Speeches by Olney.

“I am not used to my amendments being accepted. The hon. Gentleman is, of course, absolutely right. Dr Matthew Doré, the palliative medicine consultant and honorary secretary of the Association for Palliative Medicine, said in written evidence: “Allowing patients to seek multiple opinions undermines procedural integrity…”

“I beg to move amendment 461, in clause 11, page 7, line 15, leave out “or otherwise”.”

“The amendment would remove the phrase “or otherwise” in the clause. All I am proposing is for the wording to be consistent with amendment 205 to clause 10, which has just been agreed. It does not specify “or otherwise”, but simply uses the words, “the practitioner dies or through illness is unable or unwilling”. What m…”

“I thank the hon. Member, but I think she is responding to a slightly different point from the one that I made. There was further written evidence from Dr Doré, the honorary secretary of the Association for Palliative Medicine, on 25 February. He wrote: “To clarify any misunderstanding, the current Bill does not align w…”

“I will speak briefly about an important point that the hon. Member for Spen Valley made. I want to get it on the record that I disagreed with something that she said. We heard a lot in the evidence sessions about the desirability of a multidisciplinary approach or a multi-professional team, and I listened particularly …”

“I am glad to have had that clarification; however, it is really important to reflect on the fact that Dr Sarah Cox said that it would be considerably preferable to have the input of a multidisciplinary team at the earliest possible stage. That is not what is being proposed with these new clauses.”

“Thank you. Mr Devine, the GovAssure process was only introduced in April 2023, which seems quite late given how much we have known about cyber risks in the last decade. Why has it taken such a long time to bring it in?”

“Thank you.”

“Do you think it was perhaps a mixture of naivety and lack of experience? The British Library example that you used was very compelling, but you were not aware of the threats until something like that happened. Was that perhaps due to a lack of intelligence coming from the people monitoring these threats more broadly?”

“My understanding of the role of GovAssure is that when it came in in April 2023, it replaced a system in which Departments were self-assessing their cyber resilience. My understanding from the Report is that the assessments done by GovAssure showed that until then Departments had been overestimating their readiness. Fi…”

“Two weeks ago, I was glad to read reports in The Times that the Government intend to introduce a youth mobility scheme between the UK and the EU. That would be good for our economy, while providing young British people with the opportunity to work and study abroad. That is what the British public want, with new polling…”

“I thank the hon. Member for South Dorset (Lloyd Hatton) for his work in securing this important debate, and Members from across the House for their contributions this afternoon. The Liberal Democrats support this motion, which aligns with our long-standing stance on political finance reform and protecting democracy fro…”

“The US Defence Secretary, Pete Hegseth, has this week announced the stepping back of US counter-cyber measures against Russia. This incredibly concerning decision by the Americans threatens not only their cyber-security, but our own. The Russian Government have been accused of orchestrating a widespread campaign of int…”

“Let me just reply to the hon. Member’s original point. It is so important—and this is why we need the amendment in the Bill—that if there is any doubt at all that someone is suffering from a treatable mental health condition, they are not allowed to proceed with their request for an assisted death until all avenues of …”

“Will the hon. Gentleman address the point that the requirement to refer for specialist psychiatric support is a requirement in similar legislation in other parts of the world—in Oregon, in California, in the state of Victoria in Australia, and in other jurisdictions that we heard evidence from? It is written into their…”

“Does the hon. Gentleman assert that it is therefore impossible for anybody with a mental illness that might affect their ability to make a decision about an assisted death to be judged to have capacity?”

“I believe I repeated several times in my speech that this is not about capacity; it is about mental illness.”

“I am grateful for that intervention and, dare I say it, for the one from the right hon. Gentleman. That is the whole point about eating disorders: there is a very fine line to be trod between people who have capacity, people who lack capacity and people who have capacity but who can still be allowed to make an unwise c…”

“The hon. Member is absolutely right. The Court of Protection has described eating disorders using language typically reserved for terminal illnesses. It has described an eating disorder as being in “the terminal stage”, talked of “all treatment options” having “been exhausted” and used words such as “incurable”. It is …”

“We need to consider the possibility that somebody is suffering from a terminal illness as a comorbidity with an eating disorder; they may be suffering from an eating disorder alongside something that can be considered a terminal illness—there are such cases. However, it is not unknown—and Chelsea Roff, an expert on eat…”