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1,851 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fourth sitting)Clause 17(2) provides that where a notice or indication regarding a cancellation of a first or second declaration is given to a registered medical practitioner “at” the person’s…18 Mar 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fifth sitting)With all due respect, I think it is more the responsibility of those who draft and table amendments to draft and table them in a way that leaves no room or as little room as…18 Mar 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fourth sitting)The purpose of amendments 474 to 478 is to improve the drafting of the Bill by creating a new definition of “recordable event”. Recordable events are the events set out in clause…18 Mar 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fourth sitting)The Bill, once it becomes an Act, places a legal duty on the Secretary of State to produce those regulations. The Secretary of State would be in breach of the law if he were not…18 Mar 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fourth sitting)The regulations will have primacy, and will be shaped by a range of inputs, including the conversation we have just had in Committee. The process is that the Bill gets Royal…18 Mar 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fourth sitting)I am acutely conscious that every word we say in this Committee is on the record. My hon. Friend makes a valid point in that context. The purpose of amendment 253 is to clarify…18 Mar 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fourth sitting)I would not want to pre-empt the regulations, because clearly that is the point of the process. If this Bill gets Royal Assent, we then move on to making regulations, and I have…18 Mar 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fourth sitting)Amendment 321 would require a proxy to record, when signing the declaration on behalf of the person, the reason why the person they are acting as a proxy for is unable to sign…18 Mar 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fourth sitting)The Government have worked with my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley on amendments 375 and 376. The amendments require that where the co-ordinating doctor, or any registered…18 Mar 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fourth sitting)I am not a lawyer, but thankfully I am sitting next to a very eminent and distinguished one—my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green—who has confirmed…18 Mar 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fourth sitting)I happened to be at a hospice in Stafford yesterday on a ministerial visit and was extremely impressed by the work that the hospice staff were doing on family counselling, and…18 Mar 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fourth sitting)It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey. The purpose of amendment 457 is to exclude a person who has less than one month to live from being eligible for the…18 Mar 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-third sitting)It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. We have been working with my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley on these amendments, and changes have been mutually…12 Mar 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty First sitting)The amendments relate to whether the assessing doctor advises the person seeking assistance to end their own life to discuss that with their next of kin and other persons they are…11 Mar 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twentieth sitting)It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship again, Sir Roger. Amendment 301 would prolong the first period of reflection, after which point the independent doctor can conduct…11 Mar 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty First sitting)The key point, and what takes primacy above all else, is the professional judgment of the doctor. I commend the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich about every doctor…11 Mar 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty First sitting)I will do so with huge pleasure—thank you, Ms McVey—but I would be more than happy to take up that discussion with the hon. Member for East Wiltshire at another time. On amendment…11 Mar 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty First sitting)The basic position of the Department of Health and Social Care and, by extension, the Government is that we rely on and trust our medical professionals to make judgments and do…11 Mar 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty First sitting)There is a debate to be had about the Bill’s effect on support for a patient. I am not here as a member of the Government to comment on the rights and wrongs of that, but those…11 Mar 2025HANSARDTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twentieth sitting)As I have mentioned before, the Government have worked closely with my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley on some mutually agreed amendments, including amendments 201, 422 and…11 Mar 2025