Meeting of the Parliament 13 March 2026 [Draft]
I am happy to support Douglas Ross’s amendment 256.
Amendment 257 would introduce an institutional opt-out, which is an essential safeguard to ensure that no hospice, palliative care provider or other health or social care organisation is forced to participate in or facilitate assisted dying or assisted suicide, depending on which term members prefer. The amendment recognises that there are organisations for which providing assisted dying would violate their founding ethos and the religious or ethical values on which their care is based. My amendment would also ensure that hospices and care homes that choose not to participate would not suffer any detriment as a result, including regulatory sanction or loss of Government funding.
In jurisdictions that have legalised assisted dying, we have seen why that protection matters. In Switzerland, the Salvation Army was threatened with defunding for not allowing assisted dying on its premises. In Canada, the Irene Thomas hospice was forced to close after losing 1.5 million Canadian dollars in funding for refusing to offer assisted dying. Hospice UK has warned that palliative care doctors could be forced out of the hospice sector if they are unable to distance themselves from assisted dying that takes place in their workplaces. In fact, seven in 10 palliative care doctors say that they would consider resigning if their organisation were to offer assisted dying. We must protect the organisations that those doctors work for. Whatever we think about assisted dying, can we really risk forcing a significant number of our most skilled palliative care specialists out of the sector?
Most hospices are small and intimate settings. Requiring them to permit assisted dying on their premises not only would affect staff but could have a profound effect on patients, many of whom would not want to live in a place where assisted dying was being carried out yet could find themselves next to a room in which someone was taking lethal drugs. For vulnerable people, that could be a terrifying experience. I am not yet a vulnerable person, but I would not want to be forced to witness the person in the next room taking their own life.
It would be deeply alarming if we were asked to vote for a bill that was stripped of its conscience provisions and expected to put our full trust in Westminster to make that right.
Our hospice and care sectors are already facing major challenges in that they are short of funds, have recruitment challenges and are struggling to meet our country’s growing care needs. Without including an institutional opt-out, we risk forcing care homes and hospices to choose between their conscience and their continued existence, potentially decimating the whole sector.