Speeches by Leadbeater.

“If needed.”

“The reports for the case would go to the commissioner, so he or she would see the reports.”

“Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that is exactly the point? This is a unique situation, and therefore we need a unique system. That is the perfect opportunity to use the skills that a judge or retired judge has.”

“Many of us have quoted Sir James Munby, for whom I have a huge amount of respect, but there are a number of other views from ex-judges and very highly-regarded legal professionals that conflict with what Sir James says.”

“We have already talked about this, and I think the hon. Gentleman mentioned it himself: there is a similar situation with public inquiries, on which a judge sits because of their skillset and who they are, but not necessarily in a traditional judicial capacity.”

“rose—”

“A strong argument has been made to me that the professionals on the panel would have the skills and training to fulfil their role, but it is important, particularly given the time we have spent discussing this issue, that they do have it, so I am happy to support that amendment.”

“It absolutely is the policy intent that there should be a unanimous decision of the panel. If there is any lack of clarity, I am very happy to look into working with official draftspeople to tighten that up.”

“It is important to acknowledge that it will be a number of years before this law will be implemented. Hopefully, the Government will continue the fantastic job that they are doing to improve capacity in our courts, so that even if capacity is an issue now, a few years down the line it will not be.”

“That is another important argument for having the panel. Where a terminally ill person with an eating disorder has been deemed to have capacity by two doctors and—I surmise, as we now have the compulsory referral—a psychiatrist, we will have on the panel another psychiatrist and a social worker. The panel does help to …”

“I might be missing something—it has been a long day—but, presumably, by the time the patient has got to that point, they have been through the eligibility criteria with the two doctors. The hon. Lady said that they would not be terminally ill, but they would have been through all the assessment criteria at this point.”

“There is a judge—it may be a retired judge—who is the commissioner, who heads up the entire assisted dying commission, and there is a legal expert on the panel as well, as the hon. Gentleman said. That could be a retired judge, so there is legal expertise there. I think the hon. Gentleman also made the point that there…”

“Just to be clear, that was not the reason for the change. We need to be very clear about that. The reason for the change was that it strengthens the Bill.”

“Will my hon. Friend give way on that point?”

“My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is the whole point: Sir James Munby said he did not think that was the job for the judge.”

“I appreciate that this is slightly difficult to get our heads around, but we have legal expertise—we potentially have a judge, a sitting judge, a retired judge or an eminent KC—but they are not there in their capacity as a judge. I understand that that is tricky for people to understand, but they are there because of t…”

“I appreciate the point my hon. Friend is making, and it is a shame that we did not hear from James Munby in evidence. I understand why he says that: he is looking at it through a judicial lens, because he is a judge. But this is not a judicial entity. It is a panel—it is not a court—and the range of expertise on it is …”

“That question was indeed put to the experts from Australia, but actually they were quite clear that there is a huge amount of evidence. Indeed, there is a very robust reporting mechanism in Australia—the best in the world, I suggest—so there is a huge amount of evidence from that jurisdiction.”

“My hon. Friend raises a really important point. As clause 9 says, the doctor has an obligation to discuss with the person their wishes in the event of complications, so that conversation would have happened with the patient. To be clear, the doctor cannot intervene to expediate the patient’s death. That is very clear i…”

“To be clear, it does say “discuss with the person their wishes”. That includes whether they would want the doctor to call an ambulance if things got complicated, or whether they would want to be left—so the doctor would discuss with the patient their wishes in that situation. Fortunately, it does not happen very often.”