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We hold 73 passages that may be Naz Shah’s. We do not publish them until we can confirm who spoke.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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“I have not given this matter as much thought as the hon. Member has. My interest is very much in the issue of domestic violence. Does he agree that this could be somebody who has experienced domestic violence? Or children could be at risk. This person may then decide not to take the option, even though they wanted to, because of obligations elsewhere.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On the point made by the Bill’s promoter, my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley, should the issue of proxy end up before a court, what will be relied on—the conversation that we are having here and the intentions stated in Committee, or a future statutory instrument and what the Secretary of State puts in the guidance?”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I genuinely want to understand this issue. Even though we have had this conversation in Committee, what if the Secretary of State, following those consultations, decides otherwise? What recourse do we as a Committee have to challenge that?”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“To diminish that, which I feel is what has, intentionally or unintentionally, happened on occasion, is really wrong, because I have been there, and it was not easy and it was not because I wanted to die.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“To suggest that there is a difference between someone who gets a terminal illness and wants to take this act and people who want to commit suicide, and to suggest that they are doing it out of choice, is wrong. I felt really emotional when that exchange was happening. The reason why I think it is wrong is that, at the time that I wanted to commit suicide, I did not feel that I had a choice. I could not see a way out. When I was on those Samaritans phonelines, speaking to people who rang in to unpick their feelings about what was driving them to feel suicidal in that moment, it was not because they want to die, but because they were in circumstances that drove them to feel that they had no option but to commit suicide. In some instances, it takes an amount of courage and bravery to even contemplate that option.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the hon. Member for East Wiltshire for his amendment, and for speaking in the powerful, sensitive way that he did. I also thank my hon. Friends the Members for Spen Valley and for Banbury, who made interventions. I did not intend to speak to this amendment, but having heard the hon. Member for East Wiltshire speak so powerfully and sensitively, it is important for me to share a few things. My hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley has said a couple of times that the difference between people who commit suicide and those who will take this route is that the patients have been given less than six months to live, and that was not a choice. I was a Samaritan for years, because I had two failed suicide attempts in my early years, and since then I have battled with mental health demons all my life because of my experiences.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Would they not feel internal pressure on themselves to go through with it? Would they really have the option, and not feel, in a sense, obliged to say, “Yes”? Do we really not want to ask that question? When we debated the amendment requiring doctors to ask the question why, my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud said that doctors would ask it anyway, but that argument would not work in this instance because doctors would not do this anyway. They would not say, “I am about to give you something—have you changed your mind?”, because by that point they are in a process. The drug, in whatever form it takes, is in the process of being, or will have been, handed over to the person who wants to take that option, so it is not the same.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This speaks to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury raised: I know, through my experience at the Samaritans, as somebody who has attempted suicide and as somebody who has gone on to chair a charity that leads mental health interventions, how difficult it is for a patient has gone through the process of having had that conversation with their family, who might not necessarily agree, and having convinced them that they are going to take this option because they want autonomy, and fear losing it. I cannot imagine what it must be like for those people, at that moment, saying their final goodbyes, and the level of potential pressure they face right at the last minute, having spoken to everybody and put their family members, and indeed themselves, through the process.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am genuinely grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention, because I do not want the Committee—or our constituents—to feel that there is an equivalence. There is not. People who are in that space, who ring the Samaritans helpline to speak to them, all desperately want to live a brilliant life. That is what brings us here: each and every one of us wants to make this place the best it can be, so that our country is the best it can be and all our communities, people and constituents—all members of society—thrive. It is a sensitive debate, but let us be careful not to draw a parallel where there is not one. It was important for me to put that on the record. I will support the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for East Wiltshire because we have already voted down an amendment requiring doctors to simply ask the question why.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Some people who might otherwise qualify for assisted dying under the Bill might be unable to swallow or inject the lethal drugs. We should all respect the feeling that lies behind the amendments, but we should reject them. If we pass them, we will have accepted that doctors can help people who have qualified for assisted dying to prepare to inject themselves with lethal drugs or swallow them. The Bill does not say that doctors can do that. I do not know whether the House would have voted for the Bill on Second Reading if it had, but that is beside the point—it was not part of the Bill. If we were ever to consider taking such a radical step, we should only do so after hearing as much evidence as possible on why and how this might be necessary. I urge the Committee to oppose the amendment.