Kit Malthouse

I am grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker; I will be swift. That is my choice, and this Bill is rooted in the need to give autonomy to those facing death who have capacity. We should take care to tread carefully upon that right. On the two amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Rebecca Paul), new clause 16 says that somebody cannot be “substantially motivated” by certain considerations. I do not really understand what “substantially motivated” is meant to mean. To me, this misunderstands the complexity of what it must be like to be told that you are dying. The things that might run through your head—the affairs you might have to deal with, the news you have to break to your family, the impact it will have on your small children—form a cocktail of motivations. But the one thing I have learned over the last 10 years from campaigning for and spending lots of time with dying and bereaved people is that towards the end of their life, they have absolute clarity about what they want, because it becomes clear to them towards the end what their death will be like. At the very least, they want to have this card in their back pocket to play if they require it. Remember: these are people who are facing death, who are struggling with death, and we have to give them the power to advance over it.