My Lords, I shall speak to both amendments but I shall speak first to Amendment 203, which, on the face of it, I am minded to support.
My reason for that—I hope this is not seen as a Second Reading speech—is that two years ago, just before Christmas, my mother contacted me and said she thought she had terminal cancer. She was taken to hospital two weeks before Christmas and died on Boxing Day, not of terminal cancer but of end-of-life COPD. I had no idea that she had end-of-life COPD, although I knew she had COPD. On Christmas morning, I was summoned to the hospital, and a junior doctor asked me what I wanted to do: “Your mother’s been a bit unconscious. What do you want us to do? Do you want us to wake her up? Do you want us to do anything?” That is not really the best conversation to have. The next morning, Boxing Day, I had almost exactly the same telephone call: “Please come to the hospital, your mother is very ill.” I said that I had had the same conversation yesterday. However, on this occasion I was summoned in and met a doctor who spoke to me with compassion. My father and I agreed that my mother should not be resuscitated. I had never had that conversation with her, but, when I went through her things, I discovered that she had completed a form that said: “End-of-life COPD. When in doubt, do not resuscitate.”
So, in many ways the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, is very attractive because it is surely right that, towards the end of their lives, people talk about what is appropriate.
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However, I share the considerable concern articulated by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. Sub-paragraph (b) talks about “another relevant person”. Who is such a person? It might be somebody’s closest relative, or it might be a care home manager or a random friend. It is sloppy drafting. I am glad to know that this is a probing amendment, because I think there are interesting aspects to it, but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, said, it may be that the new comprehensive guidance on palliative care and end-of-life care is more appropriate.
These are clearly issues that your Lordships’ House and the other place should think about, but we should think about them in exactly the way we always engage on legislation, which is through very detailed scrutiny. This is where Amendment 297 goes quite off track. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, has said on at least one occasion now—I think he may have said it three times already this evening—“This is not a Bill that is being proposed; it is only a draft Bill.” Yet it is very difficult, as the noble and learned Lord suggested, to see the difference between a draft Bill and a Bill, in particular when Amendment 297 says:
“the Secretary of State must take account of the need … to enable Parliament to consider the issue.”
Surely, that is putting a duty on the Government, and this is not the right Bill to be discussing assisted dying.
There is still a live Bill—the Private Member’s Bill in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. We have already begun some detailed scrutiny through discussions at Second Reading. Perhaps the noble Baroness can tell us when she has requested that Committee should happen, because there are many amendments tabled to that Bill. Tonight is not the time for the substance, but the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, suggested that many of the amendments are time-wasting, wrecking amendments, and I confess that my amendment is the first one.