Baroness Merron (Lab)

The noble Baroness gives me the chance to reiterate that all the questions are valid. We are dealing with a complex, sensitive and difficult issue. What matters is that we get to the right place. As the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, said, I know we are all agreed on protecting children and young people. That is our motivation. The noble Baroness asked about consent. As I said, children can participate only with the consent of a parent or a guardian, and the children themselves must consent or assent. The individual circumstances and nature of a child will be closely considered as part of the consideration. That is absolutely crucial. Children and young people may participate only if they are not subject to any safeguarding concerns. I am happy to speak in greater detail to the noble Baroness. All of this will be extremely rigorous, and rightly so. When we talk about the trial, we are talking about volunteers—that is crucial. They can participate only if they have been deemed clinically appropriate by both the NHS care team and the national multidisciplinary team. There is, correctly, the opportunity at every level to consider every child or young person as an individual, which is so important.