YouSaid · the spoken record
Naz Shah
We hold 73 passages that may be Naz Shah’s. We do not publish them until we can confirm who spoke. See the correction.
On the record 2015–2026
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“When it comes to NHS providers, or any service providers, and contracting or outsourcing, we have legislation in this place for whistleblowing. I raised the subject with the Health Secretary in relation to my local trust only today. With the best will in the world, mistakes happen. We legislated to protect whistleblowers, and that ties in directly to these risks. We must do everything we can to mitigate such risks in the Bill.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They will have other abilities but they will not look at this through the lens that a senior doctor would. Secondly, it cannot be good governance that the only person who must see the data is the commissioner—the official who runs the assisted dying system and who appoints all the panel members.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Amendment 539 retains that weakness, while adding what I view as a new problem. The new weakness is that the amendment removes the requirement for doctors to notify the CMO of the events. Instead, it specifies that they should notify the voluntary assisted dying commissioner. By all means let us have doctors reporting these events to the commissioner, but they should still be required to report the events to the chief medical officers too. There are at least two good reasons for that. First, the chief medical officers are extremely experienced, senior doctors. They and their staff have the ability to look at this kind of data from a medical and especially a public health perspective. The VAD commissioner will come from a legal, not medical background.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I rise to speak in support of amendments 172 and 173, tabled by the hon. Member for Reigate, and against amendment 539, moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley. Clause 33 currently provides that the Health Secretary “may” bring forward regulations to require a doctor to report any notifiable event to the chief medical officer. That would be either the CMO for England or the CMO for Wales, according to where the assisted death takes place. The clause lists those notifiable events, such as the first declaration, the two statements by the doctors, including when they refuse to make such a statement, and the final statement that follows the person’s death. The weakness in the clause as originally written is its use of the word “may”. It should not be optional for the Secretary of State to make such regulations.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Finally, on such an important matter, Parliament should be required to vote to accept such regulations, as that will increase the scrutiny from both this House and the other place. I appreciate that my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley drew my attention to her amendment, which says the commissioner must consult the chief medical officer. However, it does not specify whether the consultation should include data or if it is the beginning of the process; those things are not stated on the face of the Bill. That leaves it open to interpretation, which is why I support the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Reigate. I thank her for tabling those two very sensible amendments and I urge hon. Members to vote for them. From my perspective, amendment 539 weakens the Bill and we should vote against it.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As things stand, regulations brought forward under the clause would be subject to the negative procedure, which, as all hon. Members know, considerably reduces the amount of parliamentary scrutiny they receive. Amendment 173 would make regulations under the clause subject to the affirmative procedure. I honestly try to see the arguments for and against each amendment, but I have real difficulty in seeing what the arguments against these two might be. Clearly, notifiable events are important information that must be collected nationally for a transparent assisted dying system. Equally, they need to be governed by regulations so that all doctors participating in the scheme have a clear picture of their responsibilities.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will come on to that point. As I have said previously, this Bill will not just create a VAD commissioner, but give them the power to assess their own work. That means it is much less likely they will critically assess the data for any signs of a major problem. We all suffer from unconscious bias, even the very senior legal officials who will be eligible to become VAD commissioners. If the data were sent to the chief medical officers as well as the commissioner, that would mean two sets of officials with different perspectives and fields of expertise looking for problems. We would have a much better chance of locating problems earlier that way. Amendment 172 would change the clause so that the Health Secretary must bring forward such regulations.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Asking people to mark their own homework is a really bad way to check that any system is working properly. It is not how we inspect and report on schools; Ofsted has that job, not headteachers or local councils. It is not how we regulate banks, which are overseen by independent authorities.