Speeches by Opher.

“T9. Pension credit claims, as we have heard, have increased by 64%, and I commend the Minister and the Department for making that happen, as well as Citizens Advice in Stroud and bureaux throughout the country. However, there are 800,000 people who earn just above that limit and live in poverty. I wonder whether, when …”

“I thank my right hon. Friend for his excellent statement. As he knows, I am a working GP in Stroud. We clinicians are simply fed up with the micromanagement of our caring clinical role, and many hospital colleagues feel the same. We want to be free to deliver excellent clinical care. Does he think that the abolition of…”

“Again, I thank the hon. Member for quoting all this, but does it mean that he supports the original clause 12?”

“indicated dissent.”

“As the amendment states, it is about examining medical records for things that are relevant. If we are talking about coercion or capacity, these sorts of items will be relevant. I do not know if Members have ever seen medical records. Some people have extremely large medical records, and we have summaries for that, but…”

“Actually no, I will not. I will go on, if that is okay. Amendment 459 states that the second-opinion doctor “must produce a report” outlining their reasons for reaching a different opinion, but the whole nature of this is that the doctor is independent. As we have heard, if it is suggested that someone either is or is …”

“I do not see what that would add to the Bill. The co-ordinating doctor would have a result and the patient would have had the report back. I do not feel the amendment is necessary—it would over-complicate the Bill—but we can see what the Government’s legal position is on that. Amendment 303, tabled by my hon. Friend th…”

“I thank the hon. Member for Richmond Park for her considered amendments. I would like to go through all the amendments in the group. Amendment 348 is about the doctor communicating the outcome of the assessment, but I understand that that is already covered in clause 8(5)(b), which states that, having carried out the s…”

“Has it? Okay. I thank my hon. Friend. The amendments in this group all come from a good place, and I understand where hon. Members are coming from, but I do not feel that anything in them would make the Bill any safer or fairer for patients.”

“The amendment is good practice; I do not in any way deny that. The hon. Member for Reigate is obviously coming from a really good place. However, the amendment is almost like specifying that when someone goes to see a doctor, the doctor has to say, “How can I help? What is wrong?” It is just unnecessary; that is my onl…”

“The hon. Gentleman is bringing up lots of rather horrible stories about assisted death. That is why, in Australia, Switzerland and Holland, they have decided, instead of using the regime that he is talking about, to use pentobarbital. At 15 grams, that has not had any failures—no one has woken up. The only real side ef…”

“I will be brief, because I think we have discussed this enough. I totally agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury. Patients need to be informed about the procedure—there is no argument about that—and I approve of the first three amendments in this group. Let me say a bit about data. I met the pharmacist from A…”

“We are not doing that in situations of terminal care—we are allowing someone to die. We are very experienced in allowing people to die. I have done it for 25 years. It is not a new skill just because we have the assisted dying element. We deal with the situation as it arises.”

“I had virtually finished, but I give way.”

“No, I have not, because that is currently illegal—this Committee is about changing that—but I have sat with patients who have slowly died. It is not about whether we get an ambulance; we know we do not do that. We are allowing the patient to die, and if something happens that involves having to help them, we just do it…”

“I thank my hon. Friend the Member for York Central for tabling the amendment. The crucial word that the hon. Member for East Wiltshire said in all that was “should”. It is really important that people are strongly encouraged to discuss this with their families. Clause 9(2)(f) states that “in so far as the assessing doc…”

“I thank the hon. Gentleman for tabling amendment 362. Does he accept that Australia, for example, has a very different regime from America? In Australia, people are given pentobarbital, which has not failed on any occasion—in any of the 2,500 treatments since assisted dying was legalised. In America, people are not all…”

“I thank the hon. Lady for making this point, which is important, although probably not specifically relevant to what we are talking about in general with regard to making the Bill safe. Has the hon. Member for East Wiltshire not just completely contradicted the whole point of the amendment, however, by saying that we r…”

“This is just a point of accuracy: I think we are all going to support amendment 6, which would make it obligatory to refer to psychiatry if there were any doubts.”

“Could I ask which amendment the hon. Member is talking about? Is it 284 or 6? Amendment 284 says that psychiatric assessment is mandatory in all cases, whereas amendment 6 says it is mandatory if capacity is in doubt. I just wondered which one he was talking about, because I support one and I do not support the other.”