Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Paul Kohler and Rachel Taylor
Paul Kohler Portrait Mr Kohler
- Hansard - -

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. Giving people a choice when they look on the internet and see how awful their death might be because of the shocking state of palliative care is not a free choice.

This is an extraordinary Bill. It has 55 clauses and 38 regulation-making powers, of which five are Henry VIII powers—in other words, powers to modify primary legislation. As Ruth Fox of the non-partisan Hansard Society, which is absolutely neutral on assisted dying, made clear, there are lots of powers in the Bill conferred on Ministers. Why is that a problem? Lord Hermer KC, the Attorney General, in his Bingham lecture last year, puts the point as follows:

“Henry VIII clauses…upsets the proper balance between Parliament and the executive. This not only strikes at the rule of law…but also at the cardinal principles of accessibility and legal certainty.”

I am afraid the Bill is an example of such excessive reliance. That is a major problem because in large part the safeguards are left to be decided by regulations. What level of qualification and training will doctors need to have? How will mental capacity be assessed? Who can be a proxy? What happens if the self-administration of drugs goes wrong and a person suffers complications but does not die? When pressed on the key safeguards and key issues, supporters of the Bill say that they are problems that can be approved later.

The same goes for how the Bill will actually be delivered. Will it be delivered by the NHS, and if so, how? Will private providers be commissioned, and if so, how, by who and on what terms? Will for-profit providers be allowed? All those questions go unanswered by the Bill. I had hoped that they would be answered in Committee, but they were not, and instead we got even more reliance on delegated powers.

First, that means that MPs cannot make a judgment about assisted dying and how it will work in practice. On training, for example, MPs might assume that the training provided will be a robust two-week course on assessing coercive control, but there is no such requirement in the Bill. Indeed, the impact assessment suggests that it would be a short course. Secondly, regulations cannot override statute and are ultimately bound by it. While it might be reassuring that a code of practice must be issued to take into account how depression can impair a person’s decision making, as the Royal College of Psychiatrists recently reminded us, that does not change the fact that impaired judgment does not mean that someone lacks capacity. Thirdly, leaving all those matters to be considered by guidance and regulations places them outside the democratic control of MPs. With limited exceptions, we will not get a vote on those regulations, and will have no input, directly or indirectly, in formulating them.

The case for the defence might be that reliance on such guidance and regulations is inevitable with a Bill of this complexity, but the experience of other common law jurisdictions suggests that that is not the case. In Victoria, the first Australian state to legalise assisted dying, there are only 20 pages of regulations and much more has been included in the Act, which is necessarily longer than the Bill before us. That is a good thing, as it means more parliamentary scrutiny.

I wholly understand why it was not possible for the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) to draft a Bill as detailed as the Australian Act before Second Reading, but I had hoped that with the help of Government resources, those gaps would have been filled in Committee and on Report. Sadly, that is not the case. [Interruption.] I had much more to speak about, but heeding your cough, Madam Deputy Speaker, let me say clearly that I will vote against the Bill, but even if Members disagree with me, they should please vote for my amendments.

Rachel Taylor Portrait Rachel Taylor
- View Speech - Hansard - - - Excerpts

I begin by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) who has exemplified the integrity and transparency that we need in public service.

I will speak about amendments 82 to 86, which were introduced by the right hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen) earlier, because as a former lawyer, they concern me. In Committee, the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Sarah Sackman) was clear that the panel’s decisions will be subject to public law principles. That will include procedural propriety and an absence of bias, including the appearance of bias. My concern is that the panel is deliberately designed to be inquisitorial. It is intended to collect information; it is not meant to be adversarial like a court.

Stations: Step-free Access

Debate between Paul Kohler and Rachel Taylor
Tuesday 18th March 2025

(3 months, 3 weeks ago)

Westminster Hall
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text

Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.

Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.

This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record

Paul Kohler Portrait Mr Kohler
- Hansard - -

My hon. Friend makes a good point; I got to the point in my speech entitled “Lifts out of action”, so I will start that now—how prescient of her.

The issue is not only the lack of step-free access. Even where there is provision, it is often unreliable. It is clearly unacceptable that those who rely on step-free access to plan their journeys—based on the limited number of stations available—discover only on arrival that the lift is out of action. The Office of Road and Rail found that there were more than 5,000 lift faults on the network from April to October last year—an increase of 9% on the same period the previous year. Furthermore, there has been a deeply concerning increase in the number of entrapments. The number of entrapments went up by more than a fifth in the last six months, with almost 400 entrapment events from April to October 2024 and an increase of 42% on the number of entrapments of more than 75 minutes.

The situation on the London underground last year was even more appalling. Only 92 out of 272 London underground stations are step-free, but those are often out of action, not just from faults, but due to a lack of staffing. A recent Lib Dem freedom of information request showed that there were 1,254 incidents last year, totalling 6,197 hours when the lifts were working perfectly well but train staff members were not there, meaning that those who rely on them cannot use the station.

Peter Dowd Portrait Peter Dowd (in the Chair)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Order. Paul Kohler.