Speeches by Shah.

“I beg to differ on the wording that my hon. Friend just used. It actually makes my point. As it stands, if I were an insulin-dependent diabetic—and I have been so on three occasions, with my children— I could say that if I stopped taking that insulin, I would become terminally ill. In the Bill as it stands, and as it i…”

“Where does it specify that? I know we are going to debate that subject later, but right now there is nothing that gives me assurance that those people will be excluded. Unless there is an amendment that my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley will support, the Bill, as drafted, would still apply to somebody if they d…”

“I give way to my hon. Friend.”

“I give way to the hon. Gentleman first.”

“I understand that perfectly well. On the idea of not giving people assisted dying, as the Bill stands, the category also includes people who decide to stop eating or taking insulin and people who decide not to go on dialysis. It includes a whole host of illnesses. If we are talking about the legal challenges, which my …”

“It would be if we were making treatment equitable, but if we apply the test of legality, and this is about pain—we have already seen the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough, which would widen the scope from six months to 12 months—where do we draw the line in terms of equity and legalit…”

“I appreciate where the right hon. Member is coming from—I sincerely do. It comes back to the heart of the issue around capacity. We heard from the psychiatrist—her name escapes me, but she was on the right-hand side—that, where there is an increase of vulnerability, if somebody is told they would get pain relief, they …”

“At what stage will we know how the amendments that my hon. Friend proposes have an impact on clause 1? If we make amendments later in the Bill, how will that have an impact on the amendments that we have discussed this morning, in particular in relation to capacity?”

“To go back to the point about multiple opportunities and capacity, my understanding from this morning’s Guardian is that an amendment has been tabled—it was mentioned earlier; I do not know whether others have had sight of it, but I certainly have not—on potentially having a panel instead of a judge. My hon. Friend the…”

“The Minister makes an important point. I just want to understand something. He speaks on behalf of the Government and says that the Mental Capacity Act is an adequate legal base as it stands. Perhaps the issue is just that I am new to the process—I am happy to be guided, Sir Roger—but we have not had an impact assessme…”

“This whole conversation has taught me that we are not on top of the Mental Capacity Act or the conversation about ability, which is why it is so important to have these conversations, even if it is just to try to get to the nub of the issue. Amendments that I will speak to later will clarify my position, but from the e…”

“I do agree. I also want to push back on the idea that it happens fairly regularly. I would welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley giving us the evidence of where it says that, because that is not my recollection of the evidence we have gone through so far. I appreciate that we have not gone through all of it…”

“My understanding, when it concerns eating disorders and anorexia—let me get this right: are hon. Members trying to equate new clause 1 with that condition?”

“I thank the hon. Member for his intervention, but we are not here legislating on anorexia; we are here legislating on the option of assisted death. I am trying to understand where he is going with that argument. It genuinely does not make sense to me.”

“My understanding, which comes from Chelsea Roff, was that that happened specifically in places such as Oregon and California, but I am happy to revisit that. Coming back to the point, we must ensure that people with an eating disorder such as anorexia or a mental health condition will be excluded from the Bill. That wi…”

“I have tabled an amendment to a later clause that talks specifically to that. The word “only” needs to be removed. We have seen this in Oregon, which I will come to later. We heard in the oral evidence that 60 women assessed to have capacity died because they had anorexia.”

“I think that the hon. Member’s intervention responds to some of the points of the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire. We have heard a lot about the equivalence of endings versus decisions. The example given earlier, of somebody pulling the plug because they did not want treatment any more, happens in very few c…”

“I will take this intervention and then address both points.”

“I know the right hon. Member speaks with a huge amount of experience. I am very new to the subject, but I know that the evidence from the psychiatrist was very certain—not “may well be”. The language that they used, which I referred to earlier, was very clear that it is not a good standard. They said: “We are in unchar…”

“I know that my hon. Friend comes from a mental health background and has worked as a professional in this area. I absolutely agree that we need to strengthen the Bill, which is why I will support the amendment. I feel that we must strengthen it because the Secretary of State can make some interventions.”