Lord Deben (Con)

My Lords, as a Welsh-speaking Welshman, who has, in this House, consistently supported Plaid’s perfectly right demand that there should be fairer funding for Wales—I am not a Plaid supporter, but I support that aspect—I hope that the House will have listened carefully to the fundamental comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith. If the Bill is passed, the Welsh Government will have to make arrangements for its implementation in Wales. In Wales, the provision of palliative care is not as good as it ought to be—this is widely understood. Yet we would be imposing on the Welsh Government the necessity to make particular decisions about health in Wales, when they have no powers to make those decisions for themselves. That is a very simple issue, and I recognise the problems stated by the noble and learned Lord. But the truth is that we have an underfunded Welsh Government who spend half their money on health and know that there are real gaps in the provision. Last week, the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, told us that assisted suicide was part of palliative care. That, of course, has solved the case—we now know that it is just part of palliative care. But those of us who do not think that it is part of palliative care recognise that, in Wales, the issue is sharper than anywhere else because of the lack of funding, which is about the misuse of the way that funding from the centre is put out. I beg this House to take very seriously what the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, has said. If we were to ignore the amendments we are talking about here, we would be saying to the Welsh, “You just stuff it because we are going to decide”. We have had that issue before on abortion in Northern Ireland: they decided what they thought and we chose a moment when we had the power to decide they could stuff it. I believe in devolution, and I do not believe that this House should tell the Welsh people to stuff it; we should let them make their own decisions. Finally, I will turn to what the noble Lord said. I know perfectly well—