Member

Before the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, comes at me, no, I cannot write to Sir Chris Whitty. I have no control over him. However, I find his evidence important and material because it is not as if there is a group of doctors who are particularly concerned with the capacity issue. A lot of them have to deal with it, whether they are capacity experts or not, because they have to be able to evaluate what their patients want and whether they are capable of making the decision. Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer of the Government, is well placed to say what the best way is for those capacity decisions to be taken. I say that I will not write to him because I and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, are in exactly the same position; we can both write to him, but we both have no control over him.