My Lords, it is a great honour to participate in the debate. I particularly thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, for her excellent opening speech.

I support the Bill. As some know, I have been on both sides of this debate over the years. I voted against Lord Joffe’s Bill in 2005, but then, as I went deeper into the subject, I began to realise that the Christian faith had very little to say directly about this modern issue. That shocked me very deeply, and I then explored further the shocking experiences of people going through pain and indignity. We have heard many of these stories, as survey after survey shows that some 75% of our population, our fellow citizens, want a change in the law.

It is right that the Bishops have spoken so powerfully and well in this debate, but the irony is that they are not representing their own church in this matter—I am doing that today, with others. In addition, there are many Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and other worshippers who are also in favour of the legislation, led by Rabbi Jonathan Romain of Religious Alliance for Dignity in Dying.

The Bishops will know—I am not haranguing them—that in Christian spirituality there is a prayer called the Jesus Prayer. It stems from a blind man, Bartimaeus, calling to Jesus from the wayside, “Lord, have mercy on me. Eleison me. Have mercy upon me”. We must hear that cry in this debate, and we have heard it. Compassion, mercy, the act of kindness and the art of healing must accompany a pain-ridden person to the point of death, alleviating their sufferings, even if it requires powerful opioids to give them the peace they seek.

There has been some questioning of the legislation in this debate. The noble Baroness, Lady May, used the graphic phrase “licence to kill” to describe the legislation. Much as I respect the noble Baroness, I resist that description. The Bill gives safeguards and protections that, without question, will resist abuse. We may want to add to those safeguards.

I add, with temerity, a rhetorical question addressed not only to the Bishops’ Benches but to us all: do we really want to stand in the way of the Bill? It will pass, whether in this Session or the next. It has commanding support from the British public and passed the elected House after an unprecedented period of scrutiny. Both this House and the Church are in the midst of renewed public debates on our roles in society. I pray that both these institutions, which I hold so dearly for the importance of their roles in public life, do not risk our legitimacy by claiming that we know better than both the public and the other place.

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