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The chief medical officers for England and Wales are senior doctors who advice Governments on all medical matters; of course they should be centrally involved in seeing whether the system works and whether there are any problems. The second argument—that the commissioner’s office will become assisted dying subject matter experts—does not stand up either. It is true that the commissioner and the officials they recruit will come to know a great deal about the system they set up, but the very fact that they will set up and run the system means they should not take the lead on monitoring, investigating and reporting. That would mean that the commissioner and their staff would be the first people who decide whether they are doing a good job.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The second argument in favour is that the amendments to the Bill create a voluntary assisted dying commissioner, and that person and their officials will build up expertise in that field, so it could be argued that the commissioner would be the best person to lead monitoring, investigation and reporting. Unfortunately I do not think those arguments hold water. On the first, it is true that CMOs have a great deal to do, but if we pass the Bill, it will be one of the biggest changes made to the duties of doctors in this country. For the first time, they will be able to help patients to take lethal drugs solely in order to bring about their death.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It provides for the monitoring, investigation and reporting functions under clause 34 to be carried out by the voluntary assisted dying commissioner instead of the chief medical officers for England and Wales. I can think of two possible arguments in support of it. I do not know whether either was behind my hon. Friend’s decision to table the amendment, but they are certainly the best to my mind. The first argument in favour is that the chief medical officers for England and Wales already have a great many demands on their time. Members might say that we should not risk overloading them and should instead give another official the responsibility of looking at how assisted dying systems work.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I rise to speak to amendment 382. My hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley may argue that some of my criticisms of the amendment relate in particular to two other amendments she has tabled: amendments 455 and 456. Indeed, I took an intervention on the matter earlier. I have read those amendments and they do not answer my concerns about amendment 382. They were grouped with amendment 382 until this morning, when the grouping was changed, so I will address them in my next speech. This is a good moment to pay tribute to the Committee Clerks for their extremely hard work. I thank them for the way they have coped with the complex groupings and huge numbers of amendments that are unprecedented for a private Member’s Bill in this century. My hon. Friend’s explanatory statement gives a clear explanation about what amendment 382 does.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Amendment 382 significantly weakens the version of the Bill that was presented to the House on Second Reading. We are being asked to let the commissioner report on their own work. That makes it much less likely that we would be able to spot any problems with the assisted dying system at an early stage. I therefore urge Members to vote against the amendment.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The executives who ran the Post Office and the engineers at Fujitsu who had set up and then run the Horizon system. What did those experts say for about 15 years? That there were no serious problems with Horizon, that the sub-postmasters and mistresses who said otherwise were lying and that all their convictions were safe. We know how that turned out. That surely leads us to a clear lesson: we cannot ask powerful people who have created and are in charge of a system—in this case, the assisted dying system—to be the ones who report on it. I am not saying that we would see a deliberate cover-up, as there seems to have been in the Post Office scandal. What I am saying is that we all have unconscious biases and all of us are biased to think that the work we do is good and that there are no serious problems with it.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That would at least be an improvement on allowing the assisted dying commissioner to say, “There’s nothing to see here.” In my view, the best choice would be to retain the system that the Bill started out with and keep the chief medical officers as the people with the main responsibility for oversight. Members disagreed with my comparison of assisted dying with the scandal of what happened to the sub-postmasters and mistresses, but we have to think about what we have learned about the causes of that scandal. Under the law, Ministers had responsibility for the Post Office. Even though it was an arm’s length responsibility, they still had it. When complaints about the Horizon IT system, and then complaints about miscarriages of justice, started to come through to MPs, Ministers asked the experts in the field. Who were those experts?”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When we regulate an important system in this country, we should not allow the people who run it to be the only people to tell us whether it is working as it should. Although we respect the highly skilled people who run our schools and police our streets, we have independent people whose job it is to check whether there are any major issues. The assisted dying system created by the Bill is both complicated and, potentially, very dangerous. If the system gets things wrong, it will mean that people will be given lethal drugs who should not have had them. That is why I would strongly support keeping the chief medical officers as the people who run monitoring, investigating and reporting. Perhaps there could be a dual system in which both the CMOs and the VAD commissioner have some kind of role.