My Lords, I follow the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, with some trepidation but I do so as a member of the Joint Select Committee that recommended a change to the Bill along the lines asked for so eloquently by the noble Lord, Lord Low. I remind the Minister of an individual case which demonstrates the lacunae in the current legislation. It was the case of a lady over 90, who wholly self-funded in a private nursing home. This lady expressed her views—I suspect rather trenchantly—about assisted dying. She did not ask them to do anything about assisted dying but merely offered her views—though probably, as I say, quite trenchantly—but the home owner and members of staff took great exception to those views. She was pretty much immediately given four weeks’ notice to quit. We are talking about an elderly person who was very vulnerable. Her son took counsel’s opinion, which
seemed to be remarkably similar to the views expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. We are faced with a situation where you can fall down on two grounds: on the grounds that you are in a privately provided home, and on the grounds that you are a self-funder. Whatever the arguments, and we have been over this ground several times in this House, the reality is that vague requirements on the CQC to observe the requirements of the Human Rights Act do not safeguard elderly people in the kind of case that I have posited.
We have to look at this again, which is why, when the Joint Committee looked at this issue, we took advice from our adviser, who is legally qualified. If I may remind the noble Lord, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, was a member of the committee, which went along with that recommendation. The Government have to move away from the rather brushing-off response that they gave to the Joint Committee’s recommendation and think again, particularly in light of the powerful case made by the noble Lord, Lord Low, and strongly supported by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick.