Member

I thank the noble and learned Lord for the meeting yesterday; we probably agree to disagree on whether he is answering questions in the Chamber. I would like to know whether he has read the paper by the Complex Life and Death Decisions group at King’s College London, which perfectly captures some of the issues we are trying to grapple with. One of the examples in that paper was of someone with diabetes who takes insulin, who manages their condition but becomes depressed and decides to stop taking the insulin, knowing that they will die, so that they might be able to request assisted suicide. Would this person be eligible for the Bill? I am worried about the pressures that doctors would be under when they make judgments about quality of life. We must be very careful that any safeguard does not slip to seven or eight months, or that expansion does not come via the back door.