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Mr. Gerrard: Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Before the hon. Gentleman began to consider whether to take an intervention, he made a passing reference to the new
clause. However, he has drifted into a general discussion of the principles behind the Bill. He must speak specifically to the new clause.
Mr. Miller: I was about to do that in my next sentence, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
There is bound to be a permanent collision between rapidly changing medical science and the enormous complexities of the law of the land as it operates in the context of death. The debate on new clauses 10, 11 and 13 is immensely valuable and, as of today, my view is that it would be inappropriate to incorporate any of them into the Bill. However, I am not certain whether I shall hold that view in five or 10 years time. We must revisit some of those principles.
Mr. Gerrard: My hon. Friend mentioned the difficult decisions faced not only by doctors but by hospice care workers. We must recognise that doctors are not the only ones covered by the Bill, particularly when we consider the position in which such people may find themselves. Does that not emphasise the need for the safeguards in new clauses 10 and 11, which would provide them with some protection against prosecution?
Mr. Miller: Having listened to the exchanges between hon. Members on both sides, I must say that I do not agree with my hon. Friend. However, I also do not agree with clause 1.
On new clause 15, the hon. Member for Congleton is right to say that it is axiomatic that the Crown court would be involved. She specifically says that the charge would be murder. As I understand the law, a murder charge must be dealt with in the Crown court. However, I have a difficulty: why on earth is the hon. Lady not prepared to accept the new clause, which clarifies the point in tight terms? That has polarised a difficult debate. The hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh), who is not in his place, recognised that we need to bring the various components of the debate--and those of us who, like the Government, oppose euthanasia in principle--closer together. Perhaps it would have been helpful had the hon. Lady done so.
Mrs. Ann Winterton: I assure the hon. Gentleman that both my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) and I believe that it is as unlawful for a doctor purposefully to kill a patient by an act of commission as it is for him to do so by an act of omission. We therefore believe that the law should be the same in both cases.
Mr. Miller: So the matter would be dealt with in the Crown court, de facto.
Mrs. Winterton: There would be no need for any additional provision. The arrangements would be exactly the same as those applying to unlawful killing or murder now--that is, those applying to acts of commission. Where was Dr. Shipman tried?
Mr. Miller: It is an outrage to compare Dr. Shipman with doctors working in the hospice movement and with people suffering from Alzheimer's disease.
Mrs. Winterton: The hon. Gentleman has smeared what I said earlier. He knows perfectly well that the cases
to which he refers would not fall into the category covered by the Bill, because they are not purposeful. We have talked about double effect, and about the difference between purpose and intention. The hon. Gentleman knows that that is not the intention of the Bill.
Mr. Miller: With the greatest respect to the hon. Lady, let me say that, according to her briefing, prosecutions would take place not under the Bill but under the common-law offence of murder. She is, in fact, drawing an exact parallel between the terrible disgrace of Shipman, and doctors and carers working in a very difficult area. I know that she holds her views sincerely, but I ask her to think carefully about the way in which language is used in this debate.
Dr. Whitehead: Do not the stark terms in which the hon. Member for Congleton (Mrs. Winterton) has set the choice make it necessary to consider the tabling of new clauses allowing the distinction between a straightforward murder prosecution and other forms of prosecution to be considered? Does my hon. Friend agree that it is wrong to suggest that everyone who proposes such an alternative is simply trying to do away with the Bill?
Mr. Miller: As I said earlier, it is almost a case of, "A plague on both your houses." I think that both extreme arguments are wrong. Following an act of murder, of course we must ensure that those responsible are tried in the proper place, but I am having difficulty with the new clauses in the context of clause 1. I shall not repeat the argument, because it has been dealt with at length by others with more expertise--
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I promise the hon. Gentleman that he will not.
Mr. Miller: I meant that I would relieve the House by not repeating other Members' remarks, Mr. Deputy Speaker--not my own.
I fear that the difficult distinction between purpose and intention, and the new clauses that we are discussing alongside clause 1, will merely add to the confusion. I think we should improve clause 1, rather than adding these others.
Mr. Dismore: The hon. Member for Congleton (Mrs Winterton) hit the nail on the head in her last intervention. One of my worries is the introduction of the "purpose rather than intent" amendment. In the context of trial on indictment, the position relating to trial for murder is very clear.
I ploughed a lonely furrow last night going through "Archbold" trying to find a definition of "purpose". There is none. The law of murder is founded on the concept of intent, and that is precisely and clearly defined in Archbold's "Criminal Pleading, Evidence and Practice", the bible of those working in criminal law. I fear that, by introducing a whole new concept, the hon. Lady is opening up the possibility of a whole new debate on the definition of murder. I do not necessarily disagree with her stated purpose--
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman had 54 minutes earlier; he cannot have another 54 now.
1.30 pm
Mr. Miller: I was following the logic of my hon. Friend's erudite argument. I intervened on my hon. Friend the Minister to make the point that the common ground between the two arguments is not to be found in new clauses 10, 11 and 13, but possibly in examining jointly the Law Commission's report on involuntary manslaughter. There may be some common ground there.
I honestly wish that we spent as much time as this on the 3,500 people who die on our roads every year. It is extraordinary that those lives that are lost by needless actions of others are not given the serious consideration that they deserve.
I shall now deal with new clause 17. There are three interested parties, if one excludes the various agencies of the state: the accused, the whistleblower and the family, all of whom have rights. I am not sure that the British Medical Association's medical ethics committee has always got it right--I notice that some eyebrows have been raised--when it has tried to protect the role of a doctor in cases that require difficult ethical decisions to be made.
Some time ago, I introduced a ten-minute Bill on that aspect as it relates to certain circumstances of death on the road. I fundamentally disagree with the BMA ethics committee on its approach to that issue, but that is not for today's debate.
However, it is right that, as the doctors' trade union, the BMA should put up a defence of the doctor, and there should be some mechanism whereby the accused person is protected from the publicity that may have occurred had the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Dr. Brand) been pursued any further. As it was, the publicity surrounding his case was outrageous. There is a touch of irony in the fact that the extraordinarily long list of 153 items in the Law Commission paper on consents to prosecution includes the Isle of Wight Act 1980. Perhaps that is how the hon. Gentleman was pursued. The wide list ranges from local government issues through to genocide.
The accused must have rights in any prosecution. My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) referred to the significant number of cases in the United States that have never been successfully prosecuted. One of the missing parts of the equation is adequate protection for whistleblowers. Such protection may enable a prosecution to succeed. That includes the need for a publicity protection clause.
Dr. Harris: I am not sure that I follow the hon. Gentleman's argument about the medical ethics committee, of which I am a member, as he knows. The role of defending doctors charged with misconduct or any other offence falls to protection agencies such as the Medical Defence Union and the Medical Protection Society. They are entirely different from the British Medical Association, which is the professional body. My understanding of the way in which the BMA's ethics committee works is that it has a separate function from that of giving professional advice to individual doctors who seek guidance about complaints. It is important to recognise the general role of the ethics committee in advising not only doctors but society in general.
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