Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-ninth sitting)

Jake Richards Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th March 2025 Public Bill Committees

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. This has been a long process, and we are nearly at the end of it now. Members will recall that at the start of the process, I was very insistent that Mencap should give oral evidence. When it did so, Dan Scorer said:

“Clause 35 is about the review of the Act. The lived experience of people is absolutely vital to that. The Bill says that it will be five years until we have that review. Our view is that that is far too long. If the Bill becomes law and if there are really serious issues and discrimination taking place against people, we will want to know that a lot earlier than in five years’ time, and we will want action to be taken. Our suggestion is that review should be earlier. We would want to see strong representation from patient groups across that, as well as from people who have been involved in the process, such as family members, advocates and clinicians to make sure that if serious issues are being raised, they can be picked up early and addressed.”––[Official Report, Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Public Bill Committee, 30 January 2025; c. 280, Q367.]

[Jake Richards (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is, as ever, making really important points. Is he reassured by the fact that the commissioner will be reporting annually, as per the previous clause, and that the panel will give reasons, which will likely be public?

[Daniel Francis]

The annual reporting does give us some reassurance, but when we accepted some of Mencap’s recommendations last week, I said that I would welcome it if the entirety of its recommendations were accepted—and it wanted an overall review at an early stage in the process.

Amendment 493 to 495, in my name, address those concerns. A consistent concern of mine is how we address issues that come to light from specific communities, particularly those with learning difficulties, and amend the legislation at a reasonable stage in the process.

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[Danny Kruger]

In a moment. The potential—as would happen in other parts of genuine healthcare—is that the more work people do, the more money they get. My concern is that that induces a dangerous incentive into the system. Having a global fee paid to a provider who managed the service would be much safer. The crucial point is that we prevent people being paid for approving and enabling assisted deaths, and that is what my amendment would do.

[Jake Richards]

I appreciate the point that the hon. Member is trying to make and I think it is a fair one, but how does he think this could work? As he said in his own intervention, people might have to be paid for one part of the process, and then for the next. If we appreciate the principle that people get paid for time, there is inevitably more money involved as the process goes on, so can he explain how his amendment would work?

[Danny Kruger]

I intend, in a later debate when we come to the new clause, to try to explain how I think we should have done this. The answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question is that an organisation should be resourced—I think through philanthropy, rather than taxpayers’ money or people paying out of their own pocket, but the point stands however we do it—to deliver the assisted dying service, but crucially it should not be paid more per service, treatment or customer. We should not have the concept of customers in this arrangement; there should be a provider who is resourced to deliver this service. The crucial point is that they should not be paid more per client or for progressing people through the system.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jake Richards]

I rise to speak briefly in support of amendment 548, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley. I do so fundamentally for two reasons.

First, there may be a lot of support for the principle of assisted dying among members of the Committee and, indeed, Members of the House, but there are also understandable concerns about its implementation. We have been debating all the aspects of that over a lengthy period in Committee, and it is undoubtedly complex. Although my hon. Friend is disappointed that she has had to table the amendment, I commend her for doing so, because it is important to get this right and to be brave by setting longer time limits if necessary. I think that can be reassuring to Members who, while supporting the principle, want to make sure that we get this right. I hope that the amendment will do that.

Secondly, for those people—including those who have been in the Public Gallery today, Committee members and, indeed, other Members of the House—who might be disappointed about the delay, in my mind the amendment is not an obstacle to change. In fact, what we have seen here is the Bill’s promoter working with the Government, who remain neutral on the principle but want to make the Bill deliverable, to come up with a sensible, pragmatic proposal for how and at what speed this profound change is to be implemented. In my mind, that gives a sense of the Executive and the promoter thinking about the practicalities.

I urge those who are desperately seeking this change and have fought for decades to secure it to approach this measure with a sense of optimism. This is serious. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to deliver that change. I hope that, both in the Committee and outside it, they will support my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley, who has gone to great lengths to build support and to make sure that the Bill is workable. I will be voting for amendment 548 with a great sense of reassurance, but also a great sense of optimism that one day this country will see this change, which is so desperately needed.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I rise to support amendment 535. I do not intend to say much, because the hon. Member for Richmond Park has made many of the points I wished to make. The amendment recognises that an opinion was stated in a debate in the Senedd in October, which dealt in detail with the principles of this Bill, and that Professor Emyr Lewis told us that one way of recognising that would be to consider different commencement provisions in Wales.

Reference has been made to the different criminal law arrangements in England and Wales to do with smacking children, and during covid there were quite definitely different arrangements between England and Wales. After a quarter of a century of devolution, we have devolution divergence, and we are seeing that in action.

We have already accepted the principle that there are aspects of the Bill that are devolved, responsibility for which must be passed to Welsh Ministers. We are still debating the wording of that, but we are working towards it, and I think we have accepted the principle of it. We should also acknowledge that the Senedd and Welsh Ministers may well be able to make a move that would have the same effect of changing the commencement date, but I support the amendment because it shows that we are acknowledging the consequences and implications of a legislative consent motion. Incidentally, I could often stand up here and talk about the fact that legislative consent motions can be overridden by Westminster, but we are working from the point of view of seeking to respect devolved powers alongside the powers that we have here, so I will be supporting amendment 535.