Speeches by Richards.

“I was expecting someone else to have spoken in support of amendment 296, but I will be very brief. The tone of the debate so far has been respectful, and it should continue to be so. I hope that this will not be characterised as a personal attack on my hon. Friend the Member for York Central, who tabled the amendment, …”

“If the Government were to introduce legislation to expand the NHS’s role in how it undertakes operations in a certain area, would the hon. Member suggest that similar amendments should be added to that legislation, or it is just about this issue?”

“I have been in this House for only a few months, but I must admit that I am absolutely staggered by the chutzpah of Conservative Members—most have left, but when they were here—in their attitude to this issue. In a competitive field, the state of our criminal courts and our criminal justice system perhaps wins the awar…”

“I want to speak to amendment 57. I do not intend to press it to a vote, but I will explore whether and how the Bill could be improved in terms of the relationship between the two doctors. There is a tension here. On one hand, we want to keep the two doctors separate, because the second one can then assess the person wi…”

“I am grateful, Chair, and I can take further interventions on any further points from the hon. Gentleman, but I will deal with that one. This is not a personal criticism of my hon. Friend the Member for York Central. I do not doubt that she has good intentions. What I stated was that her opposition to the principle of …”

“The hon. Lady has set out the process, but I believe she may have missed an important juncture in the Bill. If there are any doubts as to capacity, then the person would be referred to a psychiatrist for a full assessment.”

“I am very sympathetic to the amendment and have thought long and hard about it. Can my hon. Friend explain to me, from his experience, but also from looking at the Bill and speaking to others, the effect of clause 4(4)(b)? As a non-clinician layperson, it appears to me that if a medical practitioner is discussing the l…”

“We are debating lots of different things now, rather than just clause 3. There is an issue as to whether in those cases the individuals were found to have capacity, but we are talking about the process by which someone is found to have capacity, rather than what happens thereafter. We have had that debate, and I am hap…”

“Much has been covered today, and the issue of capacity was debated at length when the Committee considered clause 1, but I do have some observations. I am sympathetic to the assertion that there should be changes to presumption and burden. Those are things that I have considered and spoken about with the promoter of th…”

“We need to be careful when we say that the Mental Capacity Act is misunderstood, full stop. Let us be clear—”

“The evidence that I have heard, both in Committee and from other sources, shows that the gagging clause leads to complete absurdities. Doctors feel completely unable to look after their patients and inform them of their options, and this leads to conversations that involve winks and nods. That is exactly what the Bill …”

“I have been listening to the argument in some detail. Is there not a danger here of trying to translate the dry words of clause 4 to the conversations that naturally happen between clinicians and patients? Subsection (3) attempts to give some discretion as to when, how and whether to raise this prospect, instead of mak…”

“No, I am not going to, actually. I am taking my rights. My final point concerns section 1(4) of the Mental Capacity Act and the discarding of the principle about whether a decision is deemed to be unwise. This is an issue we have already debated, but it is really important. Introducing a best interests test is, to my m…”

“Yes, there are safeguards and mechanisms in the Bill to ensure that and to protect from a culture that would incentivise this practice.”

“That was an intervention that I was grateful to take. I accept the point that there are dangers of a system that somehow incentivises this. That is why the Bill has to have such strict safeguards and such strict regulation of medical practitioners to comply with the law. The point about mandatory referral is key; I wou…”

“But I am happy to take another, although I may come to regret it.”

“I am grateful, Mr Dowd. The evidence that we have received is that this is a test. These are assessments that happen every day across the country. Now, there are more complex assessments, and there will without doubt be areas in which the assessment is not done as rigorously as it should be done, but that is why I am a…”

“Well, that was the sense—”

“My hon. Friend is making a characteristically tub-thumping speech about this airport. My constituency, and Maltby in particular, has many people who worked at and used the airport. My hon. Friend spoke about the opportunities for people to remain at home and still get on in life, which really strikes a chord with me wh…”

“Can my hon. Friend clarify for me what she means by “reasonable certainty”, and how that differs from the clause as drafted? Can she also explain why, in her amendments, normal language around the burden of proof, such as “on the balance of probabilities” or “beyond reasonable doubt” is not used?”