Lord Markham (Con)

If I may say—I hope, like my noble friend, in the spirit of helpfulness—this has been a thoughtful debate, and we all want the best decision-making framework for these decisions. I am definitely not going to pretend that I have personal expertise as to what the best decision-making framework is. However, on some of the earlier comments, Professor Chris Whitty is our Chief Medical Officer and, although he might not be an expert in psychiatry, he draws on the expertise of the many experts in that field. A number of psychiatrists wrote in to MPs and Lords as part of this process, saying that they felt the Mental Capacity Act was a good, tried and tested framework to be used on this basis, and that there are certain dangers in trying to introduce an as yet new and unknown framework. There is also the possibility of confusing situations. There could be three patients: one with a do not resuscitate order, another with motor neurone disease and the question of whether their ventilator should be switched off, and a third being assessed under assisted dying. These are quite similar circumstances. If you were to have two different frameworks for assessing them then there is the possibility of quite a lot of confusion as to the best way to do that. I say this to ensure we are looking at all the pros and cons. I am not going to pretend at all to be an expert on this, but the Mental Capacity Act has been tried and tested for a number of years, and there are a number of expert psychiatrists who think it is absolutely the right framework in which to do this.