Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP)

My Lords, I follow the noble Baroness in speaking to the issue of the commissioner. The shift from the High Court to a commissioner has been compounded. The Bill originally proposed that a High Court judge would authorise every assisted death—a feature initially championed by the Bill’s sponsor in the other place to make the United Kingdom’s law the safest in the world, with robust safeguards. That has changed dramatically and we now have a new structure, with a commissioner appointed by a Prime Minister. The voluntary assisted dying commissioner is an important role. They will be given powers both to run and monitor the service. This creates the obvious risks of inadequate public scrutiny and independent review. It is judicial in the broad sense of involving a judge, but it does not appear to have a judicial function. The commissioner will both run the service and monitor it, which means that a highly controversial and important service will be run with little proper oversight. The commissioner will be responsible for establishing the regime and overseeing appeals as well as monitoring and reviewing its operation. In effect, as others have said, this allows the commissioner to mark their own homework. Dr Luke Geoghegan, policy lead of the British Association of Social Workers, told the Select Committee that an independent regulator for VAD was essential. He said: “The other thing that I think would give assurance is that no public sector organisation should mark its own homework. The voluntary assisted dying service needs robust external inspection”. In its written evidence, the Law Society said: “We recommend the establishment of an Independent Monitor to review and report on the operation of the Act annually”. The commissioner could be an assisted dying campaigner or someone linked to an advocacy group. Other countries have experienced problems when the assisted dying service is run by an advocate, yet nothing in the Bill prevents this risk of conflict of interest. In the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, developed a new judicial appointments process designed to guarantee an independent, impartial judicial appointments process and an enshrined statutory duty requiring respect for the independence of the judiciary by Ministers. Yet in the office of the commissioner, we see a potential patronage office in the political gift of the Prime Minister without any internal or external safeguards. Can the noble and learned Lord tell the Committee how the commissioner’s impartiality will be guaranteed? Why has he changed his mind on the importance of statutory guarantees of independence? Will the public have any right to know the commissioner’s views? Amendment 127, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Beith, would “make the Prime Minister’s choice for Commissioner subject to scrutiny and approval by the House of Commons’ Health and Social Care Select Committee”. There is a lack of accountability and transparency around the commissioner’s appointment process, which is entirely in the gift of the Prime Minister. Therefore, I ask the Minister who will respond to this group: have the Government followed Cabinet Office guidelines regarding appointments? The Cabinet Office Guidance: Pre-appointment Scrutiny by House of Commons Select Committees, published in 2019, requires: “When establishing a new public body, departments should ensure that they consider whether any public appointments to that body would meet the criteria” for a pre-appointment hearing. It continues: “They should seek guidance from the Cabinet Office and also discuss this with the relevant select committee Chair in a timely manner before establishment of the new body”. Can the Minister confirm whether the Government have discussed the matter of a pre-appointment hearing with the Commons Health and Social Care Select Committee?