Baroness Andrews (Lab)

I would prefer not to give way. I have hardly spoken in this debate and I would like to make a coherent case. Public opinion has moved, medical opinion has moved, and I think the House has moved. Many countries have taken the decision, and millions of people now have the right to choose to die without fear and pain. That of course includes people near to home in Jersey and the Isle of Man. The major critical difference is that this House has listened to the other place make up its own mind—but we have come to the decision that we must not do that. It is not a bad Bill. It was in the process of improvement. One of the first things that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, said was that he would have accepted many of the amendments that came out of the Delegated Powers Committee report, and it is hardly surprising that that committee found the emphasis on delegation something to comment on. Private Members’ legislation sometimes does not have government rigour, so there is always a sense that you have to put things into implementation. Let us have that debate. We have not had that debate and the House has not been able to vote on it. I have not had the experience that others across the House have had, which we have heard in extraordinarily personal and powerful statements, not least this morning from the noble Lord, Lord Markham, which was so moving. But in the past few weeks, I have heard the testimonies of people who are living with the reality of what it means to know that they are dying. One of the things they have found so difficult, as has been so well said by many people this afternoon, is the disconnect with reality that they have heard as we have wrestled with arcane elements and bureaucratic and technocratic issues that they do not recognise in their experience of dealing with, say, a multiple team of medics rather than a single practitioner, or with residence qualifications. I will not rehearse any of those arguments. We would have done better to listen more rather than, in some instances, pontificate. We should have listened to Chris Whitty, who said: do not overengineer a process that is already extremely complicated. I really wish more noble Lords had taken advantage of listening to the Australian practitioners who told us how they manage in the most humane and effective ways to implement the Act in Australia. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Moore, is not in his place. I want the House to listen for a moment to the words of a real expert, a terminally ill lady in a wheelchair who we heard on Wednesday: “I am a lay preacher in the Church of England. I am deeply grateful for the excellent care and treatment I receive … I do not want to die. Not now. I want to live. But alongside that desire to live I carry something else, fear, a deep, persistent fear and how my life may end. And while palliative care is often excellent it is not all powerful. It has limits … I am not alone … too many terminally ill people are living not only with pain but with fear; fear of losing control … Fear of being forced to continue when all sense of dignity and meaning has gone. That fear shapes our days. For some that fear leads to impossible choices”. She said that she may die “sooner than I would choose … And yet instead of confronting reality we have seen repeated delay in the House of Lords … Delay is not neutral. It is a choice. A choice that risks overriding the will of the Commons and the wishes of the majority of the public”.