YouSaid · the spoken record
Kit Malthouse
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On the record 2015–2026
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“I am sorry if I have failed to understand what the hon. Lady is saying, but under the Bill as it stands, every single stage is supervised by a doctor, even the final moments. I fail to see how the motivations that she seems to be applying to the private sector, malign or otherwise, might affect the conduct of the doctors, given that she accepts that doctors are equally ethical in the private and public sectors, unless she thinks that those motivations are pressuring doctors to behave unethically.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Gentleman is making a strong point. Surely what should be at the heart of the organisation’s disposition is consideration of the condition and circumstances of the patient. Whether on the cancer ward, in the hospice or at home, the health service adapts, and has adapted with all sorts of treatments, to dealing with the different circumstances of the patient that it encounters. We must have a system that is flexible enough to allow it to do so for this.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I wonder whether the Minister would entertain a suggestion. I think the extension to four years is going to cause some concern and questions in the House on Report and Third Reading. Given that the Minister is committing to reporting on a six-monthly basis, it would be helpful if the House had a broad plan against which the Government were reporting on implementation. Does the Minister think it is a good idea, on Report or Third Reading, to come forward with an outline timetable, worked up as part of the general assessment of the project?”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Essentially, I was trying to point out that four years is obviously a backstop. It may well be that the Government are able to deliver the service in advance of the four-year deadline. It might be helpful at later stages of the Bill’s progress—certainly in the Lords—if the Government are able to give an indication of what they think the likely timeline might be. Admittedly, there will be flexibility in there, but that might assuage some of the concern raised by the hon. Member for Stroud that four years is quite a long time. The commissioner is going to be appointed at the 12-month mark, and that might accelerate some of the work, but I think having an indication may be helpful for Members.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have seen these clauses in standard legislation before. As I understand it, they are often put in place where new organisations are being established and there may be knock-on effects—for example, where an organisation decides to give itself a particular name or changes its name from the one that is in the Act. It tends to be those small things where powers are vested in the Minister effectively to tinker and sandpaper at the end, to get the organisational structure correct.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am sure the hon. Lady understands that a vote of that nature would not necessarily be binding, or compel the Government to do anything, but there would be other opportunities for the House to consider the legislation in debate and vote on it. She knows that there are a number of ways to do that, including via a Backbench motion or an Opposition day.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend is making a good point, but I want to make a constructive suggestion. It might be worth our having a look at Switzerland, where advertising is actually banned but the provision of information is not. It is a fine line, but the Swiss seem to get the balance right.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As my hon. Friend rightly pointed out, nature can be effectively compensated for only in certain circumstances, but landscape can never be replaced: once it is gone, it is gone. Does he think there should be scope in this Bill to recognise the special status of protected landscapes—what are now called national landscapes or national parks—to ensure that development in those areas is appropriate and does not permanently damage our precious landscape for future generations?”
House of Commons24 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“What is it about the Palestinian people that means they are less deserving of that kind of protection?”
House of Commons20 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It has been estimated that in the opening salvos of this appalling aggression, the Israelis killed 80 Palestinian children in the space of 51 minutes. There have been reports of children going through amputations without anaesthetics because of the blockade, and that leaflets were dropped across Gaza last night threatening extermination. Surely even for the Government, the Israelis have now crossed a monstrous red line. The Foreign Secretary talks about “equivalence”. I am assuming that he believes that the Palestinian civilians and their lives are equivalent to the lives of Israeli citizens, and are also equivalent to the lives of Ukrainian citizens. This morning, Ministers were on the airwaves offering British troops to keep the peace between Ukraine and Russia.”
House of Commons20 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Having said that, there is no institutional objection power in law for abortion: people just do not offer it because they do not have the staff to offer it. It feels to me as though that is what the hon. Gentleman is pointing to.”
House of Commons19 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Having also thought about this overnight, I think there is a freedom-of-association argument. If it were a Roman Catholic organisation designed just for Roman Catholics to live in, such as a home for retired priests, or if it were a Jewish organisation just for Jewish residents, I could see that, but that is not a service that is generally on offer to the public. My concern is whether we could see a situation in which the board of trustees of Hampshire hospitals foundation trust has a majority of people who have a strong religious conviction, and they vote that the service shall not be provided across the three hospitals that the trust manages. If the provision is drawn tightly and the freedom-of-association argument could be made, I could see it.”
House of Commons19 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This is obviously a difficult and sensitive area, but does the hon. Lady think, for example, that a women’s refuge run by a Catholic foundation should be allowed to evict a woman who wants or has an abortion?”