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I rise to oppose amendments 350 to 352, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Michael Payne). They would allow the co-ordinating doctor to provide additional assistance to administer the substance in the presence of an independent witness, in some circumstances. Those circumstances would be when, as amendment 350 says, the doctor determines that the person is “permanently and irreversibly unable to self-administer” the lethal substance because of an inability to swallow or the loss of use of the limbs. The amendments do not spell out what the additional assistance would be, but I think it is reasonable to believe that it refers to the doctor injecting the lethal substance into a person’s circulatory system. My hon. Friend’s amendments comes from genuine concern about the situation that some people may well find themselves in.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Following the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley, I have just looked at some of the evidence, and it does not cite any papers. In effect, the evidence says the effect can be seen in three documentaries. Nor does it explain why Dr Zivot’s concerns are scientifically accurate. Does the hon. Gentleman want to speak to that?”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I recognise that the written evidence, particularly TIAB 425, says there have not been any failures at Dignitas, but it does not cite any published, let alone peer-reviewed, research, nor does it challenge the analysis of scientists such as Dr Zivot. That remains a grey area.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend is making an important speech. He talked about percentages earlier. Is he aware of a study in the Netherlands that concluded that 21 people—18% of the cases in the study—were assisted with lethal injection? In five of those cases, that was because the person could not swallow, but in the rest, they were unable to complete.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Finally, they would have to make a report, to both the chief medical officer for either England or Wales and the voluntary assisted dying commissioner.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Record-keeping in other jurisdictions is also concerning. This House’s Health and Social Care Committee examined the records kept by the state health department in Oregon while inquiring into assisted dying. They found that Oregon authorities kept very poor records into how many patients suffered complications and what those were. Amendment 436, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for York Central, would take a very different approach. Under this amendment, the doctor attending the person having an assisted death would have to make “a detailed record” if the person suffered complications. They would then have to declare that the person had suffered complications, on the final statement concerning that case.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“For example, five out of 198 practitioner administration deaths involved “other complications”, which included people coughing and/or reporting a burning throat after they were helped to swallow drugs, “hiccups with gastric reflux, involuntary muscular contractions, and delayed loss of consciousness.” Western Australia could be much better than other states on average in avoiding complications, or it could be worse. I am afraid that we really do not have the robust data that would allow us to make those comparisons. I repeat: the Australian state does not publish data on complications affecting the majority of assisted dying cases. They do not because they cannot, since no one is mandated to stay with the patient and observe their condition. We do not know, therefore, how common those complications are.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It has been mentioned before, but very much bears mentioning again, that the Australian states’ reports on assisted dying do not publish data on complications suffered by patients who self-administer drugs, and that is the overwhelming majority of assisted deaths in Australia. Western Australia’s most recent report does tell us how frequently there were complications in the cases that involved practitioner administration of lethal drugs—4.3% of those deaths were affected. I understand that the Bill does not allow practitioner administration, but that is not the relevant point. What is relevant is that first, the Australian data shows that some people given lethal drugs suffer complications, and secondly, those complications were ones that we would not wish on someone in their last minutes or hours of life.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I rise to speak to amendment 436, tabled my hon. Friend the Member for York Central. The amendment concerns what would happen after a patient has suffered complications while going through the administration of lethal drugs. Let me stress that we know that people suffer complications when they are undergoing assisted deaths. Unfortunately, one thing we do not know is how common those complications are. Another thing we lack is data that would allow researchers to investigate whether certain drugs, perhaps in combination with certain medical conditions, were more likely to cause complications. The reason that we do not know those things is because of the many gaps in the data collected in places that have assisted dying laws.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Many doctors have written in to us because they are confused by the Bill. Just as the hon. Gentleman is making his case here, there are many doctors who are writing in to us. I wondered what his response to that was, especially because he is a doctor.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am struggling with this. When amendments were tabled last week, there was a concise direction from the Minister that he understood the intention of the amendments. Could that approach not be applied to these amendments—that there is an understanding of the intention, and they can be tidied up in the wash-up process to make them tight? Could that not happen?”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This is a genuine question because I continue to struggle with this. What kinds of complications would we envisage if a lethal drug is being administered to a patient who has chosen assisted dying? What kinds of examples are there? Can the Minister help me understand?”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I respectfully point out that the Minister says that it is not for him to make interpretations and that he has not got the clinical expertise. I genuinely appreciate that, but I am also trying to understand why he accepts provisions that are not clear in the Bill. Why is he okay with those but not with the amendments?”