Baroness Lawlor (Con)

My Lords, mine is an amendment to Amendment 552A from the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, which itself is an amendment to Amendment 552 from the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay. I think that this is a very good group of amendments: they avoid the potential conflict of interest about which we have heard and they make things clear in law. To answer the noble Baronesses, Lady Murphy and Lady Jay, I prefer a law made in this House to one made by the gentleman in Whitehall down the line. I shall speak to these two amendments, to which mine is a further amendment. Amendment 552 would require that the provision of lethal substances through pharmacies is restricted to a limited number of designated pharmacies. The substance is documented, kept under lock and key and, when unused, disposed of safely. Amendment 552A from the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, which she introduced so well, would restrict the pharmacies further to only dispensing and storing the drug, not preparing it on the premises, under MHRA rules. My amendment would prohibit pharmacies from stockpiling or storing any quantity of lethal substance in the pharmacy: it must be ordered on a case-by-case basis. At present, the Bill has no chain of custody for the secure storage of these lethal drugs, even though some that we know are used for assisted dying, such as benzodiazepine, have a black-market use. The measures in these three amendments go some way to addressing this problem of secure storage. I draw particular attention to the role of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the MHRA, specified by Amendment 552A from the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins. It is the body that regulates, licenses, inspects and enforces the rules for pharmacies and manufacturers, on which I have a later amendment to Clause 37. Under this body, there is an existing legal framework for looking after drugs when they go to pharmacies—the 2012 regulations outlining the legal framework for distribution and storage and the directive to prevent counterfeit medicines from entering the supply chain. Even the tightest regulatory system is not foolproof, so other safeguards are needed to protect against theft from the premises and to ensure security so that the drug is not counterfeited. The MRHA had a great victory last month in seizing thousands of counterfeit anti-fat drugs, the drugs that people take to help them to slim. That was a very good operation which turned up trumps, linking a Lincolnshire raid on an illicit drug-making factory to one in Nottingham. The MRHA works with the police. It can seize, check and license. However, we need even greater security, because of thefts from pharmacies, a known address, and it would be better to limit the storage of these lethal substances in the pharmacies to those ordered on a case-by-case basis. Do not tell me that this does not happen now: if I have to go to Boots for a prescription, sometimes they have to order it. In the matter of assisted suicide, if there is a delay, that may help the patient to reflect further and perhaps have a second opinion.