dublin, just minutes from where Christina was working in a factory. Unfortunately Christina and her mother never forged a close relationship, but it is important to ensure that these stories are heard, because the trauma Christina endured and the shame associated with mother and baby institutions in Ireland unfortunately mirrors the story of tens of thousands of women and children who experienced harsh conditions and mistreatment, with many fleeing to England to escape. It is right that the Irish Government opened the mother and baby institutions payment scheme for survivors of mother and baby homes in March 2024 to recognise the impact of the time they spent in those institutions. However, for those now living in England, further hurdles remain and are preventing those eligible for the scheme from accessing the compensation they are entitled to. Survivors who accept an offer of payment from the scheme could lose a range of means-tested benefits, including housing benefit, pension credit and financial support for social care, as the payment would be treated as savings. This complicated and unfair situation has made the payments scheme, which was supposed to be a token of apology from the Irish Government, into an additional burden and hurdle for many. The uncertainty and stress involved is causing yet more trauma for survivors, and many eligible applicants have delayed accepting the money they have been offered or not made applications in the first place as a result. Sadly, the age profile of many eligible applicants means that delays in accepting offers or making applications run the risk that many people will not live long enough to benefit from the compensation that they are due. I support my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham and Penge in his efforts to implement Philomena’s law, which would put right this unfair situation through the introduction of an indefinite capital disregard and would ringfence any compensation accepted through the scheme so that it would not impact benefits or social care calculations.

• 25 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-eighth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey. In similar circumstances, with the provision of intense personal services such as in vitro fertilisation, there are a range of providers, some in the private sector and some in the public sector—in fact, most are in the private sector even if they deliver under NHS funding or an NHS contract—but they are all subject to the same rules, inspection and regulations. Does my hon. Friend not accept that if it can work in an intense, personal and sometimes ethically complex situation like that, it could equally work here, because there is experience in that sort of environment?

• 25 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-ninth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  On my hon. Friend’s point about marking one’s own homework, does she agree that many public bodies do a self-assessment that is then looked at by the regulator? It is as important a part of the process of self-regulations as external inspection.

• 19 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-sixth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Does my hon. Friend agree that, given patient confidentiality, it is highly unlikely that other residents of a care home would even be aware?

• 18 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fifth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  The hon. Member is referring to the genuine occupational requirement, but I go back to my point: which protected characteristic is she talking about? Support for assisted dying is not a protected characteristic. I am intrigued to know how that would operate in practice.

• 18 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fifth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I am very sympathetic to the views put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley about people being able to conscientiously object in principle, but the way amendment 480 is written is difficult. For me, it is about the word “indirectly”. That could lead to even more ambiguity that would make it more tricky to facilitate the provision. For example, trying to list some activities but not all of them has potentially left some gaps. A gardener in a care home might be “indirectly” linked—will they be able to say that they are not going to mow the lawn? We will get ourselves in a difficult place, and I would welcome further work being done to recognise the point the hon. Member for East Wiltshire is trying to make, because of that ambiguity. Trying to establish a point of principle in new clause 22 could lead to some difficulties. It reads: “Any individual, business, organisation, or association who occupies or operates premises has the right to refuse to permit the self-administration of an approved substance on their premises.” Perhaps it is about the interpretation of that and how we read it, but any individual who occupies a premises could refuse permission. Does that mean that a husband could deny a wife the opportunity to die at home when that is where she has been treated for a terminal illness, where all her help has been administered and where she would like to die? Again, it is about whether the drafting might have unintended consequences when we want to have compassion and choice for the individual at the heart of the Bill. Similarly, could an organisation or association with shared ownership of a property—a form of tenure that many people now have—object to this route for someone who is after all in their own home, as they own part of it? There are some difficulties in the new clause, and by trying to establish one principle, it is making things more difficult and open to challenge. We are trying to make law that is good, even if we do not agree with it.

• 18 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fifth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  I respect that. I have been very clear about my beliefs, but I know people who share my beliefs and do not support assisted dying, and vice versa; I have friends who are religious and do support assisted dying. Again, we cannot make assumptions about people’s protected characteristics.

• 18 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fifth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Okay. I will carry on. Some of the amendments were tabled by the hon. Member for Reigate, and I want to speak to amendment 481, which is of a similar ilk. There is no obligation on an employer to provide assistance, and we are all absolutely bought into that, so that is not a bad thing. Amendment 481 would avoid preventing “an employer who has chosen not to participate in the provision of assistance…from prohibiting their…employees from providing such assistance in the course of their employment with that employer”. I have some questions on that. People’s working lives are varied and often they may not have just one employer, so there is a slight ambiguity—I hope the Committee will bear with me—if employer A exercises a right to prohibit under the amendment, and someone works for employer A but also for employer B, which is okay with people participating in a legal act under this legislation. Let me provide a bit of clarity with the example of a locum doctor. If a doctor is employed by employer A, but also does some locum work for employer B, does that mean that employer A could say the doctor was not permitted to carry out legitimate employment for employer B?

