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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: As you’ll be aware, the debate about assisted dying was reopened yesterday by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey.  He announced his support for assisted dying in some circumstances and today Desmond Tutu has echoed that support in the Observer.  Well I’m joined now from Wales by Sir Chris Woodhead, Sir Chis was the Chief Inspector for Schools for six years, he now has Motor Neurone Disease.  A very good morning to you, Sir Chris, how far would you like to see this country going in allowing assisted dying because there are different lines to draw aren’t there?

CHRIS WOODHEAD: Yes, there are different lines and I think Lord Falconer’s proposals are about right given the range of public opinion on this issue.  His proposals, his Bill will allow patients who are terminally ill and who are adjudged by two doctors to have less than six months to live, the right to have help with their own death, if they are judged to have a settled and competent attitude towards that.  I wouldn’t want it to go beyond that at this stage because as I say, it is a difficult and controversial issue and it is best to limit the proposals in the way that Lord Falconer is doing.

DM: I know you have looked into it an awful lot because of your own condition, there are those and those who have campaigned on this issue, who are not able to assist in their own death, what happens to them?  Do they have to travel abroad again or do their relatives have to risk prosecution?

CHRIS WOODHEAD: I suppose yes, if somebody is completely incapable of administering the medication then they would have to travel to Dignitas or whatever.  I mean in my own case I can drink through a straw and therefore I assume that if doctors were to judge that I had six months or less to live, then the medication would be provided to me and I could drink it through a straw so personally I think it would work for me but the point you raise is right, there will be people who are not able to administer their own end and they will be left much in the same circumstance as they are in now.

DM: Have you got the full support of your family, have you discussed this in detail? 

CHRIS WOODHEAD: We have discussed this and the question you raise is  a very important one.  I don't think that the decision to end your life is a decision that can be taken by the individual alone, I think it must be a matter for consideration within the family and arguably with close friends as well.  Ultimately the decision has to be the individuals but I wouldn’t dream of proceeding with the decision to kill myself or to have my death assisted without the acceptance of those who are nearest and dearest to me.   

DM: There is of course the possibility, well there is a great possibility that this doesn’t get on to the statute book, have you got a fall-back position? 

CHRIS WOODHEAD: I haven’t got a settled definitive fall-back position but there are always options aren’t there?  I mean one option that I considered this winter when I was diagnosed with cancer and kidney stones in addition to the motor neurone disease which I already had, which was to starve and dehydrate myself to death and indeed one of the opponents of the Bill has said that there is no need to change the law because people who have got a terminal illness cannot drink, not eat and through those means kill themselves.  Well that is a possibility and it is a possibility I may have to make use of at some point, but like anybody else that prospect, that way of death doesn’t fill me with a great deal of enthusiasm and I think it would be far better if I could have my death assisted in a peaceful, dignified way so that my suffering wasn’t prolonged and the suffering of those nearest and dearest to me wasn’t prolonged as they had to witness the slowness of my extinction.

DM: It’s also important isn’t it to clear it up for the medical professionals because we all know, don’t we, from various experiences and perhaps anecdotally, that they do in the past intervene to relieve pain, to ease a passing.

CHRIS WOODHEAD: Yes, that is true and before the Shipman murders I think many doctors were more prepared to ease pain than they are now.  Now there is a perfectly understandable anxiety within the medical profession as to whether or not they will be “found out” if they were to assist somebody’s death and indeed I’ve got mixed feelings about parliament discussing this issue at all because the more media attention is devoted to the question of assisted death, I think the more anxious some doctors will become particularly of course if Falconer’s Bill is turned down this coming Friday.  So it depends very much on the doctor.  I went to see a GP a year or so ago, he was a locum actually in the practice, he’d retired some time back and he said in his time, when he was a young doctor, yes, it was the norm.  There wasn’t fuss made about it, doctors realised that there could come a point in somebody’s life that somebody who was terminally will, where the pain and suffering was too great and that the thing that the doctor should do would be to ease the passage from life to death but his point was that younger doctors are finding that possibility increasingly difficult, there are increasing levels of anxiety within the profession and one of the things that Falconer’s Bill would do if passed would be to of course alleviate that anxiety among doctors.  They would have the option and they would know that they were not going to be prosecuted under any circumstance.  

DM: Sir Chris, lastly and I just want to change the subject to all your Ofsted experience and ask you, your views on how Ofsted has dealt with the so-called Trojan Horse in Birmingham, do you think it’s messed up slightly?

CHRIS WOODHEAD: I don't think Ofsted has messed up slightly, no.  I think the Ofsted inspection teams went in and they were very clear in the conclusions that they drew.  The conclusions did not reveal, as I understand it, extreme radicalisation in any of the schools, that the students had been subject to propaganda that was any way counter to the laws of the land.  What they did discover, and it’s a serious problem, was some of the governing bodies appeared to have overstepped the line between the responsibility of the governing body to set the strategic direction for the school and the responsibility of the school manage to manage.  Now I think that is a problem and I think something has to be done about that problem but more generally I feel as a nation we should be keeping the Birmingham Trojan Horse situation in perspective.  Five school were discovered to have some kind of problem in their governance, no evidence of radicalisation of students.  I think it would be unhelpful and wrong for any of us to jump to the conclusion that this is a problem throughout the land.  There is a danger of hysteria and overreaction here.

DM: Okay Sir Chris, thank you very much, a pleasure talking to you.  Sir Chris Woodhead there, the former Chief Inspector of Schools.