The firebombing of synagogues, the Golders Green stabbings, the Heaton Park murders—the whole country clearly needs to wake up to what is happening. The Government are right, finally, to proscribe the Iranian IRGC—which the head of MI5 says has been linked to over 20 deadly plots on our soil in just…
The firebombing of synagogues, the Golders Green stabbings, the Heaton Park murders—the whole country clearly needs to wake up to what is happening. The Government are right, finally, to proscribe the Iranian IRGC—which the head of MI5 says has been linked to over 20 deadly plots on our soil in just…
My Lords, like many before me, I thank my noble friend Lord Patel for securing this debate and other noble Lords for the excellent contributions that have been made so far. I beg your Lordships’ indulgence—my comments are of a more personal nature than some of the others we have heard. I hope that n…
I will be equivalently concise. It is important to connect Amendment 657, which specifies that assisted dying
“is not to be regarded as medical treatment”,
with our debate on the broader conscience protections that the Bill needs to include. The reason is not just that regarding assisted dying as …
Most of the amendments in this group relate to Wales, but some of them also relate to Scotland. Notwithstanding the noble Lord’s sensation of Groundhog Day, there has been an important development since we met last Friday, which is that the Scottish Parliament, by a decisive majority of 69 to 57, ha…
The noble Baroness brings me neatly on to the second point I was going to make, which is that the lack of safeguards in Scotland precisely demonstrates the constitutional and practical difficulty of trying to legislate in Scotland while a number of those key safeguards are reserved matters to Westmi…
My Lords, I will speak briefly to two amendments in this group, the first being Amendment 334. In particular, I hope to draw the attention of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, the sponsor of the Bill, to subsection (6)(m) of the proposed new clause and ask him whether he might be inclined t…
Even if the noble and learned Lord does not adopt the scheme put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, would he nevertheless accept that, for the co-ordinating doctors, it would be valuable to ascertain the information contained in proposed new paragraph (m) in this amendment? We would therefo…
My Lords, contrary to Amendment 129, I think that the Bill gets it right in requiring, at Clause 4(3), that the voluntary assisted dying commissioner must hold or have held office as a judge of the High Court, the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court. This is quite clearly not a medical role. Its pr…
My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of Cancer Research UK. Given that smoking continues to be the single biggest cause of cancer, it will not be a surprise that I oppose the amendments in this group, which would substantially weaken this landmark legislation. In explaining why, I will respond t…
My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of King’s College London. I think that there is a welcome consensus that the UK should aim for self-sufficiency in the production of new doctors through medical school, specialty training and into the NHS. In fairness, the last Government deserve credit for h…
My Lords, I repeat my declarations of interest from Second Reading as chair of King’s College London and chair of Cancer Research UK, and as an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of General Practitioners. I am going to speak to my Amendments 9, 11, 24 and 25. I …
One objective proposition that has been suggested is two years of NHS experience, which, it is said, would be readily trackable on Oriel. Can the Minister confirm whether that would indeed be possible?
My Lords, I start by welcoming the noble Lord, Lord Roe, to the House. I am sure that his experience will be informative in many ways, including now as chair of the building safety regulator. I am sure his insight will be very valuable to the R&R committee in a variety of ways. At some point I w…
Essentially, I agree with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford. I could almost leave it there, but I will briefly say, in the spirit of the amendments, that the tablers are right to raise general concerns about the possibility of abuse through bias—as we heard from the noble Baroness, L…
My Lords, I speak specifically against Amendment 771, which would require the Secretary of State to establish an assisted dying help service as part of the National Health Service. I believe that that is a conceptually misplaced proposition in that, if we cast our minds back to last Friday, it was c…
As the noble Lord will well know, the ethical principle of the doctrine of double effect is in place there. There is no doctrine of double effect associated with assisted dying; it is a completely different ethical principle. In fact, part of the reason why it would be dangerous to include assisted …
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, for namechecking me earlier, particularly in the same sentence as my noble friend Lord Pannick. I have the unenviable task tomorrow morning of moving the first amendment and the first group at 10 o’clock and, before I come here, I shall certa…
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Austin, for tabling this QSD and I welcome, if rather belatedly, the noble Lord, Lord Stockwood, as a Minister. It is excellent to have somebody with his extensive business knowledge in the position. I think I am right in saying that he has a good knowledge of …
My Lords, I hesitate to interject at this late stage of Committee, but I just respond to the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, who had concerns that many of the organisations giving evidence previously on the retail question were from health-related charities, and I declare my own non-pecuniary interest as …
My Lords, I have to declare a connection with Ukraine. In April 2018, as a barrister, I advised the Government in Kyiv about joining the European Union. I went with them in a delegation to Brussels at the end of that month, so if it turns out that I know people, that is the background as to why.
In…
My Lords, I acknowledge with deep respect that those arguing for the passage of this Bill are often speaking from personal experience of the pain and suffering of someone’s final illness. Yet, along with many other speakers, I have deep concerns about legislating to permit the practice of assisted d…
My Lords, I welcome the timely publication of the strategic defence review, and I agree with its analysis that the UK faces generational defence and security challenges, whether from Russia, Iran, China, North Korea or non-state bad actors, criminal gangs and terrorist organisations.
The strategic …