Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)

My Lords, I am pleased that the noble Lord who moved the amendment is in remission from his cancer. On other Bills we wish he was in remission from his political views, but on this one we celebrate with him. I used to run a cancer charity, and the truth is that on this issue not everyone is using statistics. Doctors are often using their eyes; when we are talking about the last weeks it is their eyes, rather than going to any statistical table, that will tell them. There is an assumption that all this is going to be based statistically on the six-month period, but it is not like that. My own guess is that most people who are dying will probably start thinking about this only at three months. Tonight I am going to be dining with a recent widower. His wife—a very well-known author but it does not matter who she was—had cancer. She fought it, but fighting it is not enough. It was only really in the last weeks that she realised that what she wanted was help in those weeks. It was at that point that she tried to get to Switzerland, but by then it was too late. My judgment is that much of this, for many of the patients who will be asking for this, will be very much towards the end. I will be surprised if at that point the doctor is going to their statistical tables, because at that stage the patient’s age and underlying health and other factors will contribute as much to assessing whether it is going to be days, weeks or maybe a month as the particular type of cancer that they have. This attempt to make that process overscientific is probably not right, and we should have faith, which some people in this House do not seem to have, in doctors.