Naz Shah

I will make some progress. Hundreds of eating disorder experts, doctors, lawyers, charities, family members and people with lived experience urged Parliament to close this loophole and support amendment 38. As a Committee, we failed to heed their warning. We have now learned that the one remaining amendment that could protect people with eating disorders will not even be voted on. Our responsibility is to make the Bill safe. We know what happens when politicians think they know better than the experts. Let us make it clear: the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Pathologists, palliative care doctors, the British Geriatrics Society, almost every eating disorder charity and almost every disabled people’s group do not support this Bill. That is not because they do not believe in the principle; they are warning us about the dangers of this Bill, and of getting this wrong. Our job is not to be activists—to fight until our last breath for the principle, whatever shape or form it is delivered in. Of course we believe in causes—that is why each and every one of us is in Parliament—but we legislators must listen to the experts, heed the evidence, scrutinise and debate the ideas that are before us, and deliver for our constituents laws that are safe, workable and effective. We have a proud history; the likes of Florence Nightingale—the lady with the lamp—broke every barrier possible to heal the wounded, provide care for the vulnerable and reduce the chance of death. Those are the principles that our great NHS was founded on. We must ask ourselves whether those fundamental principles will still be intact if the Bill passes. Will they be there to protect those who face a postcode lottery in healthcare and palliative care, the most vulnerable, and those who have faced the greatest hardships in life and feel like a burden? Will those principles be there to protect those who feel like giving up, but whom we could help back up and push towards a better life? Instead, we will be giving them a way to give up, even if they could have survived. This is the question for all Members: what is the margin of error that we are willing to risk today when it comes to something as serious as death? I urge Members to vote against this Bill.