Daniel Francis

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson) for his opening remarks. I am one of five Members in the room who were members of the Bill Committee, and I think I am the only one of those who voted against the assisted dying Bill on both Second Reading and Third Reading. As Members know, I support the principles of the Bill, but I continue to have concerns about the issues of mental capacity and learning disability. I want to talk about the Bill that we sent to the other place. It should be remembered that the Bill we passed on Second Reading was not open to people with cancer, HIV or multiple sclerosis. It was not open to people under the definition of disability in the Equality Act 2010, which includes those three conditions. We had to put that right in Committee, because the original Bill was not open to people with cancer. [Pete Wishart in the Chair] In Committee we took evidence, and we accepted evidence from somebody who said, “Move to a panel situation.” However, that person also said to us, “Look at the law in Spain and how it treats the families of people with learning disabilities.” As a Committee, we decided to accept that person’s evidence on having a panel but disregard their evidence on the role of the families of people with learning disabilities. It was clear that there was a cross-party whipping operation in place. Very early in the process, we saw that anyone from an opposition position, like me, had their amendments rejected. For example, my early amendments on learning disability were rejected. The Minister would stand up and say, “The Government advice is to reject these amendments,” and they would be rejected. However, as the public criticism grew, with my later amendments on learning disability, the same Minister would get up and say, “The Government’s position is to reject them,” and then vote in favour of them with the majority of the Committee. We ended up, against Government advice, accepting some amendments on learning disability but rejecting others, and that was the Bill that went to the Floor of the House. I also note the comments from my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central that he had advice from DHSC officials, because that advice was not given for my 26 amendments. It appears that advice was given to supporters of the Bill, but not to those who were against it. Those issues continue to concern me about the Bill that we sent to the other place. We have heard a list of Members of the other place who tabled amendments, but we have not heard that the person who tabled the fourth highest number of amendments was the Bill’s sponsor in the other place. They tabled 6% of the amendments, 77 of them, to make the Bill stronger. The Bill that we said was the strongest possible Bill when we sent it to the other place had 77 amendments tabled by its sponsor.