Contributions
1,183 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Eleventh sitting)I am trying to ensure that there will be a sufficiently broad scope that doctors must be obliged to check that there has been no undue influence, pressure or encouragement. An…12 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Eleventh sitting)At the risk of debating an amendment that has not even been tabled yet and that will come later in the Bill—I wish we were able to see it—the hon. Lady is absolutely right: I do…12 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Eleventh sitting)Well, perhaps my hon. Friend wants to come up with a further amendment, to strengthen it even more and say that we should restrict it only to agony or extreme pain. No, I am…12 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Eleventh sitting)I totally acknowledge that. I fully recognise that, as I said, morphine allergy does indeed exist, but I am told that it is very rare. I hope that the hon. Lady’s relative will…12 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Eleventh sitting)I always worry when the doctor is providing assistance. [ Laughter. ] No, I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for trying to get me back on track. We hear about morphine allergy,…12 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Eleventh sitting)The amendment is clear that the primary purpose should be to avoid physical pain. That needs no further clarification. Let me turn to the discussion of pain. As I have said, the…12 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Eleventh sitting)I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman.12 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Eleventh sitting)The amendment would require people to request an assisted death for the purpose of avoiding pain. If the purpose is to avoid the pain of the death that the hon. Gentleman…12 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Eleventh sitting)I remember the hon. Lady’s very powerful speech on Second Reading and I fully recognise that, which is why I said that I recognise that including suffering would be problematic. I…12 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Eleventh sitting)I am very conscious that people feel like a burden at the end of their life. It is quite right that at the moment the system says, “No, you are not. You have value. You might feel…12 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Eleventh sitting)We want to ensure that people decide for their own sake—I will give way in a moment; this is a good opportunity to make this point. The hon. Member for Ashford referred to the…12 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Eleventh sitting)That is fair enough. The amendment seeks to insist that people will have an assisted death for their own sake. What we are trying to exclude is the opposite of that—that they are…12 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Eleventh sitting)The purpose of the amendments, and the reason why I am supporting them, is that they make the Bill honest. They will make the Bill do what the public think it does and is the…12 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Eleventh sitting)I am sorry to push my right hon. Friend further but to reiterate my point, we are not talking about external coercion. We are talking about the explicit motivation of somebody…12 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Eleventh sitting)Obviously, we do not want people gaming the system, but I would rather that there were a system, even if it were gamed, than to have no safeguards whatever—which, I am afraid to…12 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Eleventh sitting)Will my right hon. Friend explain what the doctor would do if he or she did not think that there was an appropriate reason to approve the death? The Bill simply requires there to…12 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Eleventh sitting)That is absolutely right. It is a very depressing fact that it seems to be the sentiment of the Committee that we should allow people to request and receive an assisted death for…12 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Eleventh sitting)I think the Minister just suggested that if we were to amend the Bill, there would be some kind of unfortunate knock-on effect with other legislation, which would thereby be…12 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Eleventh sitting)We are suggesting that an application in which the applicant has been encouraged—or coerced, unduly influenced or manipulated—would not be acceptable. The assessing doctor must…12 Feb 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Eleventh sitting)On the point about encouragement, I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate for reminding me that her new clause 5 specifies a definition of encouragement: “an act…12 Feb 2025