Speeches by Kruger.

“Again, I am interested in that, because I would be surprised if that condition were not adequately captured by the term “illness” or “disease”. If not, we should seek further clarification, because we need to be very specific. Illness or disease has been adequate; it is adequate in the current law on terminal illness f…”

“I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I thought that might be the case too, and I was wondering about that, but I am very concerned about some of the evidence that Professor Whitty gave. I regret that the hon. Member for Spen Valley has removed the role of the chief medical officer from the process that she is designing…”

“I am very happy to use the word “condition”—we all use it quite casually, including me—but we are concerned about legislation here. As I explained, if we include the term “medical condition”, courts could interpret that as a development—an addition—to the existing law on terminal illness, which refers only to illness a…”

“Well, if the hon. Lady will say that she will never, at any stage, support a proposal to extend it beyond six months, I will be very glad to hear it. My concern is that we already have amendments tabled to do exactly that, which we will be debating shortly. I hope they will be rejected, but my confident expectation, on…”

“I said in the last debate that this is either a safeguarding Bill or an autonomy Bill. [Interruption.] Or that it is both, but the claim has been that it is a safeguarding Bill and that there are very strong safeguards. If so, and if we are going to stress the safeguards, as I think we should, that means being very cle…”

“I beg to move amendment 399, in clause 2, page 1, line 22, leave out “, disease or medical condition” and insert “or disease”. This amendment ensures that a terminal illness under the Bill can only be an illness or a disease and not a medical condition.”

“I will be quick, Mr Efford. I appreciate that we have been exhaustively over the detail of the amendments. I deeply regret that none of the amendments that were tabled to introduce stronger safeguards has been accepted. I want to take this opportunity to explain briefly what the Committee has done by rejecting those am…”

“We have debated that issue; I apologise. My concern is that the Bill, which is masquerading as a safeguarding Bill but is actually an autonomy Bill, will end in less autonomy for the most vulnerable patients, who will find themselves on this conveyor belt, internally pressured and encouraged to seek an assisted death w…”

“I am sorry if it offends Members, but the fact is that the Bill in its present form, with the amendments rejected, will place no obligation on doctors to refer people to palliative care or to seek a palliative care consultation. Many will do so, of course—many good doctors will do exactly that—but they will not be obli…”

“We are all being very courteous, and it is absolutely right that we should be. I have absolute respect for the good faith of every Member here, but let us not use cotton wool in these debates. I am sorry to say that I do not accept that the Committee has listened—well, it might have listened closely, but it has not acc…”

“I sense that the wish of the Committee is probably not to accept the amendment, so I do not propose to press it to a Division, but we have just heard quite clearly, in response to the amendment, that the Bill is essentially permissive. Once again, we have declined to put clear parameters around the eligibility for this…”

“I will be fairly brief in speaking to the amendments, but they go to the heart of things. We have tried to tighten the Bill by excluding medical conditions from the definition of a terminal illness; I am very pleased that the Committee has accepted that tightening. We have also sought to exclude illnesses that are cons…”

“I beg to move amendment 12, in clause 2, page 2, line 2, at end insert— “(c) their illness, disease or medical condition is found on a list that the Secretary of State may by regulations specify.” This amendment would require an illness, disease or medical condition to be specified in regulations that may be made by th…”

“I think so. The hon. Lady is absolutely right that there is this difficult loophole that somebody may have capacity and be refusing food and drink and would therefore potentially be eligible. In the Bill as it stands, we have an expedited process for people whose prognosis is only a month. There, the 14-day waiting per…”

“I am not. I think we have allowed six months to creep into common legal parlance because of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992; we now recognise in law that it is possible to have certain rights and entitlements on the basis of a six-month prognosis. I presume that is the basis of it. It does feel …”

“I accept that, which is why amendment 282 is probing only. It is trying to demonstrate the point. I recognise that even the expedited process is likely to take up to a month to get through, so that would be difficult. Nevertheless, if our intention is to restrict this to people who are literally in their last days, whi…”

“The hon. Member invites me to suggest that I think it would be possible to draw a safe safeguard. I do not. I think that one month is better than six months, because with one month we can have more accuracy and doctors are more genuinely right when they say that someone is close to death at that point, while six months…”

“Yes, but I simply state on the record that I believe that this is not the end, but the beginning of a wider Bill that would follow if we passed this one. I am encouraged by what the hon. Lady says, or implies: that she does not want to go further than this Bill. My plea to the Committee is straightforward. Let us confi…”

“I will be as quick as I can be. I recognise the powerful contributions that have been made on a number of the amendments. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Broxtowe, who made a very interesting speech in support of her amendment 123. I was struck by her point that we should do what we can to reflect the reality of c…”

“I do not want to cut off the hon. Lady in full flow, but I want to echo her points. The hon. Member for Stroud has made his point before and we have had an exchange on it. There is quite a lot of research, to which I refer him, that shows how people in the UK, being treated by the NHS, are having diagnoses of terminal …”