Less of this sort of thing

In another excellent column for the New Statesman, Hannah Barnes criticises the way the equality impact assessment for the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill does away with any concerns about its potential impact on vulnerable adults:

The safeguards provided for in the bill, which apply at every stage of the process for seeking an assisted death, would help to minimise the risk of any eligible person, including disabled people, from being coerced or pressured by another person into requesting or proceeding with an assisted death. 

I've reproduced the sentence in full here but I must beg to differ with Barnes: the sentence does not do away with any concerns but merely pretends to.

Look at the key phrase "help to minimise". What exactly does that mean? Almost nothing, and at best, "reduce".

The word "minimise", sometimes with "help to" in front of it as a kind of admission that it is not true, is much loved by spin doctors and press officers but should not appear in any serious government document unless it is meant literally.

"Minimise" means to make as small as possible but is often used as a synonym for "reduce", which it isn't.

Putting "help to" in front of it is only really justified if you know for sure that something or someone else will complete the job of minimisation. If not, you are really just saying "reduce" with the slight of hand of pretending that something is being reduced as far as possible. 

And of course there is a long way between the risk being "minimised" - reduced as far as possible - and being reduced to an acceptable level.

It's just spin.

Similarly, the equality impact assessment has other misleading phrases based on "help": 

steps a doctor can take to help ensure information is understood and retained

the government has a duty to the statute book and has offered technical support to the sponsor to help ensure the legislation, if passed, is technically and legally workable

What does "help ensure" mean? You either ensure something or you don't. You don't leave your outcome dependent on the contribution of others if you want to "ensure it". It's nonsense.

It's very worrying that the language of overstatement and spin has made its way into what should be objective assessments in official documents. It needs to be minimised. Someone needs to ensure that it doesn't happen.