Bill ‘effectively puts a price on my head’, peer warns in assisted dying debate

A peer has said assisted dying legislation “effectively puts a price on” his head.

Lord Kevin Shinkwin, who described himself as being “severely disabled”, had neurosurgery after he suffered a series of mini-strokes, at one point leaving him with six months to live.

Debating the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, the Conservative backbencher warned peers that they risk prising open a Pandora’s box, if they agree to the draft new law.

“It was a day much like any other when I was diagnosed,” Lord Shinkwin said.

“A busy day at the office was followed by a hospital appointment to find out why within months my face had effectively shut down on the left side.

“Nothing prepared me for what came next.

“An MRI scan showed that a succession of mini-strokes was killing me. I had six months left to live.

“The only hope was neurosurgery.

“I asked the neurosurgeon my odds on making a full recovery. Her reply was direct.

“She said, ‘I can’t give you odds on survival’.

“What she didn’t say was, ‘I can help you to die’.

“This Bill would fundamentally alter the conversation a patient has with a doctor who they trust to do no harm.”

Lord Shinkwin said the surgery was successful but he faced an “excruciating and painful long recovery”.

The peer added: “I wonder if we have any idea of the Pandora’s box this Bill will prise open.”

He referred to an earlier speech by former Conservative prime minister Baroness Theresa May of Maidenhead, who last Friday said her friend had branded the Bill the “‘licence to kill’ Bill”.

She was “right”, Lord Shinkwin said, and continued: “It gives the state the licence to kill the wrong type of people.

“My Lords, I am the ‘wrong type’.”

He later added: “I face the realistic possibility as a severely disabled person of being killed as a result of legislation passed by this House.”

If passed, the Bill would give terminally ill patients in England and Wales access to an assisted death, if their diagnosis means they have six months or less left to live.

Labour peer Lord Falconer of Thoroton, who opened the debate, said in part of his speech that the new provision could save the NHS more than its estimated £25 million a year cost.

“There are savings to be made should assisted dying be introduced,” Lord Shinkwin said.

“This Bill effectively puts a price on my head.”

Lord Shinkwin was one of several peers to oppose the assisted dying Bill.

Former Brexit negotiator Lord David Frost warned that approving the draft new law would “dismantle part of that inherited ethical system” in the UK, and continued: “Once you’ve introduced utilitarianism into our society’s decisions, where do you stop?”

The Conservative peer said: “In such a society, the rights of those who are ‘inconvenient’, the disabled, the ill, the elderly or maybe those who are just unpopular, have no robust defence and are potentially vulnerable.”

Independent crossbencher Lord Curry of Kirkharle said: “There’s absolutely no question that this Bill if passed will devalue the importance of human life and economics will become part of the decision-making process – the NHS will save money and families will protect their inheritance.”

The Bill has also attracted support from several backers in the upper chamber, including Lord Jo Johnson of Marylebone, whose brother Boris was a Conservative prime minister.

“People who suffer from an incurable condition should not be forced against their will to endure intolerable suffering,” the former minister said.

“The case for change I do believe remains strong.”

Labour former minister Baroness Blackstone said she felt “affronted” by the “language used sometimes, such as references to the ‘killing Bill’ or the ‘assisted suicide Bill'”.

She said when her former husband was dying of stomach cancer at the age of 44, “he desperately wanted it to ‘come to an end’, as he put it”.

She added: “Because of the law, I could not help him end his torture.”