Baroness Pidgeon (LD)

My Lords, it is essential that, as we debate this group of amendments, we keep in mind the fact that the systems that we are creating are for people in the last six months of their lives. We must balance the demands that we place on them at this very vulnerable time with what really matters to them during that time. We should stop talking about microprocess and start really thinking about the individual. In her evidence to the House of Lords inquiry in November, Dr Jessica Young said that “a system that is too onerous creates stress among the people it aims to serve”. We must not create a system that is too complex and too protracted for someone who is at the end of their life to deal with. We have made incredible progress in recent years on facilitating video consultations. That came on hugely in the pandemic. Are we not in danger of taking a retrograde step with these amendments? I fear in particular that we in this House must be careful about standing in the way of technological process. Reading some of these amendments, I wonder whether people might want to add in that we write with feather quills and ink, because it seems that that is what this is really about. Amendment 65 would mandate a whole range of steps beyond clinical assessments to be undertaken face to face. It also seems to disapply the flexibility provided in the Bill with regards to the person meeting the panel. Is it the intention of this amendment that a person who cannot travel to appointments, whether physically or because of the risk of infection, must be denied a choice over how they die? These amendments will affect hugely those who live in rural areas and far from their GP, let alone a hospital with a relevant specialist. They will affect those whose immune systems have been compromised as a result of extensive chemotherapy and those whose mobility is affected by their terminal illness and who find it impossible to travel. Are we not at risk of denying access to these people when such challenges are not unusual, given the nature of what they are experiencing with their terminal illness? Is it the intention that someone who is, for practical medical reasons, unable to meet the independent advocate or the panel, but is able and willing to do so via video link, will immediately be ineligible even if they fulfil all the other criteria? It is difficult to see a basis on which that can be justified.