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

Tom Gordon Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 12th March 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman will have to forgive me, because I am a relatively new MP and there are still bits of parliamentary procedure that I have not yet got my head round, but is it not the case that MPs will have a say on Report, when they can table amendments to take the Bill back to how it was? That point could therefore be debated on Report.

[Danny Kruger]

Of course that is correct: a small number of amendments will be selected for debate and vote on Report, and if somebody wants to table an amendment on this issue it might indeed make it through Mr Speaker’s selection, but the point of the Committee process is to consider the Bill that was passed on Second Reading and come back to the House with the Bill either unamended or amended. This is a very substantial change to the Bill that was presented and voted for on Second Reading. As I say, many Members supported this clause, no doubt including the hon. Gentleman.

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[Sarah Sackman]

I want to reassure the right hon. Lady about the provisions that will apply even if her amendment is not accepted. The Welsh Language Act 1993 requires public bodies that are either named in the Act or named by Welsh Ministers, and which provide services to the public in Wales, to prepare a Welsh language scheme setting out the steps that the body will take in relation to the use of the Welsh language while providing those services. As I understand it, this approach is used all the time in legal proceedings in Wales.

In an instance in which a party wishes to speak in Welsh at the proceedings, section 22 of the 1993 Act will apply. Any party to the legal proceedings can express themselves in Welsh, at which point a Welsh interpreter would be commissioned to facilitate the discussion. That will happen. That will be the status quo—the backstop, if you like—without the amendment. Requiring all members of the panel to speak fluent Welsh would, in the Government’s view, be a significant operational challenge that could lead to undue delay at the end of life.

[Tom Gordon]

I speak only one language and it is definitely not Welsh, even though I did have a stint working in Wales. With any language, things can be lost in translation. When we are talking about something like assisted dying, does the Minister acknowledge that even with very skilled interpreters, there would have to be a suitable level of training to make sure that everything was fully thought through and there were no cracks—that nothing would slip through the net. That is not covered under the Welsh Language Act currently, and that is why the amendment has been tabled. Does she appreciate the severity of that?

[Sarah Sackman]

]The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd and the hon. Members for Chesham and Amersham and for Harrogate and Knaresborough have all put their case incredibly powerfully. In emphasising the operational difficulties that the Government have identified, I will make this point. The approach under section 22 of the Welsh Language Act is that the ability to speak in Welsh and have interpretation services is adopted in very serious legal proceedings indeed. The hon. Gentleman is right: we are talking about nuances that can determine civil or criminal liability; those are very serious issues indeed. I am not saying that that is quite as serious as matters of life or death, but getting right the sorts of things that interpreters need to ensure they are getting right, as well as vindicating the person’s ability to express themselves in their mother tongue or their preferred tongue, is something that happens already and would happen under the operation of this legislation.