Lord Harper (Con)

My Lords, this is a very sensible group of probing amendments, and it is a pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate. I will speak to them because the issues raised in this group concerning the difference between where somebody resides and where their GP is registered are exactly analogous to the situation regarding England and Wales, which I raised in an earlier group but have not received a satisfactory answer to. I will remind the noble and learned Lord of the situation and he can, I hope, respond in a positive way. There are two issues, one of which is the difference between where you reside and where your GP is registered. There are a significant number of people living along the England-Scotland border and the England-Wales border whose place of residence is not the same as where their GP is registered. Therefore, it is very important that the legislation makes it clear that the rules through which you access assisted suicide are governed by where you live, not where your GP is registered. That is important for the reasons my noble friend Lady Fraser set out—in England and Scotland there will potentially be very different legal situations. As we know from the earlier debate, although the Bill covers England and Wales, the rules governing the detail of how an assisted suicide service will work in Wales will be set by the Welsh Senedd, not the UK Parliament. Therefore, it is important that the Welsh rules apply only to people in Wales, who are governed by a body that is democratically accountable to them, not to people who live in England; otherwise, there would be a massive democratic deficit. It is very important that the noble and learned Lord is clear about how that is going to work. Secondly, I think the noble and learned Lord said in response to our debate on England and Wales that he and the honourable Member for Spen Valley had had some detailed discussions with the devolved Governments. However, I was not clear from his responses whether those discussions had covered this point. Obviously, they need to take account of the views of not only the devolved Governments but the UK Government—which, for these purposes is actually only the English Government. We need to understand how this is going to work in practice. As I have said, and in conclusion, this must be got right now, in primary legislation. If we do not get it right now, somebody will have to spend months and years clearing up the mess afterwards, which is one of the things that I had to do when I was the Member of Parliament for the Forest of Dean to deal with the cross-border issues that had not been properly thought through then. This is a valuable set of amendments. I was pleased that that the noble and learned Lord acknowledged, I think last week when the noble Lord, Lord Beith, spoke about this briefly, that these are valid issues that need proper answers. I look forward to hearing them now.