Contributions
1,183 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Fifteenth sitting)I am grateful to my hon. Friend for setting it out so clearly, but I would like a little more clarity because I do not fully understand. My understanding from the Bill is that at…26 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Fifteenth sitting)I am grateful to my hon. Friend for setting out the scenario so clearly. To summarise, he is suggesting that if a patient with bowel cancer says to their doctor, “How am I going…26 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Fifteenth sitting)The clear implication of the amendment is that if the patient requests to know what can be done to end their life, that is an invitation to raise the option of assisted dying; if…26 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Fifteenth sitting)The hon. Lady has just made a very important point. Does she agree that there will be profound awkwardness for a medic? In a hospital, when somebody says they want to die, they…26 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Fifteenth sitting)It is very important that we do have psychiatrists involved. In that sense, the addition of the panel may be welcome, although I regret that it is replacing the judicial…26 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Fourteenth sitting)Chris Whitty made the same point that the hon. Gentleman has just made: that there would be knock-on effects and that the Mental Capacity Act works very well currently. Does the…26 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Fourteenth sitting)I am pleased to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate, who set out with incredible clarity the challenges here and the opportunity we have to build on the Mental Capacity…26 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Fourteenth sitting)It pleases me but it does not satisfy me. I am encouraged by it, but I am not fully satisfied. Obviously, it is insufficient. The hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Spen…26 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Fourteenth sitting)I recognise that this is a vital point; I am not surprised that we keep returning to this important distinction. I do think that there is a vital distinction between accepting…26 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Fourteenth sitting)The connection is explicitly in terms of the Bill. The Bill disapplies section 2 of the Suicide Act, which makes it illegal to assist somebody to commit suicide. It says that that…26 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Fourteenth sitting)There are huge challenges around the definition of terminal illness, as we have already acknowledged—but if the right hon. Lady thinks that somebody who is terminally ill should…26 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Fourteenth sitting)Sorry—remind me of the detail of the amendment.26 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Fourteenth sitting)I would indeed support that amendment; it would go a long way to addressing the concerns that we have here. When we discuss clause 4, I will come on to some suggestions for how we…26 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Fourteenth sitting)I really want someone to explain this point to me: how can it make it more unsafe for patients to state the safeguards explicitly? How can it possibly make it harder, or more…26 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Fourteenth sitting)I challenge the hon. Lady, and I would welcome her response to this: we clearly can specify some things that can be done, which is what my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and…26 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Fourteenth sitting)It is unlikely that I would ever vote for an assisted dying law but, if we are going to have one, I want to make it as safe as possible, which we all want. On those terms, in the…26 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Fourteenth sitting)By that logic, the safest, clearest Bill would be one that simply authorised an assisted death without any of these checks whatsoever. My right hon. Friend made the point that…26 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Fourteenth sitting)The hon. Lady is absolutely right. It is an interesting irony of the Bill that it is presented as the free choice of individuals, but actually it imposes all sorts of obligations…26 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Fourteenth sitting)Exactly. A few more words of clarification should not be regarded as burdening the Bill or creating bureaucratic obstacles for doctors and patients; the amendment actually…26 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Fourteenth sitting)rose—26 Feb 2025