Kim Leadbeater

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. The amendment is not specifically about eating disorders; there is a broader context. I will come to that later. It is with that experience in mind—my own personal experience and having spoken to many colleagues on this issue—that I say now, as I said in Committee, that under the Bill as it stands, having anorexia would not qualify a person to be eligible for an assisted death. The Bill is clear that a person cannot be considered terminally ill on the basis only of a mental disorder. Clause 2 makes it clear that a person must have an inevitably progressive illness or disease that cannot be reversed by treatment. Anorexia is a serious mental health condition that is not inevitably progressive and can, thankfully, be reversed by treatment. Of course, at every stage of the assisted dying process the patient must be found to have capacity to make the decision, and this is checked repeatedly throughout the process. Someone with severe anorexia would be highly unlikely to be assessed to have capacity to make a decision on assisted dying. The other tragic reality is that if a patient was so ill as a result of not eating and drinking for whatever reason, they would die before the process of assisted dying was able to take place, as it could take up to two months to complete all the stages of the process as set out in the Bill, and the latest clinical guidance states that the general range of survival once voluntary stopping of eating and drinking has begun is between seven and 21 days. Stopping eating and drinking also leads to a range of symptoms that would make meaningful conversations, as required by the Bill, impossible. Having said that, I know that some people have expressed concerns that the severe physical consequences of a decision to stop eating or drinking could still enable someone to claim eligibility for assisted dying when they would not otherwise be able to do so, and I believe that is the motivation behind amendment 14.