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We cannot have things both ways. I have re-read amendment 436 and I am not convinced that the issue is the drafting. It is very clear: “If complications occur as a result of the provision of assistance the coordinating doctor must…make a detailed record of the complications…make a declaration…and…make a report”. I am struggling to differentiate between having a conversation about it and it actually happening—it is still a complication, so why the resistance? Can the Minister agree that the Government will look at this and, perhaps in the wash-up, tidy it up—if that is the issue, and they agree in that instance?”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Friend’s amendment is sufficient to fix the problems with this part of the Bill. I hope we can think about how better to address those problems, but I cannot support the amendment.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The co-ordinating doctor will have been taking very difficult decisions under considerable stress. However, it does mean that the proper authorities should investigate the initial assessment, whether it was wrong and, if so, why it was wrong. We see something similar with the Air Accidents Investigation Branch, which investigates not only accidents, but near misses that could have caused serious accidents. It does not assume fault when it investigates near misses. Often, it finds that there has been no human error. However, it has a statutory duty to investigate serious near misses. That is because the law passed by this House recognises that we need to understand why they happened in order to prevent fatal accidents from ever happening in the future. For that reason, I do not think that my hon.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Bill should have a clear system for an authority to check back with the social care authorities and a person’s GP to make sure that steps are being taken to protect them from potential coercion. Secondly, the report that the second doctor makes in those circumstances should go to not only the co-ordinating doctor, but the voluntary assisted dying commissioner. Thirdly, when that happens, the commissioner should investigate the incident. To repeat: if a doctor originally assessed a patient as qualifying for an assisted death, but a second doctor could not support that assessment, that is a serious incident that could lead to the assisted death of someone who should not have qualified for it. That does not mean that the co-ordinating doctor was necessarily at fault—not at all.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That means that a very serious mistake may well have been made, and that mistake could lead to someone having an assisted death who should not have qualified for it. There should be several more safeguards in this part of the Bill. First, let us consider a situation where there was no previous suspicion that a patient had been coerced but where the doctor now suspects that they may have been. There should be a proper system of notification for such cases. It is true that doctors have a duty of care for patients, but it is also true that, given our overstressed, underfunded social care, health and policing systems, difficult cases sometimes fall through the cracks.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Implicitly, the co-ordinating doctor can therefore end the procedure if they are not satisfied that those conditions apply. Under clause 19(3), the second doctor has the same duty as the co-ordinating doctor to be satisfied of those conditions before the assisted dying procedure can go ahead. Amendment 499 would impose a new duty on the second doctor: if they suspected coercion, lack of capacity or lack of clear, settled and informed desire, they would have to inform the co-ordinating doctor. I suggest that the amendment does not take things far enough. It is a very serious matter if any doctor, be it the co-ordinating doctor or the second doctor, suspects coercion, lack of capacity or lack of desire.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I rise to speak to amendment 499, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley. Let me outline what the amendment does and why I believe that it provides an inadequate safeguard. Under clause 19, the co-ordinating doctor may authorise another doctor to provide assistance—meaning that they will help the patient to take the lethal drugs. For clarity, I will refer throughout my speech to this other doctor who may step in to provide lethal drugs as the second doctor. Under clause 18(4), the co-ordinating doctor must be satisfied of three conditions before they proceed to assist the person to take lethal drugs. Those three conditions are that the person has a clear, settled and informed desire to end their life, has capacity under the Mental Capacity Act 2005, and is not subject to coercion.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I rise to support amendment 22, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft. Before I carry on, I am happy to give my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley the opportunity to say whether she will accept the amendment, because my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft has had a hat-trick of amendments being accepted around training on coercion.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“None the less, they will spend some time with that person, so I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen—sorry, Spen Valley; I keep going back to Batley and Spen, but we campaigned hard to get her elected there.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention, which will make my speech much shorter—I have repeated it at least three times on all the other amendments. While I welcome the amendment, I hope we can work towards something that strengthens the Bill even further. Under the amendment, regulations would be made governing the doctors who could fill the role in the clause. Those doctors would have to undergo mandatory training in respect of domestic abuse, including coercive control and financial abuse. Giving doctors that training would not remove the danger that they will overlook evidence of abuse and coercion, but it should decrease it. The doctors we are talking about will spend less time talking to the person seeking assisted death than either the co-ordinating or the independent doctors.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I rise to speak in support of amendment 465, tabled by the hon. Member for East Wiltshire. