Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twelfth sitting)

Daniel Francis Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th February 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Naz Shah]

One of my concerns is that although the Government position in relation to the Bill, as they have said, is neutrality, the Government, in my opinion, have taken a position without an impact assessment, which might suggest that there is some ambiguity. Would the Minister therefore support redrafting potential amendments to include that? If it did specify a doctor or nurse, would the Government then, in their tidying-up, be prepared to accept that amendment?

[Daniel Francis (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Lab)]

Referring back to Dr Cox, she said:

“We need to make sure that the 75% to 90% of people who are dying and need palliative care are getting it. We need to make sure that there is not inequity in palliative care, so that you do not have to be white and rich and have cancer to get good palliative care. We need to make sure that hospitals have seven-day services. Seven-day-a-week cover is unavailable at 40% of hospitals.” ––[Official Report, Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Public Bill Committee, 28 January 2025; c. 78, Q101.]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we need an inequality impact assessment to understand the current position and to get that right, in line with the Bill?

[Naz Shah]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Without the impact assessment, how do we know what we are dealing with? That would be a normal way of progressing a Bill and dealing with amendments such as these. It feels as though we have just talked about something when the Government have already had a position on it, or have supported a particular position on an amendment.

To conclude, I will press the amendment to a vote, simply because it is important that we explore every option. We are already specifying what doctors have to do. I maintain again that there are 100,000 people in this country who do not access palliative care as it is. Palliative care is crucial when we are talking about end of life and people who have had a diagnosis of less than six months to live.

We will talk about illness and diagnosis in the next round of amendments, but on this amendment, I do not think that ensuring that somebody has at least explored that option is, as the hon. Member for Solihull West and Shirley repeated at least three or four times, “bogged down”. For me, it is not bogging down when we are talking about providing assisted death. The Bill is the biggest legislation on a conscience vote since 1967 in this House, and I do not care how long it takes. I feel very strongly that if we are to deliver a Bill that my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley said has the tightest safeguards in the world, then this debate has to happen. These conversations must happen and be explored not just for us here as parliamentarians, but in order for us to go away and say that we have done the best we can.

Question put, That the amendment be made.