Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)

Such moral dilemmas hint at the fundamental shift in the raison d’être of medicine that is required. A systemic shift will be needed to change the NHS constitution and redefine “medical treatment”. So I am grateful to this House, whether or not it has taken 14 days, that we heard the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, warn that the Bill’s open-ended Clause 41 would be a Trojan horse clause for fundamental change to the NHS by the back door, yet amendments to it have been sneeringly described as trivial, overly cruel and absurd. Having sat through hours—days, even—on the Employment Rights Bill in this place, I thought that it was my responsibility to look at this Bill’s impact on workers’ rights. When I asked about two-tier conscience clauses that could leave out junior staff and ancillary workers such as porters and care workers if there were no system-wide opt-in model, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, batted my worries away. However, since my speech on that topic, I have talked to people, including prison officers, care staff and even a real-life porter—they were all trade union members, by the way—who thanked me for raising it and said that they had changed their minds after the debate because it had made them understand and reconsider the Bill’s broader impact. It seems a credit to the Committee that it has allowed people outside this Chamber to think about lawmaking beyond soundbites and emotive headlines. My final words are to comment on who we, the alleged filibusterers, are. No disrespect, but we are a bit of a ragbag and not an organised ideological collective. I am in awe of my temporary comrades in arms, who have treated this process with diligence and moral seriousness. It is lazy and insulting to hear people being discussed in the media so disparagingly, or the suggestion that all the amendments were some conspiratorial plot. That is cynical misinformation and an undignified smear. So when—probably—or if any version of assisted dying legislation returns here, I hope that all sides will continue to read the small print, line by line, and that we will stop smearing each other and maybe work together on bringing through safe and workable legislation, if we must have the legislation at all.