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Reigate, who has made some powerful contributions. As we have heard, the amendment states that a drug may be approved under the Bill only if it has been approved by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency for that purpose.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I absolutely agree and share those concerns. This is important. I appreciate that we have had this debate for many days now. Is this a healthcare intervention? Is it a treatment? What words should we apply? In this instance, when it comes to drugs, there are potential side effects. We have seen that they do not work everywhere and that they create complications. We have just debated whether a doctor should be in the room, outside the room or round the corner, as well as whether they should be visible or able to see what is going on. Ultimately, this is about the drugs. Having looked at the issue, I genuinely cannot imagine anything but the MHRA in this role. Are we really going to set up something completely new, outside our health service, that regulates drugs, their side effects and the potential implications?”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend clearly speaks with expertise. There are other regulators, but the reason why I support amendment 465 is that the MHRA is an institution that we trust and that has the expertise. My understanding—my hon. Friend might be able to tell me differently—is that, of the regulators, the MHRA is the body that does the ultimate rubber-stamping and gives our country confidence in the national health service.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. We should be using the world-class pharmaceutical regulator we already have to oversee the drugs that will be used for assisted dying, and I urge all Committee members to support the amendment, which is a very important safeguard.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is an important step towards making sure that the assisted dying scheme receives proper, well-informed scrutiny. In turn, that scrutiny will make it less likely that the scheme will allow abuses or ignore serious problems. I urge hon. Members to support the amendment.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If there were reported instances of a person experiencing discomfort or pain as a result of taking the medication, that would be of interest to the CMO and the assisted dying commissioner. It could trigger a further exploration of the titration of medication used in the procedure. As another example, let us think about what could happen if a family raised concerns about a person receiving assisted dying despite lacking capacity or being coerced. The CMO and assisted dying commissioner could use the information provided to investigate those allegations. The amendment will ensure that the assisted dying commissioner and the chief medical officer receive detailed qualitative as well as quantitative data on people who have received assisted deaths.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is only right that the information also be sent to the chief medical officer for England or for Wales, as appropriate; they are both very senior public officials and experienced doctors. My hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley has tabled amendment 382, which, to quote the explanatory statement, “provides for 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 for Wales).” I will have more to say on that amendment when we come to it, but removing the chief medical officer from the monitoring, investigation and reporting functions is not a good idea. What use could the commissioner and the chief medical officers make of the data provided under amendment 439? Let me give some practical examples.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I note that “court record” refers to the Bill before we agreed to the amendments and new clauses that replace the High Court procedure with a panel system. We should be able to slightly tweak the wording to reflect that when we tidy up the Bill. That is what the amendment does. Let me say a little about why it does so and how it would make the Bill stronger. The key aim is to ensure proper public oversight of any assisted dying scheme. The Bill creates the role of the voluntary assisted dying commissioner, who will look at and report on the workings of the system, appoint panel members and be the final court of appeal, so to speak. Those are far too many powers to give to one person, but if we are giving the commissioner a duty to report on how the system works, they should have the best possible information.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I rise to speak to amendment 439, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for York Central, which would amend clause 21 such that the relevant body would provide the chief medical officer and the commissioner with the full set of documents relating to a person who had undergone assisted dying. The relevant body would be the co-ordinating doctor if that person were a practitioner with the person’s GP practice. If the co-ordinating doctor did not meet that condition, the person’s GP practice would have the responsibility of sending those documents. Those documents would be the person’s full medical records, court records and all documentation relating to assessments and procedures relating to the person’s assisted death.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On a point of order, Mr Dowd. I wish to apologise to you and to Committee members, as I now have to leave. This is not something I want to do, but I have to leave because my hearing aids will need recharging. Without them, I cannot hear. If I cannot hear, I cannot contribute to the scrutiny and the debate, as I would like to and as the Bill deserves. I have raised this issue repeatedly with the promoter of the Bill, my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley, and with the Committee, and it saddens me that I am unable to continue today. As Members know, I have chosen to give up a lot to make sure that I can contribute, especially during Ramadan, but hearing is not a choice for me. I want to be here for these hugely important discussions, and it is frustrating that I cannot because of my disability.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Lady is making a powerful point. I refer back to the point on jury trials. When we have criminal trials and jury trials, they go through not every single thing in somebody’s life, but the actual act of criminality itself and what is relative to that criminal act. That does not mean to say they trudge through a person’s whole life.”