• 18 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fifth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  I—

• 18 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fifth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  I thank the hon. Lady for her response, but I think it made my point: I interpreted it slightly differently from the way the hon. Lady intended. I would welcome some clarity on that from the Ministers and lawyers in the room. Similarly, I was interested in the point regarding the genuine “occupational requirements”, and how that is written and interpreted. There are reasons for “specifying occupational requirements in relation to the provision of assistance in accordance with this Act in accordance with Schedule 9 of the Equality Act when hiring employees” but that occupational requirement means that an employer could discriminate on the basis of a protected characteristic, if that requirement is essential for the job and “a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim”. I am a little concerned as to the interpretation. In respect of which protected characteristic would they or would they not be recruiting? We need some legal input to clarify that, because we cannot make assumptions about people’s protected characteristics, particularly in recruitment.

• 18 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fifth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  rose —

• 18 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fifth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  I thank the hon. Member for Reigate for her intervention. In the light of her comments, it seems the amendment may be trying to put on the face of the Bill some nuances that should be picked up through employment law. I understand the principle of what she is trying to achieve, but there are protections in those areas.

• 18 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fifth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  I appreciate the interventions, because we are trying to get the best clarity we can for dying people. Are we debating the other amendments in this group, Mr Dowd?

• 18 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fifth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  I am conscious of the Chair’s comments, so I am going to proceed, because I want to make a final point about new clause 23. I am sympathetic to its principles, as I recognise that some institutions may not want to provide assistance. This new clause, however, relates solely to no detriment for care homes or hospices for not providing assistance. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central pointed out, there are a variety of settings, such as sheltered accommodation, warden-controlled accommodation, hospitals or other regulated premises, to which this would apply. We might therefore, in this new clause, be putting some institutions on the face of the Bill but leaving a whole bunch of others to fall through the gaps. So again, there are difficulties with the new clause, even though there is an element of it to which we might want to be responsive.

• 12 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-second sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Oh no—that’s yours!

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

  More

  The Bill already sets out a number of things that a doctor has to assure themselves of, with regard to coercion and capacity. They would do that having had a significant amount of training to establish, in the round, after consulting others, that one way or another the legal requirements have been met. The “Why?” question appears to me to bring in a judgmental element—

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

  More

  I want to check that my hon. Friend was not implying that I had not thought deeply—for more than a minute–in the course of making my comments earlier.

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

  More

  Indeed: subjective, as the right hon. Gentleman said. That is the point that I am trying to get at. There is an objective assessment, which is wholly appropriate, but a subjective assessment would lead down a different route and muddy the objective assessment.

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

  More

  Will my hon. Friend give way?

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

  More

  I will continue, if I may. I turn to amendments 422 and 423. The importance of a rounded, holistic assessment and discussion with the patient has been pointed out in many of our discussions, as has the importance of the multidisciplinary team and the other health and care professionals who support the patient with health and social care. That would all have to be recorded—the conversations that have been had, and why the assessing doctors and other health and social care professionals were involved. In oral evidence, many doctors in other jurisdictions said that they worked in multidisciplinary teams. The amendment would firm that up. It is about being clearer, because the clarity that the amendments provide would make for a stronger process. On amendment 468, the hon. Member for Reigate pointed out that it asks a very simple question. However, I return to the point about the professionalism of the doctors involved in the process, who will be working within the legal requirement under the Bill that the individual have a clear, settled and informed wish. The doctors will have to check individuals’ eligibility under the requirements, for example that they are over 18 and have a terminal illness with a six-month prognosis. The doctors will use their expertise and professionalism, and that of the multidisciplinary team, to make assessments about coercion. They have strong rules about assessing for capacity. The requirement to ask why someone wants an assisted death is a requirement to police the conversation that the doctor has with their patient. Setting it out in primary legislation would lead to a tick-box exercise, with doctors saying, “You’ve told me a number of times already in our conversation that I’ve been having with you, but I’m sorry: I have to officially ask this question and tick the box.” That could lead to an insensitive conversation and relationship between the relevant people in the process. To a certain degree, the patient may think, “So what? Do I have to tell you why? It is none of your business why I want to pursue this legal course of action down the line.” I appreciate where the hon. Member for Reigate is coming from, but with the best of intentions, her amendment would actually lessen the individual’s autonomy and their right to choose what if the Bill passes will be a legal course of action. I am content that the stringent training that will be required for any of the assessing healthcare professionals will enable a good holistic conversation so that good judgments can be made. Adding this extra sentence would detract from that, so I cannot support the amendment.

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

  More

  I am grateful to my hon. Friend for reiterating those points. Does she accept that it is a patient’s right to say, “It’s none of your business” in the course of the conversation?

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

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. I rise to speak in support of amendments 201, 422 and 423, which stand in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley, and against amendment 468. On amendment 201, a point was made earlier about the relevance of records. It was mentioned that it might well not be relevant to look at a childhood tonsillectomy. However, I wish to speak in slightly more specific terms, in support of women and their reproductive rights, and to highlight the risk of unconscious bias if all records are to be looked at. If a woman had a termination in her teenage years, that will be highly irrelevant to her decision, many decades later, whether to choose an assisted death. Relevance is very important, because there will be a high level of record keeping in the process. It is not only the doctors working with the patient on the assessment who will read the records and reports; ultimately, it will also be the panel. I make the point again that so many parts of a patient’s medical records are highly irrelevant to the diagnosis and prognosis of a terminal illness, and to the six months under the eligibility criteria. Indeed, there is a risk of unconscious bias in the judgment. It is about the professionalism of the doctor in respect of understanding the records that are relevant for the process.

• 11 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty First sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  rose—