Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that response. One thing we can all agree on from this discussion is that these are complex issues and people sometimes have rather different understandings of what certain things might say or mean. Having said that, I would just like to say where I think we are on the two issues. First, on advanced decisions, I have a strong view that children and young people aged 16 and 17 should have choices that are made available to adults extended to them. As I think the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, said, it is about having a sense of agency and autonomy and feeling that their wishes and feelings are being respected. It may be that I did not draft it very well, but I was not suggesting that everyone was going to be forced to do it. It is there as an option, and that is a really important point that possibly did not come out sufficiently in the debate. The fault for that is mine. It may be that the approach that the noble Earl, Lord Howe, was suggesting is a better way forward. I do not know; I do not mind. I just feel that, because to me this is so fundamental and a question of human rights, we will need to return to this on Report. I turn with some trepidation now to the statutory competence test for under-16s. I have been accused of being too cautious. That is fine. I understand where noble Lords were coming from. I did not say it when I introduced it, because I thought it would be a bit to odd to say it, but I was seeing my amendment as a bit of a backstop. In other words, if the Government are not minded to accept that recommendation, at least something would happen and at least there would be some sort of progress. As I said, I was very sympathetic to the test and the way that the noble Lord, Lord Meston, set it out. It had a fair amount of support, of course, across the Chamber, but the debate also showed that there are still some quite tricky issues that need to be teased out. I do not think it was quite as clear-cut as perhaps was being suggested, not least about issues around the consistency or otherwise of the application of Gillick. It may be that, again, I did not get the wording right when I talked about a “review”. I accept that. Reviews can be kicked into the long grass and you never see anything again. But I thought the idea of a consultation was very important and, in fact, I think it would be quite difficult, having listened to this debate carefully, to move straight to having something in the Bill without having some sort of consultation first. It might be that you would want to take some sort of powers that would enable such a thing to be put in place after that consultation had happened, but to me it just felt that some issues still needed to be teased out. Perhaps my initial amendment was not completely ludicrous, but it has been a really good and interesting debate—