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Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

My Lords, before he vanishes, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, and apologise to him for not acknowledging in my opening remarks the fact that he had added his name to my Amendment 175.

I would be disappointed if the noble and learned Lord were, at this advanced stage of Committee, to agree to an amendment proposed to the Bill. He has not disappointed us; he has rejected it. The fact is that Clause 5 requires the discussion of prognosis, as he says. Any prognosis worth its salt has some data at the basis of it, and I am simply asking that that position—the spread of that data and the range, as my noble friend Lord Effingham referred to it—should be a part of that discussion so that people understand that, if they are told they have so many months to live, that is not a prediction but, in technical terms, a median based on underlying data. That data should be disclosed.

This is an unusual debate for me because it is the only one in which I agree with everything that everybody—apart from the noble and learned Lord—has said. I even found myself agreeing with the noble Baroness, Lady Jay of Paddington, that the language of combat and struggle is really not appropriate for people who are suffering from cancer. I never use it myself and, although I quoted Professor Gould using it in my speech, it is not the natural language that I would propose.

I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, that of course simply talking about positive attitude, and indeed attributing moral value to that, is one aspect only of the management of the diagnosis one might find oneself facing. I am not a Christian Scientist,

and I certainly believe that medical treatment—the most advanced medical treatment one can get hold of—is absolutely crucial and almost certainly much more important.

I agree to some extent with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, that it is possible for some clinicians at a specific time to be able to tell simply by looking at people that they are not going to live very much longer. But the evidence we have—there are studies about this—is that that is true where there is a very short time left to live, of 14 days or less. People with 14 days or less to live are, in my view, unlikely to have access to the provisions of this Bill simply because there is quite an elaborate bureaucracy attached to it through which one has to pass, and that takes time. The key thing for this Bill is the six months written in it. It is that that we have to look at, and six months prognoses are not particularly accurate. Where there are medians, it is important to understand the basic data.

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The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, said that it would be a great deal better if we did not have these amendments. I agree, but, again, in the context of this Bill, where six months is written in it and is an

absolutely crucial key to allowing you through the door on the path to an assisted death, that is what makes things rather different.

I will say that, if all doctors behaved the same as the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and never gave a prognosis of any sort, the Bill would be a nullity because nobody would ever get to that base 1 to start the process. I am not sure whether that thought has entered the noble and learned Lord’s head or whether he is already thinking of amendments that might circumvent it.

I will leave things there and, with the agreement of the Committee, beg leave to withdraw my amendment.