Assisted Dying
Debate between Kit Malthouse and Pauline Latham(7 months ago)
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Kit Malthouse
The Minister has talked about the medical profession and the various arguments for and against, but she is a distinguished member of the legal profession. One of the things that many people suffering with terminal diseases find so confusing is that the law as it stands is inconsistent and a mess. We have a situation where it is technically illegal to accompany somebody to Switzerland, but upon return, the Crown Prosecution Service has a policy of not prosecuting. We have the example of Mavis Eccleston, who agreed a suicide pact with her elderly husband, but survived. She was prosecuted in court, effectively for murder, but was acquitted, having gone through this dreadful experience. The current law is a mess, and I wondered if we could have the Minister’s professional view on that.
Mrs Pauline Latham (in the Chair)
Order. There is a Division in the House. The sitting is suspended for fifteen minutes.
Injunction to Protect the M25
Debate between Kit Malthouse and Pauline Latham(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Kit Malthouse
In his usual forthright and direct manner, my hon. Friend puts his finger on the button. We are now seeing extremely swift action—police are arriving on the scene within minutes. He will understand that it is tough for them to patrol the entire motorway network and be there as fast as they can, but Surrey police were there in three minutes and in Kent, protesters were intercepted before they even got on the carriageway. But where do we want our police officers? We want them in our neighbourhoods, on our streets, fighting crime. We do not want them patrolling the motorway network, looking for those people. Hopefully, the injunction will mean that they can go back to doing the job we expect of them.
Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
I commend the Minister for his action. It is about time those people learnt that they cannot make unpeaceful protests, which have an impact on the lives of so many people going about their daily work. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) who asked what would happen if they set foot on his part of the M23. May I ask the Minister to look at the M1 and the A1, which take people north and are crucial to the lifeblood of the country? If we do not keep the traffic moving, we will affect the economy. I commend my right hon. Friend for what he has done, but ask him please not to hesitate to do more if necessary.
Kit Malthouse
We are very alive to the possibility of other motorways being affected. If they are, of course we will take the action that is required. My hon. Friend highlights an important point: we as democratic representatives should be the repository of those kind of views and I am not aware personally—I will check in my office—that I have been approached by this group seeking any change or acceleration in Government policy and I do not know whether anyone else in the House has. That is the way we do things in this country and hopefully that is the way we will go back to.