Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Ben Maguire Excerpts

Friday 20th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir James Cleverly]

The hon. Lady makes an incredibly important point, and I will touch on that briefly in my remarks. I am minded to take no more interventions, because otherwise I will be stealing time from others.

There are three questions we need to ask. First, are we happy for this Bill—not for the principle, but for this Bill as drafted—to become law? Many of the elements that I have already discussed are concerning. In the criteria set out, medical professionals do not need to seek deeper motivation. We have said there is not a real choice between palliative care and assisted dying, because one will have a statutory underpinning and the other will not. As I say, the “gold standard” protections were lost in Committee, because a number of professional bodies and—

[Ben Maguire (North Cornwall) (LD)]

Will the right hon. Member give way?

[Sir James Cleverly]

I need to make progress.

A number of professional bodies have said they do not have the capacity. They do not have enough people to fill the slots that this Bill demands of them.

Secondly, in terms of fundamental changes, are hon. and right hon. Members genuinely happy to write the blank cheque that this Bill demands? It is normal for the Secretary of State of a Government Department to decide when a piece of legislation comes into force, and they make their decision based on the state’s ability to deliver that legislation. Commencement dates matter; they are not just some arbitrary dates on a piece of paper. I understand people’s desire to ensure that this cannot be lost down the back of the sofa when it comes to Government work, but when the people on whom we would rely to deliver this Bill say that they are not ready and that they do not feel that they will be ready—they do not have enough people and they do not have enough capacity, so they will have to take resource from current provisions to move across to this provision, which will be driven by a statutory requirement and a locked-in commencement date—we should listen. If the people who are going to make this work—and work as well as we hope it will, if it becomes legislation—say that they are not confident that they can make it happen, we should be very careful about demanding that they prioritise this. That is what this legislation says: they will prioritise this above any other work that they might otherwise do.

Thirdly—the hon. Member for Spen Valley hinted at this, and I mentioned it in an intervention in an earlier stage of the Bill—on coercion, on the pressure that individuals put on themselves and on medical professionals raising the issue, we know that there are inequalities in health provision already, none of which will be addressed by the Bill. There are certain communities, and certain people in those communities, particularly women, who are overly deferential to men and to men in authority. Can we genuinely say that we have no fear whatsoever about a potentially vulnerable woman sitting in front of a medical professional who raises assisted dying? Even if they do not imply that it is the right thing for her to do, the very fact that they bring it up will have a significant influence on that woman’s thinking. We cannot believe that the effect will be completely neutral across all communities.

Recalled Offenders: Sentencing Limits

Ben Maguire Excerpts

Thursday 15th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Ben Maguire (North Cornwall) (LD)]

There is no doubt that the Conservatives plunged our prisons into crisis. [Interruption.] They chunter from a sedentary position, but what else would they call it? It is clear that the Government have failed to step up and tackle the sheer scale of the problem. Across the country, victims and survivors are worried about what this will mean for them. If there were a specific domestic abuse offence, dangerous offenders could be excluded from early release, but the Government have taken no action at all since the Liberal Democrats raised that solution with them last autumn. Will the Minister finally commit to giving victims and survivors the protections that they deserve by creating new domestic abuse aggravated offences, and will he go further to protect our communities by introducing a clear plan to reduce reoffending, which is the only way to solve prison crowding once and for all? If the Minister will not listen to me, will he listen to the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, who has just warned that lives are now at risk?

[Sir Nicholas Dakin]

The hon. Member will know that his colleague, the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller), is working closely with the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), on getting things right for victims. That is something we take very seriously, and it needs to be done properly, with victims, in order to get it right. I hope that the independent sentencing review report will contain things that give us confidence about moving forward and about the way we work with victims.