Did you mean Suicide sides speaker:Lord Alton of Liverpool?
Lord Alton of Liverpool: asked Her Majesty's Government: How they will respond to the call by the charity Papyrus for amendment of the Suicide Act 1961 which has the effect of banning internet sites which may incite people to, or advise people on how to, commit suicide.
Lord Alton of Liverpool: ...end-of-life issues, this question of public protection must surely be our paramount concern. It is why the Government have rightly resisted any attempts to use the Bill to make assistance with suicide or the killing of patients legal. In any event, during the life of this Parliament in your Lordships' House we have had the benefit of a Select Committee and several Private Members' Bills,...
Lord Alton of Liverpool: ...% on the previous year. Among 10 to 14 year-olds, admissions rose from 4,008 to 5,192, an increase of 30%. It is estimated that 7% to 14% of adolescents will self-harm at some point in their life. Suicide is the second most common cause of death in people aged between 15 and 24, behind accidental death. Now, while all these ills most certainly cannot be laid at the door of the internet...
Lord Alton of Liverpool: ...during the Second Reading debate on the admirable Bill of my noble friend Lady Howe, I raised specifically with him the case of a teenager who had taken his own life because of visits to so-called suicide sites on the internet? What more are the Government doing to outlaw such sites on the internet and to prosecute those who run them?
Lord Alton of Liverpool: ...unverified reports, as we have heard, of a possible military confrontation between Hezbollah and ISIS. Perhaps the Minister can tell us what assessment she has made of the continuing use of ISIS suicide bombers, the territory it controls in north-eastern Iraq and its use of radicalised recruits, especially from the United Kingdom? I refer to recruits such as Anil Khalil Raoufi, a British...
Lord Alton of Liverpool: To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the deaths of Sasha Steadman and Tallulah Wilson, what action they are taking to protect young people who visit self-harm and suicide sites on the internet.
Lord Alton of Liverpool: My Lords, can I take the Minister back to a question that I asked him a few weeks ago about the presence on the internet of suicide sites, which encourage young people to take their own lives? Did he see the two-page article in the Times highlighting some of these terrible fatalities? Does he agree that this is not caught by the provisions that he announced to the House recently and that it...
Lord Alton of Liverpool: ...stayed in Nineveh was reportedly burned alive. In another Christian family, the mother and 12 year-old daughter were raped by ISIS militants, leading the father, who was forced to watch, to commit suicide. One refugee described how she witnessed ISIS crucify her husband on the door of their home. Nearly two years ago, on 23 July 2014, I warned in an opinion piece in the Times: “The last...
Lord Alton of Liverpool: My Lords, is not the ultimate tragedy for any parent the suicide of their child? Has the Minister seen or talked to ministerial colleagues about the suicide sites on the internet and the chat rooms that are often visited by young people who may be facing depression, mental illness or low levels of self-esteem, and the terrible tragedies that have occurred as a result of a visit to those...
Lord Alton of Liverpool: ..., but also the remarks of my noble friend Lady Howe. I want to ask the Minister, when he comes to reply, about an issue that I raised in your Lordships’ House previously, and that is the issue of suicide sites on the internet. It concerns me that young people can be encouraged to visit those sites and take their own lives. Only a year ago I attended a school prize giving in a north-west...
Lord Alton of Liverpool: ...should be a paramount consideration at all times. The Minister may recall the case, which I raised with the Secretary of State and in your Lordships’ House, of some young people who had visited suicide sites. I was horrified to learn from the headmaster of a school in Lancashire, where I arrived to distribute prizes, that a child who had visited a suicide site had taken their own life...
Lord Alton of Liverpool: My Lords, the Minister has just referred to the round table. He will recall that I mentioned in my remarks the issue of definitions and suicide sites that were raised during that round table last week. Can he tell the House any more about that?
Lord Alton of Liverpool: My Lords, did the Minister see the disturbing report at the weekend that there are now four suicides every week involving young people and children—a 14-year high? Has the Minister had a chance to look at the British Medical Journal study that found that suicide websites are more likely to be encouraging suicide, even glamorising it, than offering prevention or support? Will he look at the...
Lord Alton of Liverpool: To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the answers by Lord Agnew of Oulton on 7 November and Lord Ashton of Hyde on 6 November (HL Deb, col 1594), what steps they are taking under the Suicide Act 1961 to prosecute those responsible for internet sites that incite, aid or abet the promotion of suicide.
Lord Alton of Liverpool: ...Her Majesty's Government, further to the answers by Lord Agnew of Oulton on 7 November and Lord Ashton of Hyde on 6 November (HL Deb, col 1594), what assessment they have made of the presence of sites that promote suicide on the internet, in the light of research published by the University of Manchester in May 2016 which found that 22 per cent of suicide victims had been bullied and 27...
Lord Alton of Liverpool: ...me this morning, giving me permission to quote him. He said: “I am at a loss to understand why the Gambling Commission would have settled for this approach. Given that some companies own multiple sites, it doesn’t take a genius to work out why the industry might have pressured the commission into this bizarre arrangement … When you want to self-exclude, you are desperate and, by...
Lord Alton of Liverpool: My Lords, I welcome the response that Matt Hancock has given to the father of 14 year-old Molly Russell, who took her life in 2017, having visited one of these suicide sites. That was a year in which the suicide rate among young females increased by 38%. As long ago as 7 December 2006, I asked the Government to amend the Suicide Act 1961 to enable the, “banning of internet sites which may...
Lord Alton of Liverpool: ...Unspeakable violence directed at whatever gender is never acceptable, and the Bill rightly reflects that. As the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, reminded us, 35% of victims are men and boys. Some 75% of suicides are men, and it would be good to hear what work has been done to establish links between coercive acts, self-harm and, ultimately, suicide, which is now the biggest killer of men under...