House of Commons19 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Lady is outlining the issues very effectively. No one, of course, is saying that anybody who works at the hospice that may object has to participate. It may say, “No one here will assist.” We have talked about the importance of place. To a certain extent, I have a right as a tenant in a place where I am resident. It seems that my hon. Friend the Member for East Wiltshire is proposing actively to prevent someone from being able to access this in a place that they choose. That feels to me the wrong balance. I wonder whether that is broadly where she is heading.”
House of Commons19 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“To clarify my remarks, I was not necessarily saying that they should have the right to deny, but by default they would if they were, in effect, a closed community that was discriminating in favour of like-minded individuals—a home for retired Catholic priests, for example. By default it would be someone who was unlikely to offer those services. The other point to ask is: if I am in a hospice, in my bed at the last with visitors coming to see me, and one of those visitors is the doctor who is coming to administer to me, I am not quite sure how that would be prevented, unless people are willing for there to be a wrestling match at the door of my room.”
House of Commons19 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am wondering about the difference between my own home with my partner, and my care home with lots of people that may or may not be strangers, and why I should have the right in one but not in the other.”
House of Commons19 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It would be interesting, if my hon. Friend’s amendments go through, to see the series of plebiscites taking place in care homes and communal situations across the country as to what the residents do and do not want, presumably by a majority. He asserted that there had been a mass exodus of healthcare workers when VAD came in, but I am struggling to find any evidence to support that claim. In fact, the evidence seems to say that that is not the case. Although there have been some resignations, that has largely been because of pay and conditions, as one might expect.”
House of Commons19 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Will the hon. Lady respond to the point about injunctions? The Minister might want to respond to this as well. My understanding is that in order to obtain an injunction, someone does not have to establish that there is either a civil wrong or a criminal offence. They have to establish that there is a serious matter to be adjudicated, and that there is a strong likelihood of harm taking place. In those circumstances, a court would consider granting an interim injunction, subject then to a further hearing, ex parte or otherwise. The idea that some kind of civil tort needs to be established is not actually correct in seeking an injunction.”
House of Commons19 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As the Minister said, this is not an unusual exercise for the CPS and operates in lots of other areas. For example, the CPS regularly makes decisions about whether to charge someone with grievous bodily harm under section 18 or section 20 of the relevant legislation—they are both forms of GBH. Which one the CPS chooses depends on the circumstances, the seriousness and the level of intent. As she said, the charge naturally—whether it falls under the same Act or a different Act—comes down to the circumstances.”
House of Commons19 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am very sorry to intervene on the same point as the hon. Member for Spen Valley, but clause 28 is not about the formulation of the drugs or their approval; it is about the administration of the issuing of the drugs by a pharmacist or otherwise. I am sorry if I am misconstruing the hon. Gentleman, but I think he might be off on a bit of a tangent, on a debate that, as the hon. Lady said, we had earlier. As I say, this clause is about the bureaucratic process of the issuing the drugs, not about their formulation or approval.”
House of Commons19 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My assumption is that once a commissioner is appointed, and in drawing up the regulations and guidelines for reporting, there will be consultation between the Government and the commissioner about what the commissioner actually wants to report on. From what the Minister is saying, I assume that, unless we collect the data, the commissioner will have nothing to say in their report.”
House of Commons19 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Obviously the hon. Lady is a London MP, but I gently point out that particularly in a London context—and in other urban areas—someone’s postcode is actually a very poor indicator of socioeconomic status. I represented central London as a London Assembly member for eight years and, in large parts of central London, there is social housing in the same postcode as extremely expensive houses running into the many millions.”
