Sir Iain Duncan Smith

I simply do not agree with the hon. Lady on that reading. The professional bodies are completely divided, and most have come out in opposition to the nature of this legislation. It is all very well for her to say that, and I appreciate her right to say it, and I hope she gets to speak later, but I just do not agree with it. As was said earlier in the debate, the whole issue of mental capacity is not dealt with properly in the structure of this Bill. The hon. Member for Spen Valley talked about this earlier, and she was absolutely right. Even the amendments that were proposed were not always accepted, and we are left now with some areas that will be deeply troubling. We simply cannot accept that the Lords must make these changes for us, for we have to make them first. That is the key. The one big important area here—I absolutely agree with my constituency neighbour the Health Secretary on this—is that we talk a lot about choice in dying, but how is that choice informed if palliative care in the UK is simply not good enough? Again, the Mother of the House spoke about this, and there are so many people affected: the most vulnerable; the people furthest away from institutions; and the ones who understand least how to work the health service or their local authority, and who rely mostly on us to try and break through. They will be faced with this problem more than almost anybody else, because they look in fear on these institutions. I helped to set up a children’s hospice, which I think was the first in London. There have been many more since, but children’s hospices, as we know, are really badly treated by Government spending, pretty much no matter who is in power. They have less than anybody else. Haven House, which I helped to set up and raise money for, has given a very strong quote, which I think represents much of what most of those hospices have said: “We would fully agree that a change in the law would have very significant consequences for the delivery of palliative care services and would be challenging given the existing resource pressures that we face. The hospice sector is experiencing significant financial pressures and the exceptional palliative care services we provide are not financially sustainable. The introduction of assisted dying would create new and demanding requirements for palliative care services and hospices in particular. It is therefore vital, whether or not the current legislation is passed, that the government takes urgent action to resolve” this matter. That is the case today. We cannot just say, “Well, that’s not our problem. Palliative care can be changed.” The trouble is that we have been unable to make the necessary changes to palliative care because we take such parti pris positions. That is the problem we face. I will end with this. I will vote against the Bill, mostly because I believe it is fundamentally unworkable and will lead to huge problems. We have seen what has happened elsewhere internationally—Canada, Oregon and various other places—where legislation slides and slides again as more and more amendments have to be made because these things are not workable. To those who have any doubt, I simply say this. This is Third Reading; it is not Second Reading—it is not an “in principle” debate. We had that debate, and now we have to decide whether we should send this unworkable piece of legislation to another place, which is unelected, to make the decision for us because we cannot come to a conclusion. We cannot let this go through.