Speeches by Leadbeater.

“I will speak briefly to this small amendment, which provides that a further referral be made under clause 10 when a practitioner dies or is unable or unwilling to act as the independent doctor due to illness. In the very unlikely circumstances that the doctor who has agreed to give a second opinion dies or—because of i…”

“I beg to move amendment 205, in clause 10, page 7, line 11, at end insert “; but this is subject to subsection (4). (4) Where— (a) a referral is made under subsection (1) to a practitioner, (b) the practitioner dies or through illness is unable or unwilling to act as the independent doctor, and (c) no report under sect…”

“I have nothing to add, other than that I will not be supporting amendments 307 and 308. I associate myself with the comments made by my hon. Friends the Members for Rother Valley, for Stroud and for Sunderland Central.”

“I will start with amendment 93 tabled by the hon. Member for Solihull West and Shirley. He made a really important point about the language in the clause, and I am very happy to support the amendment. It is quite clear that, across the Committee, there is no disagreement that a terminally ill person requesting assistan…”

“To be clear, it does say “discuss with the person their wishes”. That includes whether they would want the doctor to call an ambulance if things got complicated, or whether they would want to be left—so the doctor would discuss with the patient their wishes in that situation. Fortunately, it does not happen very often.”

“My hon. Friend raises a really important point. As clause 9 says, the doctor has an obligation to discuss with the person their wishes in the event of complications, so that conversation would have happened with the patient. To be clear, the doctor cannot intervene to expediate the patient’s death. That is very clear i…”

“That question was indeed put to the experts from Australia, but actually they were quite clear that there is a huge amount of evidence. Indeed, there is a very robust reporting mechanism in Australia—the best in the world, I suggest—so there is a huge amount of evidence from that jurisdiction.”

“I have nothing further to add. Question put, That the amendment be made.”

“On the hon. Member’s point about recording those consultations, amendment 423 states in its proposed new subsection (2B): “Where an assessing doctor consults a professional…the assessing doctor must give a written record of the consultation to the other assessing doctor.”So the consultation is recorded.”

“I associate myself with the Minister’s comments regarding the other amendments in the group; however, I listened carefully to the debate on amendment 459 and the points made by the hon. Member for Richmond Park, my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud and the Minister. My view on that amendment has changed: I do think ind…”

“I appreciate that this is slightly difficult to get our heads around, but we have legal expertise—we potentially have a judge, a sitting judge, a retired judge or an eminent KC—but they are not there in their capacity as a judge. I understand that that is tricky for people to understand, but they are there because of t…”

“I beg to move amendment 201, in clause 9, page 5, line 36, leave out “and their medical records” and insert “, examine such of their medical records as appear to the assessing doctor to be relevant,”. This amendment provides that the duty on an assessing doctor to examine a person’s medical records is limited to record…”

“Amendment 201 provides that the duty on an assessing doctor to examine a person’s medical records is limited to records appearing to the doctor to be relevant, which makes sense. Amendment 422 requires an assessing doctor to make such inquiries of professionals who are providing, or have recently provided, health or so…”

“My hon. Friend is making an excellent and powerful speech. I thank him for putting the human being back at the centre of the process; sadly, in this Committee we can forget to do that. Early on, we had Nathaniel Dye here, who is a terminal cancer patient. He has just had a 12-month prognosis. The thought of making that…”

“Does the hon. Member not agree that by accepting amendment 6, tabled by the hon. Member for St Albans, we have early intervention with psychiatric analysis at a very early stage, when either of the doctors feels it is necessary?”

“The point is that it has to happen at every stage, and I think the evidence that we heard was that it does happen. I know from the experiences of family and friends of mine who have had cancer that it does happen. There is a multidisciplinary approach; there is an oncologist, a nursing team and a doctor. That does happ…”

“To be clear, the point I have tried to make with regard to the evidence that we received was just that there is a need for a multidisciplinary approach, wherever it happens.”

“Just to be clear, that was not the reason for the change. We need to be very clear about that. The reason for the change was that it strengthens the Bill.”

“Will my hon. Friend give way on that point?”

“My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is the whole point: Sir James Munby said he did not think that was the job for the judge.”