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As far as I have seen, no regulatory system has been proposed in regard to the Bill. I am happy to be corrected. Yes, in other instances we have regulators, but in this instance no regulator is specified. That is why I will come back to my argument about the amendment, but I value my hon. Friend’s intervention. This is not how we regulate banks, which are overseen by independent authorities. We have seen what happens when there is light-touch regulation. Banks told us all that they were doing a great job until it turned out that they were not. There is an Independent Police Complaints Commission—I could go on, as the list is very long, but I hope we can all agree on the principle.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I beg to move amendment 450, in clause 34, page 20, line 33, at end insert— “(1A) The relevant Chief Medical Officer must produce an annual equality impact assessment of access to both palliative care and assisted dying on the basis of— (a) protected characteristics as set out in the section 4 of the Equality Act 2010, (b) socioeconomic status, (c) geographical location.” This amendment will ensure that a full impact assessment is carried out on the access to both palliative care services and assisted dying services.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“For example, the CMO for England’s 2024 report on health in cities gave detailed information on urban populations’ socioeconomic categories. The report looked at urban populations by indices of multiple deprivation and ethnicity, and how those factors interacted with their health. The CMOs for England and for Wales are used to working with such data. Indeed, they state in reports that using that type of information is vital to understanding the health needs of different parts of the population. We should take this approach to understanding the people who access assisted dying—who they are, where they live and which groups they belong to. [ Interruption. ]”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Amendment 451 would add a requirement that the chief medical officers for England or for Wales would have to report on patients’ diagnosis and prognosis, any concerns expressed about capacity or the patient being coerced, and any concerns expressed by the panel or family members. The CMO’s report would also have to include data on the patients, including socioeconomic information and their protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010. It would also have to include information that the doctors had gathered during their consultations with people seeking an assisted death. I anticipate Members objecting to “socioeconomic data” as the term is vague. It is important to note that the chief medical officers’ reports on other matters already make considerable use of socioeconomic data.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Amendments 450 and 451 were tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for York Central. Let me first set out broadly what the amendments would do. They would mean that the reports of the chief medical officers for England and Wales had to include qualitative as well as quantitative data on assisted deaths. Subsection (2) of clause 34 says that the chief medical officer’s report “must include information about” when four different events happen: if either of the examining doctors refuses to make a statement saying that the person is qualified for assisted dying, meaning they do not pass the tests set by the Bill; if the panel decides that the person does not pass those tests; or if the co-ordinating doctor decides that the person’s final statement does not pass the tests.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Several experts told us that access to good palliative care varies according to where someone lives. We should not just shrug our shoulders and say that it is a terrible shame that palliative care is in bad shape in some parts of the country while it is good in others. Amendment 451 would mean that the chief medical officers and their teams use their ability and knowledge to scrutinise the assisted dying system. Their reports would help us to identify serious problems early and then deal with them. Amendment 450 would give Parliament the regular information that it needs about whether people in this country can access palliative care. If we are serious about improving people’s opportunity to have good-quality care at the end of their life, we should support it. I urge hon. Members to support both amendments.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Amendment 450, the other amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for York Central, reads: “The relevant Chief Medical Officer must produce an annual equality impact assessment of access to both palliative care and assisted dying on the basis of— (a) protected characteristics as set out in the section 4 of the Equality Act 2010, (b) socioeconomic status, (c) geographical location.” I understand that my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley has tabled an amendment that would require the commissioner to report on people with protected characteristics, but it would only look at how those people were affected by assisted dying. That does not go far enough. Several doctors and experts who gave evidence to this Committee feared that people might be more likely to choose assisted dying if they had no access to good palliative care.