Streeting Orders Cost Review of Assisted Suicide

Health Secretary Wes Streeting has ordered a review into the costs of implementing state-run assisted suicide.
The health secretary said that now the wording of the bill has been released, “I’ve asked my department to look at the costs that would be associated with providing a new service to enable assisted dying to go forward, because I’m very clear that regardless of my own personal position or my own vote, my department and the whole government will respect the will of Parliament if people vote for assisted dying.”
The minister, who has expressed his concern over how factors such as coercion and inadequate palliative care might influence people to opt for assisted suicide, said that the question touches on the “slippery slope argument.”
“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,” Streeting said.
The Labour MP for Ilford North said he believes that is one of the issues MPs are wrestling with when considering how to cast their vote.
“But this is a free vote, the government’s position is neutral,” Streeting said, adding, “The prime minister is very clearly studying the bill before deciding on his own position.”
The Canadian government has previously highlighted the savings of its medical assistance in dying (MAiD) programme.
Earlier on Wednesday, Streeting told Times Radio: “There would be resource implications for doing it. And those choices would come at the expense of other choices.”
When asked if a change in the law would require finding money from somewhere else, the minister replied: “Yep. 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,” he said.
Davey described watching his mother battle with breast cancer for three years before succumbing to the disease, saying, “It’s precisely because of those years spent caring for mum that I will be voting against it.”
The Liberal Democrat leader continued: “My fear is that, if we make assisted dying a state-sanctioned option, some people would inevitably feel an enormous psychological pressure to take it up, even if it’s not what they really want.
“No matter what safeguards are in the law, it seems unavoidable to me that some people would sadly feel like they are too much of a burden.”
While only a minority of Private Members’ Bills become law, the issue has been receiving significant public attention in the past several months, notably since Dame Esther Rantzen, who has stage four lung cancer, has been campaigning for a change in the law.