Speeches by Paul.

“It is important that there is a degree of separation, but I would say to the hon. Lady that it would have made more sense for her to put forward a proposal that we could evaluate, assess, and identify the upsides and downsides of. It would be much easier for me to then come up with suggestions. It does not make sense t…”

“It transformed the quality of life of British citizens at a time of mass unemployment and widespread slums, ensuring free healthcare, in the words of Beveridge, from cradle to grave. The provision of healthcare free at the point of delivery was life-changing and life-prolonging. Although it is far from perfect, we have…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I rise to speak on clause stand part and new clause 36, and in support of amendment 525 and amendment (a) to new clause 36, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for East Wiltshire. This is a really important debate. The NHS is the greatest achievement of any L…”

“Will the hon. Lady give way?”

“I rise to support new clause 34, which clarifies that assisted dying is not a medical treatment—not only because of the principle behind it, which I have talked a lot about already, but because of the unintended results. We need to recognise that many laws, rules and regulations have been written using the word “treatm…”

“The amendment is simply to prevent a discrimination case. Let us take another example. A rape refuge may provide services to women who have suffered sexual abuse; it may be appropriate, in that instance, to hire only women to support those domestic abuse survivors. In order to prevent a discrimination claim when hiring…”

“My apologies, Mr Dowd, but it is a technical point. I think the Minister understands what I am asking.”

“I rise to speak briefly on clause stand part. As I noted a few weeks back—it feels a long time ago—when we debated amendment 82, the clause leaves the law in a strange position. I hope that we will now have the opportunity to explore that and make sure that we are comfortable with the position and have identified wheth…”

“I thank the Minister for those helpful clarifications. Was any consideration given to also exempting encouragement as an offence under the Suicide Act? I am interested in why it was not exempted in the same way as assistance, particularly given that if it did fall within coercion and pressure—based on what the Minister…”

“I appreciate that, Mr Dowd, which is why I was elaborating—I wanted to make sure that everyone understood the nature of the question without having seen the letter. In order to summarise, following your instruction, I refer to the letter.”

“I will be fairly brief. I welcome amendment 508, which would ensure that conviction for the offence leads to a necessarily serious result. However, it is not just the strength of the sentence that we need to think about; there is also a question about how difficult it can be to detect and demonstrate coercion in the fi…”

“Does the hon. Lady have any concerns about what this position would mean for the end of life workforce? I know we are here to make law, but we cannot ignore the practical consequences for end of life care. If we do not have this carve-out, we could lose a lot of wonderful and great people who work in end of life care a…”

“I am absolutely reassured by the hon. Lady’s amendment, and I welcome it, but it is worth drawing attention to the fact that the sentence is important but identifying coercion and pressure can be difficult too. In written evidence, a social worker called Rose has cast doubt on the workability of the Bill. She was writi…”

“Thank you, Mr Dowd. In that case, I will stop there. I was just making the point that this is important. Amendment 509 states: “Proceedings for an offence under this section may be instituted only by or with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions.” I would find it useful to have more clarity around how the …”

“The hon. Member is giving a powerful speech. My amendment is only to ensure that if the employee is working in an NHS clinic, they comply with the policy of that clinic. It would not restrict their doing other things in their own time. The wording of the amendment is clear, as I discussed with the hon. Member for Spen …”

“The conversation has moved on a little, but I was just going to make the point that the amendments that I tabled focus very much on the rights of the employer with respect to what they expect from their staff. I wonder whether it would be helpful to explore that a bit more.”

“We are saying that when an employee is employed by the hospice or the clinic, they are employed to deliver services as directed by the employer. I think the answer is that if an employer is really clear that they do not want to offer a service, an employee should not have a right to then offer the service that the empl…”

“We are just giving clarity; we are making it clear that it is reasonable and legal for an organisation to have a policy to not provide assisted dying and therefore to require its employees to respect that. All we are doing is protecting that employer from cases of discrimination, and so on, and it is really important t…”

“I completely agree. We are giving the same courtesy and rights at organisation level as we do to individuals. I know that the Committee is very supportive of that position for individuals, so I question why it would not be the same for organisations.”

“Yes, I believe that they should be able to discriminate in that way, and I believe their public funds for palliative care should remain consistent and unchanged in spite of whatever decision they make on that front.”