House of Commons12 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It would allow an appeal if the applicant’s request for an assisted death were turned down, which means that my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley acknowledges that the panels may on occasion get things wrong. But the right of appeal is only one way, which seems extremely odd. It surely cannot be the case that the panels might get things wrong when they turn down a request for assisted dying, but are always right when they accept them. There surely needs to be an amendment that allows people with knowledge of the situation to appeal if they think the panel has made a mistake in allowing an assisted death. Amendment (a) to new clause 17 would also reduce some of the dangers that we first faced. On that basis, I urge the Committee to support the amendment.”
House of Commons12 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We do not know how many of those loved ones would, in fact, be ready to care for the person who feels like a burden, nor do we know what safeguards, if any, will prove effective against any of those dangers. One thing we do know is that relatives or carers of someone seeking an assisted death may be able to bring those dangers to light. A family member, a GP or even a paid carer may have seen someone come under coercive control. As new clause 17 stands, they might feel that the panel had made a terrible mistake in ignoring the evidence of that. The hon. Member for Reigate’s amendment (a) to the new clause would give those people the chance to bring their evidence before the commissioner. I have to say that, as it stands, new clause 17 seems to make some fairly odd assumptions.”
House of Commons12 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Friend the Member for Spen Valley spoke about coercion being a criminal offence, but the last figures I have seen show that only 4% of cases result in a conviction. However, it is worth noting that many people with experience in this area are very concerned about the possibility. We also do not know how many people will opt for an assisted death because their palliative or social care needs are not being met. Again, as I referred to extensively in previous speeches, many people with first-hand experience of this field are extremely concerned about that. We also do not know how many people will opt for an assisted death partly because they do not want to be a burden on their loved ones.”
House of Commons12 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough made a very honest and personal intervention on that subject yesterday, and I accept that that is a real possibility. As we all know, families are complicated. There is also a likelihood that allowing more people to appeal against a panel’s decision, both for and against an assisted death, could mean that the commissioner will need considerably more resources. Otherwise. it is very likely that appeals will not be heard within a reasonable period. Those are genuine arguments, but there are equally strong counterarguments. If the Bill passes, we simply do not know how many coercive or abusive people will seek to drive others towards assisted death. My hon.”
House of Commons12 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Friend the Member for Spen Valley, would allow a person seeking an assisted death to appeal to the commissioner if a panel refuses their request. However, it would not allow any other person to lodge such an appeal. By contrast, new clause 17(a) would allow several other parties to lodge such an appeal, including the two doctors who took part in the process, the applicant’s next of kin or relatives, or anyone who took part in the proceedings before the panel or who gave evidence to the panel. I acknowledge that there are genuine arguments against accepting new clause 17(a), and I have listened to them in detail and given them sincere thought. The family members who might appeal against a decision could perhaps have little or no contact with the person on whose behalf they say they are appealing; I note that the hon.”
House of Commons12 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“She beats my record for sure. I assure the Committee that my comments on new clause 17(a) will be brief in comparison with my previous speech. Yesterday, my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich and I disagreed on a point of detail. In fact, he was right and I was wrong. As he said, a provision in paragraph 4 of new schedule 1 allows the Secretary of State to dismiss a bad commissioner if the circumstances merit it. Although I still maintain my position that too much power is being given to a single person, I thank my hon. Friend both for pointing that out and for the courteous way in which he did so. The hon. Member for Reigate has spoken very eloquently in defence of her amendment. Just to recap, new clause 17, tabled by my hon.”
House of Commons12 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