Speeches by Richards.

“Q The Bill at the moment—and for good reason, potentially—potentially does not provide for family members receiving notice of this. Sir Nicholas Mostyn: Well, it does.”

“Q Apart from capacity, which I appreciate, are there any other problems that you see with clause 12 on judicial oversight? Apart from capacity, is there any benefit that you see from the Spanish model? Alex, you similarly criticised the current judicial provision. You say in your very helpful written evidence at paragr…”

“Q Thank you all for your written evidence. Sir Nicholas, in your helpful written evidence, you adopt Sir James Munby’s criticism of the current proposal for judicial oversight, and you instead recommend what you call a “Spanish-style specialist panel”. Could you set out for the Committee what you see as the benefit of …”

“Q There are some amendments being tabled that would offer further clarification and include more things that have to be considered. I have a similar question to the one I asked the previous panel, when I think you were here in the Public Gallery. Would offering further guidance to your members be welcome, or would you …”

“Thank you. I just wanted to clarify that. Dr Green: Of course, we would regard much of clause 4(4) as normal care in any case.”

“Q Dr Green, on subsections (4) and (5) of clause 4 and the information services, as opposed to the referral to a practitioner, I think your point has some weight. In terms of the rest of clause 4 as drafted, it has an opt-in, it gives wide discretion to practitioners and there is no obligation to raise it, so from my u…”

“Yes—it’s just that otherwise I will be cut off. I was trying to get two questions in.”

“Last week, the Court of Appeal overturned a first-instance decision regarding the anonymity of a judge who presided over the tragic Sara Sharif case in the family courts. I do not expect the Minister to comment on individual cases, and it is certainly not about that individual judge, but will the Government use this op…”

“Forgive me, Mr Dowd. I meant that, in terms of the assisted dying process in the Bill, there is no automated mechanism for family members, or indeed any third parties, apart from the doctors, to have notice of this intention. Is there a concern, regarding this appeal point, that perhaps interested parties would not kno…”

“Yes, sorry, I meant that, in terms of—”

“It is an autonomous decision, so— Sir Nicholas Mostyn: No, but it says, procedurally, they can determine their own procedure.”

“Q Some of it has been answered, but on that point, I just wanted to explore the appeals point. If either side could appeal, as Alex suggested, who would be appealing against the decision to allow assisted dying? Sir Nicholas Mostyn: Relations who say, for example, “My father has been pressured by his new wife to do thi…”

“Well, we have had lots of lists, but Lord Sumption and Lord Neuberger are giving evidence, I believe; Lord Sumption is, anyway. These things can be tested and challenged, so the notion that we need to have others is slightly absurd. We have the law lecturer from Cambridge University as well.”

“You would agree that there are reams of evidence about the best evidence that survivors can give, the appropriate settings and the formalities that have to take place. This should not be done in a slap-handed manner at all. John O’Brien: No.”

“Just pressing it one step further, in terms of the effect that that could have on survivors, whether they engage with the process or not: do you have any word of caution for people who are setting up these inquiries off the back of what seems to be political rhetoric?”

“Very quickly on this topic, one political party has said that it is going to set up its own inquiry, as far as I understand it, into a specific aspect of child abuse. As people who have been heavily involved in the seven-year national inquiry, do you have any comment on the ability, or in fact appropriateness, of a pol…”

“I want to move back a bit to what I think Paul called the active inaction—a good phrase—from October 2022 onwards. Both of you worked on this for seven years. You gave up a huge amount of your time. Perhaps even more importantly, survivors gave evidence. How does it make you feel? If you have had conversations with the…”

“You said that you wrote to the chief of staff of the Prime Minister in 2023. Is it your view that this has to be led by Downing Street, as it is so cross-departmental? Did you make any further attempts to engage with other officials in Downing Street, if not the Prime Ministers themselves?”

“The account of your communications with the Home Office over the period from October 2022 is pretty shocking. I have two questions flowing from that. The first is quite broad, and you may not feel that it is appropriate to answer it, but what was going on here? You had set out a number of recommendations. It was clearl…”

“I will not speak for long. I merely echo what my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central said: this is not an arms race. It is not about who can get more experts with different views; it is about trying to get a wide-ranging and broad sense of different aspects of the Bill. The list that my hon. Friend the Member…”