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That troubles me, and I would like to explore it in depth with him. Actually, the Bill uses the word “complications” in the same sense as the amendment. I refer the Minister to clause 9(2)(c), which states that the assessing doctor must “discuss with the person their wishes in the event of complications arising in connection with the self-administration of an approved substance under section 18”. I am sure the Minister will agree that if we can accept the word “complications” in clause 9 to describe unwanted or unpleasant circumstances during and after the self-administration of lethal drugs, we can accept its use in the same sense in amendment 451. If he objects to the word outside clause 9, I would be happy to hear a detailed explanation, because it is important that we understand why.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Members agree that this issue is so serious that we cannot allow just one official to report on possible concerns. That is particularly true because the commissioner is the person who appoints panel members and rules on appeals against decisions. I have said it before and I say it again: it is never a good idea to allow anyone powerful to mark their own homework. This is a clear case in which we need other senior officials looking at the data for signs of things going wrong. I anticipate that the Minister is very likely to say that the Government can see problems with that part of the amendment, because he has given the same response to other amendments that include the word “complications”. He has said that the Government’s view is that it is not clear what the word means, so we cannot use it to impose duties on doctors or others.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The amendment would require the commissioner to report on the diagnoses of people who apply for assisted death, which is an extremely important provision. The duty will mean that they look for patterns of diagnoses, making it very likely that the CMOs or other researchers using the same data could spot any particular conditions presented or special problems for palliative care. Identifying such problems will give us the impetus needed to look at how the NHS can improve palliative care for those conditions. Similarly, it is important that the CMOs look at cases in which people have raised concerns about a person’s capacity or about coercion. I understand that the voluntary assisted dying commissioner has a duty to report on those and other matters, but surely hon.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Friend recognises the importance of reporting on protected characteristics. Amendment 451 would oblige the chief medical officers to report on complications that people may suffer during their assisted death. I am sure all colleagues will agree that that is a vital topic for CMOs to gather data on. If we are to have assisted dying, we need to understand how often complications occur and what factors they are associated with. That information can be used to inform the decision whether to choose an assisted death. Perhaps most importantly, it can be used to reduce the number of assisted deaths in which people suffer painful complications. It will also inform our decisions in this House if we have to amend legislation or vote on regulations.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“[Sir Roger Gale in the Chair ] Having covered what the amendments would do, I want to explain why they would improve the Bill. They would increase the qualitative and quantitative data in the CMO’s reports. Such data has all kinds of benefits. It can improve the training for healthcare professionals; it can also make it easier for researchers to dig into trends in the data. We can all agree that if we are to have assisted dying in this country, it must be a much more transparent process than the one that we see in Australia, for example. Amendment 455, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley, would require the reports to include some of the information that amendments 450 and 451 would add. I will speak to amendment 455 in more detail later, but let me say that I am glad that my hon.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I was talking about amendments 450 and 451 and explaining why we should take an approach that involves understanding who the people who access assisted dying are, where they live and to which groups they belong. We have heard frequently from some hon. Members that assisted dying in other countries is disproportionately accessed by people with above-average incomes. They have cited data from those countries as a reason why we should be reassured that the Bill will not have harmful effects on people from ethnic minorities, say, or from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. I am sure that hon. Members would want us to gather the same information in England and Wales to ensure that people with protected characteristics or from disadvantaged communities are not harmed or discriminated against.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I rise to speak to amendments 455 and 456, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley. Under the Bill as drafted, an annual report would be issued by the chief medical officers for England and Wales. If the other amendments pass, that report will be issued by the voluntary assisted dying commissioner. Amendment 455 will do two things, broadly speaking. Proposed new subsection (2A) states that the commissioner’s report “must include information about the application of the Act in relation to…persons who have protected characteristics”. Amendment 456 clarifies that the definition of “protected characteristics” is the same as that used in the Equality Act 2010. Proposed new subsection (2A) also provides that the commissioner must report on any other description of persons specified in regulations made by the Secretary of State.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“While I appreciate that it is not necessarily a duty as defined in law, does the Minister not agree that, given the way our Government operates, we need that data to inform us, in order to improve services elsewhere? We could apply that to this Bill as well.”
