Baroness Lawlor (Con)

My Lords, I was going to speak to Amendment 146, in the name of my noble friend Lady Eaton, to which I have added my name. It concerns care homes and a duty on the commissioner to identify and monitor emerging risk and report systemic risk to the Secretary of State so that preventive steps can be taken. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, has so ably introduced it, I simply convey the apologies from my noble friend Lady Eaton, who sent them last night. The other amendments that I support in this group—Amendments 436, 439 and 913—I will not go into, in the interests of brevity. The last one is about conflict of interest. The others seek to put a duty on the commissioners to serve as an extra safeguard, so that the exercise of the commissioner will not simply be to tick boxes but to request further paperwork if necessary, or that the families will be notified, as in the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lady Maclean. That can act as a trigger for a discussion with the families and perhaps prevent the coercion which can happen. Amendment 913 seeks to prevent those involved with organisations promoting assisted dying, whether as volunteers or employees, being a commissioner, a deputy commissioner or on the staff. There is a conflict of interest if those who have a responsibility for seeing that procedures for assisted suicide are not abused should themselves be actively committed to the cause of promoting assisted suicide. The conflict of interest is so self-evident. I imagine that it is an oversight that a clause to this effect was not included in the original Bill. Perhaps the noble and learned Lord, the sponsor, could comment on that and tell us whether he envisages a conflict of interest and how best we can prevent it. I associate myself with the very strong expression of support for the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, who tabled Amendment 913. The support was to give sympathy against the attack on one of the leading medical authorities in this country—a specialist in palliative care who has put her knowledge, expertise and time at the service of those most in need of palliative care. She has done so with her time and her knowledge. Not only that but she has served this country in all kinds of ways: teaching students, seeing patients and building up her profession, which is one of the most important specialisms in medicine. She also gives such service to this House, giving her time selflessly, with her knowledgeable contributions and in sitting on the Woolsack, night after night. We owe her an enormous debt of gratitude, not only in this Chamber but in the whole country.