Speeches by Shah.

“The issue for us in the conversation on this amendment is that we have talked about coercion, undue pressure, undue influence, encouragement and all that, but we have not talked about the benefit to others. It is simply a different conversation; it is about understanding that a person has been coerced and so on, but al…”

“I agree with my hon. Friend’s point. We are not dealing with capacity in this amendment, but I agree that every one of these extra checks and balances would also support the exploration of capacity and would definitely strengthen those conversations with any patient. The amendment tabled by the right hon. Member for Br…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. That is not something I had spoken to the right hon. Member for Braintree about. Thinking about it, his point is valid: there is always an overlap in terms of whether this is the state interfering or not interfering. In this instance, it is about the state and legislation pr…”

“The hon. Member makes valid point. Maybe the Government would be able to mop this up if this amendment was accepted. That can happen—it is not beyond the scope of Government or the Ministers present.”

“The hon. Member makes a valid point that it would ultimately benefit others. It would—that is a given—but that was not my reading of the way the amendment is drafted. My reading was that “only for your own benefit” means that someone is not being driven by the benefit of others, financial or otherwise. From the point o…”

“If we make philosophical and idealistic arguments, we will not be able to legislate on anything. Philosophically, there are people in this House who wear red, blue, green or the colours of smaller parties. We are all different in our positions philosophically. For me, this process is about legislating as well as we can…”

“I appreciate the clarification and the explanation. I do not feel that having doctors doing this is a contradiction of this Bill at all, because if we go by the letter of the Bill and how it is set out, when a doctor offers those choices, whether it is assisted dying or palliative care, they are giving a choice of welf…”

“If we are talking about welfare, I would have thought that this Bill would have included welfare checks, which are absolutely crucial. My definition of welfare encompasses the whole being, with the person at the centre. In this case, welfare would mean putting somebody with a terminal diagnosis at the centre of what se…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for his valuable intervention. He speaks from his personal experience, and this place and this debate are richer for having those experiences shared. It comes back to the comment made by the hon. Member for Solihull West and Shirley; this is about where there is autonomy. This is about people who…”

“I am grateful that we have been able to have this conversation as we have done. I share my hon. Friend’s concern. Equally, I am also concerned that we may now not have a judge’s oversight on this. There is potentially an amendment seeking to replace that with a panel of experts, which we will not get to debate until we…”

“Let me finish. Perhaps my hon. Friend did not mean to question whether I understand and appreciate it, but it suggests to me, does anybody? Yes, we heard witnesses. We heard evidence. I have heard about it in my own friendship circles. I had a young intern with me not so long ago who had cancer. We talked about this, w…”

“The hon. Member makes an important point. That is precisely why we need to have a conversation to ascertain that autonomy, which is what this comes back to—the whole purpose of this Bill is to give people autonomy. It is important that when benefit is being derived, it is not because they are a burden. We need to ascer…”

“My hon. Friend is right, but the point I am trying to come back to is to do with those people who feel a burden; wherever they feel a burden, somebody is benefiting from that, because we are taking the burden away—there is ultimately a benefit to somebody. We have talked a lot about people feeling a burden in terms of …”

“My hon. Friend makes a very important point—because if we visit this issue afterwards, that person is dead.”

“The hon. Member makes a valid point: it could be an absolutely autonomous decision. In an ideal world, that is what we would like to get to, but we are not in an ideal world.”

“It is very much in support of that, and I want to tease out what my hon. Friend just said, which is important. One conversation we are having is about being a burden—my hon. Friend referred to the evidence that we heard—but another side to that is that when people feel like a burden, somebody benefits from that. That b…”

“Okay, I am happy to turn back to the amendment. This issue is far too serious for us to overlook. I do not believe that many people, including medical professionals, are properly trained to recognise coercion or undue influence. To illustrate, I will refer back to my own experiences, like I did yesterday. I have had ma…”

“I am happy to debate, Mrs Harris, but I am trying to understand because this is new to me. If I speak to the amendment and the Minister already has a position, I would value knowing that position, because otherwise it feels pointless for me to debate it.”

“Thank you, Mrs Harris. Sticking to the amendment, can I ask whether the Government will have already taken a position on it before I get to the end of my speech? Can they not share that before I make my speech? Is that within the scope of the conversation?”

“But in sticking to the amendment—”