My Lords, I wish primarily to speak to the amendment standing in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, but, before I do so, may I just reply, without any hint of rancour, to the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter? She repeatedly described the amendments tabled to the Assisted Dying Bill as “wrecking amendments”. Certainly, my amendments are not intended to be wrecking amendments; the Bill raises very important consequences for the National Health Service, and my amendments are primarily about the effect on the relationship between doctors and patients. These are important considerations, and to call them wrecking amendments is a little unfair. I say that without any rancour at all.
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I was very impressed—before I get to Amendment 203, I shall comment on Amendment 297—by the remarks just made by my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay. My noble friend Lord Forsyth referred to a precedent, but my understanding is that that precedent was a case where the Government themselves brought forward legislation mandating themselves to bring forward a Bill. At least nobody was imposing on the Government something that they did not want to do. The idea that we can impose on the Government something that
they do not want to do, for which they have no electoral mandate and which is not on their policy platform, seems an abuse.
It is an abuse with which one could have great fun in future. I am already thinking of an amendment to some piece of legislation that might come up that would mandate the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, to bring forward a Bill requiring the nationalisation of all land and means of production. I think he might find it uncongenial to have to bring forward such a Bill, but once it was in statute he would have no choice. We are in a similar position here. As my noble and learned friend has pointed out, producing a draft Bill is not for the purpose of decorating the room with wallpaper; it is preliminary to moving legislation, and I think that the Government should be allowed to choose which legislation to bring forward—and they are accountable to the electorate for that which they do.
I turn briefly to Amendment 203. I have some sympathy in principle with what the noble Baroness is trying to achieve here. I shall be fairly brief. I can well imagine that there are occasions when people who are still conscious, still capable of understanding their own affairs, and aware that they are approaching their end of life, might wish to have conversations that are not easy to have, and where there are not always channels available for them to have one. I take the simple example: someone might want to say, “Have you actually thought about your will? Have you updated it? Are you content with your testamentary disposition?” I can see why that might be a difficult conversation for a member of the family to bring up, and there might be few other opportunities. So I see the good intentions behind the amendment.
What I have difficulty with, and this is a genuine difficulty, is whether it would work if it were part of statute. It is meant to be part of a set of regulations. I am currently engaged in the annoying business of trying to move my savings around. Because of regulation, I have to fill in a form asking a whole set of inane questions, most of which are not pertinent to me, because that is what the regulations require and what the lawyers have said to the fund provider that the regulations require, and so forth. What terrifies me about the prospect of proceeding with this really quite essential idea within a statutory context is that it quickly degenerates into a tick-box exercise that has to be completed—you can imagine the rush to complete it before patient A dies. The questions will often not be appropriate. It might be carried out with great sensitivity but it might be carried out with insensitivity. It might be welcomed or it might be resented.
In my view, this sort of conversation ought to be available to people in the circumstances that we have discussed. I say only that this is the wrong route, and it would be better if its provision were pursued through the charitable and pastoral sector rather than through being embedded in what will inevitably be an insensitive statute.