Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Berger, has opened up an important point in this debate and her excellent opening speech certainly highlighted many of the issues. The noble Lord, Lord Winston, spoke about cognitive reasoning. The evidence is that cognitive reasoning is well-developed at the age of 18 but that other aspects—such as being sensitive to stress and social influence, impulse control and emotional regulation—do not develop by that age. The evidence is that these carry on developing until the age of 25. I found it interesting to hear that noble Lords consider that the age limit for children or young people driving in cars with peers should potentially be raised. That is because of the problem of peer pressure. When I had the pleasure of having a visiting professorship in the Netherlands, I came across a fairly horrifying case of a young man in his late teens who had been diagnosed with a very aggressive tumour. His friends all came round and said, “When are you going to go for euthanasia?” He had not even had discussions on treatment, and this happened to be a tumour that was going to be very chemotherapy sensitive. I was quite shocked at the influence that a peer group can have on somebody. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, spoke about suffering and pain. One of the difficulties we have with the Bill is that neither “suffering” nor “pain” occurs anywhere in it. I wonder whether the noble and learned Lord, in considering how he manages this group of amendments, will recognise that one solution may be to require an enhanced assessment of those between 18 and 25 if the age limit is not going to be raised. Young people should have a more in-depth assessment, not only of their—