Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)

My Lords, I thank everyone who has spoken on this adjourned group. I propose to adopt the enviable style of my noble friend Lord Effingham and not refer to everybody’s speeches. I would, however, pick up just one point from our discussion on 27 February, which was in the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, when she criticised my comment in opening the group that this was not a life and death decision that the panel was making. I answer that by simply pointing to the contents of Clause 17(2), which sets out the checklist on which the panel must be satisfied. The most pertinent of those are: “that the person is terminally ill … that the person has a clear, settled and informed wish to end their own life” and “that the person made the … declaration voluntarily and was not coerced or pressured by any other person into making that declaration”. In my submission, it is plainly a decision—a question—of life and death that the panel is making. I propose to respond to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, and the Minister thematically, adopting their own approach. There are three key themes in my amendments. They are the appointment process, whether there should be guidance to the panels and what powers the panels should have. I am very glad that the noble and learned Lord agreed with me that there needed to be an appointment process, but I am afraid I do not share his laissez-faire approach that it can all be left to the person of the assisted dying commissioner. It seems to me appropriate for such a significant post to be considered by a formal body. I do not accept the account given by the Government that it is all a bit too administratively difficult for the JAC to consider this. The JAC is a body set up under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 and it is governed by a statutory instrument of 2013. Those are all capable of amendment and, with resourcing, it is entirely capable of managing the task that I envisage in my amendments. I turn to the question of guidance. There is no provision that there must be guidance to the panels. It seems to me that unless you have guidance, there is a real risk that panels will be of differing quality and adopt different local practices. This could cause terrible errors, with very significant and ultimately irreversible consequences. There must be guidance, and there must be guidance made by the commissioner to the panels, and it must be informed by consultation with relevant bodies. That is what my amendments achieve. I am afraid I do not share what we might call the “good chap” theory of assisted death that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, appears to suggest by having an option to create guidance to the panels. Finally, as to powers, criticism was made of me by the Minister and the noble and learned Lord that I had asked too much in my amendment, by asking for the powers of the High Court to be imposed upon the panels. As I made clear in my speech, and as indeed is clear in the Member’s explanatory statement, if noble Lords look at the Marshalled List, this was always a probing amendment. The Minister said that I had not specified which powers. Well, if she had looked at the Member’s explanatory statement, she would have seen them. They are targeted at the powers to require evidence because, as I said at Second Reading, at the moment these panels have fewer powers than the parking adjudicator of Greater London. In a matter where they are looking at whether somebody is being coerced into volunteering to die, the panel cannot even ask to see their will. These powers are an essential addition to the Bill if it is to proceed and with that, I beg to withdraw my amendment.