Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)

I will take the advice of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and now get rid of what I was going to say, because the noble Lord, Lord Markham, has said most of it. I now have only three points to add, so I thank the noble Lord for that. First, the big discussion is on whether it should be a court or panel. The reasons for the panel have been put, so I do not need to repeat that. The only thing I would say is that when this was discussed in the Commons, it was not about the capacity of the courts that made them make the change to a panel but about the advice they got that this would be a much better, holistic and patient-focused way of doing it. In fact, making sure that that bit was added was very much welcomed by the British Association of Social Workers and the Association of Palliative Care Social Workers. Secondly, the mention just now of legal aid says it all. Surely, we do not want this to be an adversarial process. It should not be argued in front of a court that way. I want to be very brief, because I am taking the advice of the noble and learned Baroness to be very brief, but we want this to be a conscientious decision and not one that is adversarial, which is why I think the panel would be so much better. Lastly, this is not a life-or-death issue, because these people are dying. We are discussing only when they die, not whether. That is different from deciding that a baby will die who was not going to die anyway, or even someone in a permanent vegetative state. That is why I really do not agree that it is right to use the word “suicide”, rather than “assisted dying”. People are dying, and this is the issue of when they die and not whether.