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“From a public health perspective, we have been having a huge debate for weeks and weeks about whether or not this is a health intervention and whether it should be provided in the NHS or elsewhere. When I was a public health commissioner, we collected socioeconomic data to learn about not just protected characteristics but socioeconomic background. There are concerns that disadvantaged groups are more vulnerable. Would it not be appropriate for the Bill to address those safeguarding issues?”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I beg to move amendment 452, in clause 35, page 21, line 30, leave out from “must” to end of line 31 and insert “every 12 months after the passing of this Act—” This amendment will replace the review conducting after five years of the passing of the Act with an annual review starting 12 months after the passing of the Act.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It could be one way to identify failings in the system early. Given that we are discussing a system to allow people to take lethal drugs, that is surely what we should aim for. We cannot afford to wait through years of media reports and complaints before then having to investigate alleged problems. If the amendment is accepted, it will not be certain that the Secretary of State’s report and the scrutiny of Parliament will identify problems in a timely way, but that possibility will be increased. If we have to wait five years for a report, it is much less likely that we will spot any problems before they have had terrible consequences. I urge Members to vote for the amendment to replace the five-yearly report.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Under the Bill as presented on Second Reading, the Secretary of State would have to report to Parliament on how the assisted dying system was functioning, but they would do so only after the system had been in operation for five years. Under amendment 452, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for York Central, the Secretary of State would be required to report annually on how the system was working. The Bill’s original provision for a five-yearly report was extremely surprising. The requirement on the Secretary of State to report to Parliament is a major safeguard that will prompt them and their officials to probe all the available data on the system. It will also allow Members of this House and the other place to go over that information and look for problems, should they arise, and ways to resolve them.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am surprised by what the Minister says on the cost of the Bill. My understanding from our debates on cost is that, if the Bill is passed, its cost will be footed. Why is there a cost implication to this amendment and not to other provisions?”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My understanding is that there would have been no need for the amendments on that, because we already have those laws in existence for murder, and that would be murder.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge for her detailed, interesting presentation to the Committee, though I am not sure I entirely agree with it. Although there might a point, from a legal perspective, where these offences actually do exist in the law, the truth remains, and the facts remain, that when it comes to domestic violence—coercion and so on, which we have debated extensively—we have put the training in, but not putting the offences on the face of the Bill slightly contradicts the conversation we had last week, when my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley, the promoter, specified that the sentence for somebody who is found guilty of coercion would be put on the face of the Bill; for example, if a person were found to be guilty of coercing somebody who then died, that would carry a life sentence.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I rise to speak to amendment (b) to amendment 518, and amendment (b) to amendment 520. Although I appreciate that my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge is not pressing her amendments to a vote, it is important to get a few things on the record. I am speaking to these amendments to her amendments because they were tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft. Before I speak further, my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley, the Bill’s promoter, has accepted several amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft before—I do not know what her response is, given that my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge is not pressing her amendments to a vote. That has thrown me off track, to be fair, because I was not expecting that. Either way, let us move on. I thank my hon.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They are not going to bite; that is fine. Just for the record, I want to talk through the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft and why she and I feel that they are important. Amendment 518 would put in the Bill a definition of “coercion”. Amendment 520 would do the same for “pressure”. Those amendments give welcome clarity to the Bill on two important issues. Where they talk about a “person or organisation” engaging in coercion or pressure, respectively, my hon. Friend’s amendments would have added, “including where the person is in an intimate or family relationship with that other person”. That would make sure that we covered that.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank my hon. Friend for her detailed explanation. She makes sense—I would not want to restrict that either. Perhaps she is entirely correct—no doubt she has researched it well—but clause 26 mentions coercion and pressure. It says all of that on the face of the Bill. My hon. Friend wants to leave it in that context— “by dishonesty, coercion and pressure, induces another person to self-administer an approved substance”, which is repeated in clause 26(1) and (2). I would still be minded to put at least something further in the Bill. I am not sure that it would restrict us; it would just be helpful. If my hon. Friend does not press the amendment to a vote, would the Ministers accept that there will be statutory guidance on that? I do not know whether the Ministers can respond now or want to wait until they sum up. I am happy to give way.