I am grateful to all noble Lords, across the Benches, who spoke in support of this amendment. I will, of course, consider carefully the noble Earl’s points in his constructive response. I will discuss them with my co-signatories and the voluntary sector. However, I want the noble Earl also to ponder something. The idea of giving people a right to die where they choose is one of the major social right breakthroughs. It is on a par with some of the other things that Parliament has spoken on and passed legislation about. In my view, it is more than about waiting for the bureaucracies to give their blessing that there is a state of readiness for this change to take place. This is an issue where the political parties and Parliament should show their willingness to press on as a top priority. I will certainly consider what the noble Earl has said, but I hope he will consider what I have said. We did not have everything ready when Parliament decided to ban smoking in public places and the workplace. It thought it was the right thing to do and it did it. This issue of people’s right to choose where to die is in the category where Parliament should say, “It is the right thing to do and we are going to get Governments to do it”.
I may be wrong. The Government may bring forward these changes in good order. But I take a different view from the noble Earl about the issue of local variation. They need to put a marker in legislation to make jolly sure that those parts of the country actually deliver the goods on a similar timescale to everybody else. I do not think that we could rely on strong messages from NHS England necessarily to deliver that. In the meantime, I will consider carefully and I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.