House of Commons19 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I want to emphasise that at the moment the patient reaches that point, they will have had their palliative care options explained to them extensively, under the Bill, and it is highly unlikely at that point, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Wiltshire said, that anyone would not be in receipt of palliative care, given the very late stage of their disease.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am not entirely certain that my hon. Friend’s remarks are germane to the amendments, but nevertheless. As we discussed when debating clause 13, at the stage he is talking about, the patient will have had all their options—“all appropriate”, as I think we have amended the Bill to say, services that will be available to them—explained to them. If they are cancelling, the presumption has to be, in respecting their autonomy, that they are choosing one of the alternative paths that has been laid out to them. It is quite hard to legislate for a negative.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am not sure what compulsion there is in wider legislation for there to be a duty of care to patients who do not choose assisted dying in the first place. For thousands and thousands of patients who die, there is no legislation that imposes certain duties on medics or others to look after them; we rely on the professional standards and overall atmosphere of the healthcare system, as we would in the case of these patients. As my hon. Friend knows, overseas experience shows that a large proportion of the people who obtain the right to an assisted death—up to a third—do not cancel but do not exercise it. As we have said before, for many people assisted dying is an insurance card that they may choose to use if and when they think their life becomes intolerable.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Does the Minister agree that, unfortunately, my hon. Friend the Member for East Wiltshire seems to be labouring under the misapprehension that there is some reputational test in becoming an attorney? In truth, I can appoint anybody I want to be my attorney. There is no verification or otherwise until there is some form of dispute around the exercise of the power of attorney. In fact, the regulations may mean that we have stronger verification of the bona fides of the person who is a proxy than we would have through the LPA route. Does the Minister not also find it slightly sad that, given the type of Conservative I know my hon. Friend the Member for East Wiltshire is, he thinks the concept of being of good standing in society is somehow meaningless?”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am a little confused by my hon. Friend’s logic. He has literally just proposed an amendment for the doctor to ask, at the last, whether the person still wants to proceed. Surely self-administration is the ultimate act of consent, which his own amendment requires a doctor to establish right at the last moment.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“After 10 years of campaigning on this issue and spending so much time with people whose family have gone to Switzerland, one of the things they consistently say is that people went to Switzerland much earlier than they wanted to because they had to go while they were still physically able. I think this is a critical point that people have to realise. We should not compel people to do this earlier than they would otherwise wish to simply because of these restrictions.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Does the Minister agree that my hon. Friend the Member for East Wiltshire is perhaps unintentionally creating a lack of clarity where there is clarity? Surely there is complete clarity in the distinction between assisting a patient to be in a position to carry out their final desire and act, and performing or even jointly performing that final act with them. Is it not the case that in overseas jurisdictions there is quite a lot of assistance with technology? It needs to be prepared and put in place, but it can put even those who are the least physically able in a position in which the final act of administration can be clearly theirs. In many ways, our life is made easier by modern technology in that regard.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Member might be interested to know that many hospices and, in fact, the hospice movement have developed what they call hospice at home, which is for people in the advanced stage of illness who want to die in their own home. Services are provided to them to palliate them as they reach death at home.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On a point of order, Sir Roger. Is there any chance somebody could attend to the heating? I do not know whether I am the only Member who is starting to feel a bit cold. As the evening wears on, we are likely to get colder. If we could have it turned up slightly, that might assist our proceedings.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Member for Spen Valley says she is willing—but I do not understand how the collective view of the organisation would be reached.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am sure my hon. Friend did not mean to equate assisted dying with prostitution—I would not want anybody on social media to misinterpret what he said. I have been subject to that myself, and I want him to be clear of that. I am intrigued by this notion. I fully appreciate and support the idea that individuals should be able to opt out from the process and not participate, but by what means would the view of these institutions be ascertained? Would it be the view of the management? My hon. Friend said that other residents might be disturbed, so will there be a residents’ vote? How will these organisations come to a collective view? Practically, the Bill refers to individuals—it is an easy one for us that people do not have to participate; we have talked about the wider application of that and the hon.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have just two quick questions. First, I am intrigued to know how my hon. Friend imagines these organisations would reach this collective view. Secondly, if they could reach a collective view, should they still be able to deny what is a legal service, if they are in receipt of public funds?”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Let me remind my hon. Friend—first, she is saying that the views of, say, the residents count for little compared with the views of the directors, but my second question was whether she believes these organisations should be able to discriminate in that way, even if they are in receipt of public funds.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In the interest of symmetry, if I work for one of these organisations and it takes that decision, can I conscientiously support it? We are saying that at an organisation that allows it, staff can conscientiously object. If there is an organisation that conscientiously will not allow it, can I conscientiously support it as an employee, or am I automatically fired?”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Technically, as we established earlier, cancer is a disability and therefore a protected characteristic, so under the law, anybody who has cancer cannot be discriminated against by an organisation that is offering services to the public. I want to make a wider point. The point we are trying to make about the amendments is that very few people will move into these organisations and live in them in the expectation that they will get a terminal disease. They will move in in their twilight years, whether it is an almshouse or a care home, for retirement purposes or other reasons—”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As my hon. Friend heard yesterday from the hon. Member for Rother Valley, there are multiple points in the new system at which family could make their views known. Indeed, they could apply very quickly for an injunction if they thought something was untoward. My hon. Friend has talked a lot about families knowing best. Surely it should be the dying person who chooses how best to handle their family. The evidence overseas is that giving dying people choice about the manner and time of their death also gives them the choice about how to handle their family, and particularly their children. My hon. Friend might have a particular approach, and mine might be completely different, but I should have that choice. She seems to think the family know best for the dying person—how come she does not think the dying person knows best for their family?”
House of Commons12 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is certainly what they see in Australia, where families try to persuade somebody not to do it. I think the hon. Lady has good motivations, but I am concerned that she might actually produce the opposite effect and drive people into secrecy.”
House of Commons12 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have to say that my concern about the hon. Lady’s amendment is growing. We have talked in the past about policing the conversation and the process to the point that it becomes guarded. Say I had a strong, long-standing conviction that I wanted assisted dying if I was in extremis, but I had a child who I knew was violently against assisted dying; if the hon. Lady’s amendment were in place, and there was the possibility of appeal, surely my tendency would be to keep my disease and diagnosis, and my approach to the system, secret from that person. By opening this formal door, I would effectively be encouraged to conceal the process from a family member who I know may object. I say that particularly in the light of the fact that, as we heard from overseas experience, coercion more often than not comes the other way.”
House of Commons12 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If the state, rather than the dying person, is effectively deciding how the family should be handled, we are naturally giving that person an incentive to keep this thing quiet until they are ready to tell their family, which may be well towards the end of the process. As the hon. Member for Rother Valley said, there are multiple points at which the family can intervene if they know. My concern is that this kind of—what is the word we have been using?—embroidery actually drives people in the opposite direction to the one my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate wants to achieve.”
House of Commons12 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Through my hon. Friend, may I respond to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Wiltshire? It is not necessarily about not having faith in the panel. Somebody may, for example, have a relative driven by a strong religious faith who wants to create some form of delay in the system, just to put off the awful day. Even if a commissioner were to take that relative’s application and decide that it was not valid, that would inject delay into what is naturally a time-limited process. A person may want to retain the right to handle their family themselves, and have the choice about how to do that.”
House of Commons12 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The amendment is very sensible, not least because there are some conditions in which people experience a very significant decline at the end. In a matter of days, they may lose the ability to speak, while retaining capacity, so the ability for people in a small number of cases to give pre-recorded answers is incredibly sensible.”
House of Commons12 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am just intrigued. My hon. Friend is talking a lot about the evidence. Did any evidence on anything in the Bill change his mind on any aspect of it?”
House of Commons12 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“To be clear, does my hon. Friend envisage that I would either be in the hearing, or lying in my bed listening to the hearing—the fungating tumours in my neck restricting my ability to breathe—having gone through all the eligibility criteria, but having to listen to someone argue that I should go through a death that I am trying to avoid, by arguing that I do not have capacity? Does he not see that that could be profoundly distressing to someone who is in the closing moments of their life? In many ways, it might actually be cruel and traumatic for me to hear somebody arguing, frankly, that I should endure the pain, in their opinion.”
House of Commons12 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I rise briefly to amplify a couple of points from the excellent speeches by the hon. Members for Rother Valley and for Ipswich. First, in clarification, I understand that there are situations where judges can sit in essentially supervisory positions—not least, for example, on the BBC board—and they can of course be Cross Benchers in the House of Lords. They are allowed to undertake other charitable trustee roles, although they are restricted in their activities.”
House of Commons12 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In my personal view it is not, but at the time my view was that if as a footballer I could show up in the middle of the night and get an injunction to stop The Daily Mirror from publishing unpleasant stories about me, then the judges should be able to find time in their schedule to accommodate the requirements of my death.”
House of Commons12 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It will impose new burdens on the judiciary and the police, as will the new offence of spiking. No doubt the immigration Bill coming through will also put significant extra burdens on the police and the courts. There are two separate questions here: one is what Parliament does, and the other is the capacity of the public sector to absorb that. The answer is not to say, “Well, I am afraid all you people have to go through a death you do not want to go through”; it is to say that we do not have enough judges and to recruit more judges, if that is required.”
House of Commons12 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My understanding of judicial opinion was that, certainly in Lord Sumption’s view, that level was unnecessary; I think he referred to it being a profoundly intimate conversation that really should just be between the patient and the doctor. However, I think my hon. Friend the Member for East Wiltshire is right that the weight of the moment and opinion in the House then was that there should be that third layer of scrutiny and opinion. I also dismiss the argument about the capacity of the judiciary to absorb this. I fear that if we start to accept that argument, we go down a very difficult road for Parliament—not least, for example, because we should then have opposed the Bill that went through the House on Monday night, because of its greater impositions. As many will know, the Crime and Policing Bill went through without a vote.”
House of Commons12 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“No, I do not acknowledge that at all. Over the years we have started to use judges relatively flexibly—even, for example, for non-statutory inquiries; my hon. Friend has referred only to statutory inquiries—and that is so much the better. I am not a lawyer myself but I believe in the rule of law, so I think that having judges opining on our freedoms or otherwise is generally good for the country. I want to amplify a couple of points. On Second Reading, I made the case for the High Court to be involved. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for East Wiltshire: at that stage, I was very happy for there to be effectively a scrutiny and authorisation third layer to the Bill.”
House of Commons12 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