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will re-read it. It is, “including where the person is in an intimate or family relationship with that other person”. The “family relationship”, I think, means that it is extended to siblings. That was my interpretation. Last week, or the week before, we spoke extensively about suicide, and women in particular. The number of women who have committed suicide, particularly following domestic violence, has increased. Indeed, it was on the front page of The Guardian today. It is defined by our lawmakers as intimate partner violence, but it could be other violence. In those cases, as a Government and as lawmakers, we do define those women who are killed by members of their family or intimate partners. Our Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls reads out that list.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank my hon. Friend for her explanation, which was very good. I do not have time to go away and think more about it from a legal perspective, because I have only just heard her arguments, but at the moment I absolutely agree. As for my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft, I thank her for her attempt to explain. She has years of experience of working in the field. She tabled that amendment in response to the amendment from my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge, with the best of intentions and to strengthen the legislation. I will look at it, and I may even return to it during the debate.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is the exact point I was about to raise. Is another amendment needed to ensure that providers of this service are not given more money if a patient goes through the process than if the process is stopped?”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“May I thank the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough for sharing something so deeply personal? I am sure I speak on behalf of the whole Committee in wishing his mum well and hoping that she never has that diagnosis. I rise to speak to amendments 489 and 488. Amendment 489, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for York Central, would prevent the Bill’s provisions from coming into effect automatically after a certain period had elapsed. The Bill in its original form includes a measure to that effect, in clause 42(3): “But if any provision of this Act has not been fully brought into force before the end of the period of 2 years beginning with the day on which this Act is passed, that provision (so far as not already in force) comes into force at the end of that period.””
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Does the hon. Lady agree that banning advertising also mitigates the issue of advertising to young people? She mentioned young people and suicide from a social media perspective. Young people, or anybody else who has an eating disorder, may see that as an option to enable them to qualify for assisted dying. That is because, under the Bill as it stands, they would qualify for it if they were termed terminally ill due to their eating disorder.”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The former chair of my local trust, Bradford teaching hospitals NHS foundation trust, Dr Max Mclean, has today secured whistleblowing protection for himself in a landmark victory. Last week marked a year since a non-exec director at the trust was suspended, and a third non-exec director has put in an ET1 form to the employment tribunal. There appears to be a clear culture of targeting and witch-hunting whistleblowers at Bradford teaching hospitals trust. I appreciate the Secretary of State’s team supporting me, but given these recent developments, will he meet me?”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They might argue that it would mean that a doctor working on a hospice’s premises or making a visit to a patient in a hospice could not have the preliminary discussion about assisted death with that person. However, I want to be clear that these measures relate to the provision of assistance under this Bill. “Provision of assistance” is the phrase used throughout the Bill to refer not to the preliminary discussion, nor to the interviews with doctors, nor to the panel process, but to that part of the process at which the person takes lethal drugs with a doctor present.”
House of Commons19 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We’re really worried that we won’t want to access them any more, and we won’t want to access the hospitals.’” –– [ Official Report, Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Public Bill Committee, 29 January 2025; c. 187, Q245.] That fear will only grow if we use public funds to oblige hospices to permit assisted dying on their premises. Hospices should be able to say clearly to their patients that they do not allow assisted dying to take place on their premises. The dedicated professionals who work in hospices and who deeply object to people being helped to die with lethal drugs must also be protected. They should be free from having to work on premises where something they might disagree with happens. I anticipate that some hon. Members may argue that amendment 484 draws its restrictions too tightly.”
House of Commons19 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“196, Q256.] Many people would be entirely willing to enter a care home or hospice if they thought they might receive assisted dying there, but others already fear that they might be pressured into taking assisted dying if they enter palliative care. They may be wrong to fear that, but they do. We heard evidence on that point from Dr Jamilla Hussain, who gave evidence to the Committee on 29 January: “I work predominantly with an ethnically diverse population. I have gone into those communities and I have spoken to them about this Bill. What they say overwhelmingly to me is, ‘We’re scared. We’re really fearful that this is going to result in a disproportionate impact on our community. We have seen that through covid and we’re so scared. We already don’t access your services.”
House of Commons19 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