Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)

I pay tribute to the speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Farmer, Lord Shinkwin and Lord Shamash, all of whom referred to distressing personal circumstances. The Committee is grateful that people are willing to talk about these issues in this very difficult debate. This group of amendments concerns the definition of terminal illness. As people have just identified, the definition of a person being terminally ill to satisfy the requirements of the Bill is that “the person has an inevitably progressive illness or disease which cannot be reversed by treatment, and … the person’s death in consequence of that illness or disease can reasonably be expected within six months”. I will pick up on four points that came out of the debate. First, to deal with the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, the words “inevitably” and “progressive” plainly limit the words “illness or disease”, so the illness or disease has to be both inevitable and progressive. Secondly, to deal with the very important point raised by the Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, frailty is plainly not within that definition. Frailty, old age or something similar would not satisfy the requirements of “an inevitably progressive illness or disease”. That specific point was addressed in the Commons, where the initial draft of the Bill had the words “inevitably progressive illness, disease or medical condition”. The words “medical condition” were removed to deal with that specific point. The words “inevitably progressive illness or disease which cannot be reversed by treatment” deal with the sort of example given by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, and other noble Lords. There will be illnesses or diseases, such as type 1 diabetes or HIV/AIDS, where there is a traditional and accepted treatment which will effectively reverse the effect of the condition. It will not get rid of it completely. You still may have HIV or be a type 1 diabetic, but the effect of the condition is reversed. The intention behind putting in the word “reversed” was to deal with those.