Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)

My Lords, in other groups last week, I covered issues of why I was concerned about people requesting assisted suicide because they feel like a burden, so I will not seek to rehearse those, but we should care about the other reasons why people’s decisions might be impacted, not least because in 2022 Marie Curie said that when someone is given a terminal diagnosis they are quite often financially impacted by that. So not only do you have the trauma of the diagnosis but other things happen and fall apart very quickly around you. I know that Members of the Committee from all sides have worked on welfare reform and on the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act—all designed to provide better support for people who may need it. It is great to hear that there are GPs who will offer support on benefit claims and to put other things in place, but I cannot quite understand and work out where in the process people would be signposted back to the GP. We know that there is often a long waiting list for people to get a GP’s appointment; would one or both of the two doctors actually help somebody with a benefits claim or who would they signpost to? That is an important part of understanding the process.