The Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, has refused to say that he did not have “safety concerns” about the introduction of assisted suicide in England and Wales.
Yesterday, during a meeting of the Health and Social Care Committee, Streeting, a vocal opponent of the assisted suicide Bill, refused to say whether he believed that the assisted suicide Bill could be implemented safely in a context where the palliative and end-of-life care sector is in crisis.
Importantly, the Bill has an auto-commencement clause, where the roll-out of assisted suicide would automatically happen after four years, no matter how unprepared the relevant sectors are.
When asked by Labour MP Josh Fenton-Glynn whether he believed assisted suicide could be implemented safely in this context with auto-commencement, Streeting fell silent for five seconds before replying, “That is a decision for Parliament”.
Asked again “As Health Secretary, do you think it’s safe?”, he replied “The Government is neutral on this”.
When pressed and explicitly asked whether he has “safety concerns”, Streeting said that, “Were Parliament minded to proceed with the Bill and see it through to completion and onto the statute books, I would like to make sure that we have high-quality palliative and end-of-life care services so that there is a real choice, and no one feels compelled to take up an assisted death through the absence of palliative and end-of-life care services”.
“That is not where we are as a country at present”, he added.
When pressed again, the Health Secretary deferred to the Permanent Secretary for the Department of Health and Social Care, Samantha Jones, saying “Yes please, Permanent Secretary, save me from this line of questioning”.
After the Select Committee, Fenton-Glynn said, “Whatever your view on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill[,] I hope everyone agrees it should be safe. I’m concerned [the Health Secretary] couldn’t guarantee the bill[‘]s safety or that people wouldn’t be compelled to take the decision to have an early death due to a lack of palliative care provision”.
Streeting has previously argued that assisted suicide would “come at the expense” of other services
The Health Secretary has previously warned that delivering assisted suicide would “come at the expense of other competing pressures and priorities”.
“I would hate for people to opt for assisted dying because they think they’re saving someone somewhere money, whether that’s relatives or the NHS. And I think that’s one of the issues that MPs are wrestling with as they decide how to cast their vote”, he said.
Streeting also told Times Radio that “Those choices [to implement assisted suicide] would come at the expense of other choices”.
“To govern is to choose. If parliament chooses to go ahead with assisted dying, it is making a choice that this is an area to prioritise for investment. And we’d have to work through those implications”.
Spokesperson for Right To Life UK, Catherine Robinson, said “It is extremely telling that the Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, was unable to confirm that it would be safe to implement assisted suicide in the context of the inadequate provision of palliative and end-of-life care”.
“Streeting has voted against the assisted suicide Bill at both Second and Third Reading, and his silence in response to questions about the safety of the Bill speaks volumes”.
“This Bill will never be safe. It is imperative that Peers understand the dangers that assisted suicide poses to vulnerable people in our society and work to reject this horrific piece of legislation”.
