Lord Rook (Lab)

I thank noble Lords for their patience, passion and seriousness in scrutinising this part of the Bill. My Amendment 19, which started this debate, possibly needs some clarification. Forgive me, as one who is still becoming accustomed to your Lordships’ House, if I should have intervened earlier on this. I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Gerada, for her remarks. I had the privilege of working with her in a previous life and saw her brilliant healthcare and the provision of many experts—not just healthcare professionals but the wider community—in seeking people’s health and well-being. Her best-case scenario is what we would like to see in all end-of-life care and in assisted dying. However, to speak to the comments by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, my amendment is not seeking for a patient to have to see the same GP twice. That is not the amendment that we are trying to make here. We are asking that someone should be registered in a practice for a year and see a GP twice in that year. I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, for her view that this could mean a wider team engagement—it might not be just the GP. I am saying not that it has to be the same GP twice but that a person has to engage with a GP twice in that stage. If any one of us in this Committee, or any one of our loved ones, were facing a serious medical condition right now, I think we would all have the reasonable expectation that in the next 12 months we might see a GP at our practice. Given the importance of this legislation and just what it will do for the state’s relationship to life and the NHS’s relationship to life, someone who is critically facing the end of life and requesting an assisted death should also be afforded the opportunity to see a GP twice in that period. Dr Michael Mulholland has been quoted a number of times from his remarks to the Select Committee. I will finish with a quote from him. He said: “We need to be sure that these things are checked on many levels. It is not at a single time and point where you tick something”. I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, for his willingness to consider this issue. I look forward to seeing how these concerns and conversations might be expressed and reflected in the Bill. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment in my name.