Speeches by Leadbeater.

“Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?”

“I will check.”

“To clarify, the point that I am making is that there is a range of views across a range of organisations—many of which are neutral on the issue of assisted dying, full stop—and a range of views within each profession. We heard evidence from people working in palliative care with different views, and from medical people…”

“I am not entirely sure who the hon. Gentleman is referring to, but it is fair to say that there is a range of views across a range of professions. It is important to acknowledge that.”

“The hon. Gentleman is been very generous with his time. I am interested in how he can conclude that the eligibility criteria have somehow been expanded by adding an expert panel with a psychiatrist and a social worker.”

“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…”

“rose—”

“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.”

“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.”

“I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way again; I will sit down after this. I will not take it too personally that he thinks I have done a very poor job, but the point is that we heard a broad range of evidence from professionals including legal experts, medical experts, psychiatrists and social workers—lots of differ…”

“Will the hon. Gentleman give way one more time?”

“The hon. Gentleman is making a point that we hopefully all agree with. The job of the Committee is to take evidence and look at ways of improving the Bill on that basis. This is a really good example of where we have actually done our job and done it very, very well.”

“On the hon. Member’s point about recording those consultations, amendment 423 states in its proposed new subsection (2B): “Where an assessing doctor consults a professional…the assessing doctor must give a written record of the consultation to the other assessing doctor.”So the consultation is recorded.”

“My hon. Friend is making an excellent and powerful speech. I thank him for putting the human being back at the centre of the process; sadly, in this Committee we can forget to do that. Early on, we had Nathaniel Dye here, who is a terminal cancer patient. He has just had a 12-month prognosis. The thought of making that…”

“Does the hon. Member not agree that by accepting amendment 6, tabled by the hon. Member for St Albans, we have early intervention with psychiatric analysis at a very early stage, when either of the doctors feels it is necessary?”

“The point is that it has to happen at every stage, and I think the evidence that we heard was that it does happen. I know from the experiences of family and friends of mine who have had cancer that it does happen. There is a multidisciplinary approach; there is an oncologist, a nursing team and a doctor. That does happ…”

“To be clear, the point I have tried to make with regard to the evidence that we received was just that there is a need for a multidisciplinary approach, wherever it happens.”

“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.”