Mims Davies

Let me make some progress. I have four main concerns: funding, the assessment process, the lack of institutional opt-outs and, crucially, the auto-commencement clause. Can we all look our local NHS teams in the eye, knowing that we are ultimately taking more resources from them? The equality impact assessment explicitly acknowledges the impact on disabled people and those from ethnic minorities—people we often speak about in this place, because we are the ones who can speak up for them. This Bill is at odds with that. There is much more I would like to say, but I need to conclude. This Bill, although well intentioned, is simply a mixture of naivety, idealism and wishful thinking. There is no delivery plan, and it greatly raises the hopes of our constituents in their hour of need for care, good support and understanding. We are being asked to send this Bill back to the other place and perhaps to use the Parliament Act to force it through, regardless of its fitness for purpose and with full knowledge of its flaws and lack of workability, just to get it done. However, that means we are not listening even to the doctors who have spoken in this place today. I cannot subscribe to this type of lawmaking, no matter how well intentioned. I am grateful that we are talking about life and death, end-of-life care and the value we put on people and loved ones. We are fighting for better palliative care, and we are doing what we can to give people all they need as death approaches. However, I cannot in good faith support an unsafe private Member’s Bill or the process we are undertaking today.