Lord Kakkar (CB)

My Lords, I support Amendment 42A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, and I ask the Minister what justification there could be for refuting the amendment. It seems entirely appropriate, and indeed essential, that in taking such an important, far-reaching decision, one of the two registered medical practitioners who is responsible for that decision, taken at one point in the management of the natural history of disease in that individual, has the specialist skills and training to be able to make an appropriate assessment, one that will affect interventions on all future occasions for that individual. I hope that, in addition to accepting this important principle, the noble Baroness might outline how His Majesty’s Government will go about ensuring that the development of such medical practitioners and their training is adequately resourced to ensure that, in future, as a result of the Bill being enacted, what we have seen in the past, regrettably on repeated occasions, does not remain the norm for managing patients with autism and learning disabilities.