Kit Malthouse MP: speeches

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Speeches

18 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fourth sitting) · Hansard source
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I am a little confused by my hon. Friend’s logic. He has literally just proposed an amendment for the doctor to ask, at the last, whether the person still wants to proceed. Surely self-administration is the ultimate act of consent, which his own amendment requires a doctor to establish right at the last moment.
18 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fifth sitting) · Hansard source
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Does the Minister agree that my hon. Friend the Member for East Wiltshire is perhaps unintentionally creating a lack of clarity where there is clarity? Surely there is complete clarity in the distinction between assisting a patient to be in a position to carry out their final desire and act, and performing or even jointly performing that final act with them. Is it not the case that in overseas jurisdictions there is quite a lot of assistance with technology? It needs to be prepared and put in place, but it can put even those who are the least physically able in a position in which the final act of administration can be clearly theirs. In many ways, our life is made easier by modern technology in that regard.
18 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fifth sitting) · Hansard source
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The hon. Member might be interested to know that many hospices and, in fact, the hospice movement have developed what they call hospice at home, which is for people in the advanced stage of illness who want to die in their own home. Services are provided to them to palliate them as they reach death at home.
18 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fifth sitting) · Hansard source
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Are there other personal characteristics, beliefs or behaviours that my hon. Friend thinks those groups should be allowed to exclude?
18 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fifth sitting) · Hansard source
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I have just two quick questions. First, I am intrigued to know how my hon. Friend imagines these organisations would reach this collective view. Secondly, if they could reach a collective view, should they still be able to deny what is a legal service, if they are in receipt of public funds?
18 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fifth sitting) · Hansard source
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rose—
18 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fifth sitting) · Hansard source
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In the interest of symmetry, if I work for one of these organisations and it takes that decision, can I conscientiously support it? We are saying that at an organisation that allows it, staff can conscientiously object. If there is an organisation that conscientiously will not allow it, can I conscientiously support it as an employee, or am I automatically fired?
18 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fifth sitting) · Hansard source
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A legal activity.
18 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fifth sitting) · Hansard source
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Let me remind my hon. Friend—first, she is saying that the views of, say, the residents count for little compared with the views of the directors, but my second question was whether she believes these organisations should be able to discriminate in that way, even if they are in receipt of public funds.
18 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fifth sitting) · Hansard source
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In receipt of public funds—
18 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fifth sitting) · Hansard source
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Technically, as we established earlier, cancer is a disability and therefore a protected characteristic, so under the law, anybody who has cancer cannot be discriminated against by an organisation that is offering services to the public. I want to make a wider point. The point we are trying to make about the amendments is that very few people will move into these organisations and live in them in the expectation that they will get a terminal disease. They will move in in their twilight years, whether it is an almshouse or a care home, for retirement purposes or other reasons—
18 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fifth sitting) · Hansard source
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On a point of order, Sir Roger. Is there any chance somebody could attend to the heating? I do not know whether I am the only Member who is starting to feel a bit cold. As the evening wears on, we are likely to get colder. If we could have it turned up slightly, that might assist our proceedings.
18 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fifth sitting) · Hansard source
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I am sure my hon. Friend did not mean to equate assisted dying with prostitution—I would not want anybody on social media to misinterpret what he said. I have been subject to that myself, and I want him to be clear of that. I am intrigued by this notion. I fully appreciate and support the idea that individuals should be able to opt out from the process and not participate, but by what means would the view of these institutions be ascertained? Would it be the view of the management? My hon. Friend said that other residents might be disturbed, so will there be a residents’ vote? How will these organisations come to a collective view? Practically, the Bill refers to individuals—it is an easy one for us that people do not have to participate; we have talked about the wider application of that and the hon. Member for Spen Valley says she is willing—but I do not understand how the collective view of the organisation would be reached.
17 Mar 2025 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source
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Will the Minister give way?
12 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-second sitting) · Hansard source
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Through my hon. Friend, may I respond to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Wiltshire? It is not necessarily about not having faith in the panel. Somebody may, for example, have a relative driven by a strong religious faith who wants to create some form of delay in the system, just to put off the awful day. Even if a commissioner were to take that relative’s application and decide that it was not valid, that would inject delay into what is naturally a time-limited process. A person may want to retain the right to handle their family themselves, and have the choice about how to do that. If the state, rather than the dying person, is effectively deciding how the family should be handled, we are naturally giving that person an incentive to keep this thing quiet until they are ready to tell their family, which may be well towards the end of the process. As the hon. Member for Rother Valley said, there are multiple points at which the family can intervene if they know. My concern is that this kind of—what is the word we have been using?—embroidery actually drives people in the opposite direction to the one my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate wants to achieve.
12 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-second sitting) · Hansard source
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I have to say that my concern about the hon. Lady’s amendment is growing. We have talked in the past about policing the conversation and the process to the point that it becomes guarded. Say I had a strong, long-standing conviction that I wanted assisted dying if I was in extremis, but I had a child who I knew was violently against assisted dying; if the hon. Lady’s amendment were in place, and there was the possibility of appeal, surely my tendency would be to keep my disease and diagnosis, and my approach to the system, secret from that person. By opening this formal door, I would effectively be encouraged to conceal the process from a family member who I know may object. I say that particularly in the light of the fact that, as we heard from overseas experience, coercion more often than not comes the other way. That is certainly what they see in Australia, where families try to persuade somebody not to do it. I think the hon. Lady has good motivations, but I am concerned that she might actually produce the opposite effect and drive people into secrecy.
12 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-second sitting) · Hansard source
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As my hon. Friend heard yesterday from the hon. Member for Rother Valley, there are multiple points in the new system at which family could make their views known. Indeed, they could apply very quickly for an injunction if they thought something was untoward. My hon. Friend has talked a lot about families knowing best. Surely it should be the dying person who chooses how best to handle their family. The evidence overseas is that giving dying people choice about the manner and time of their death also gives them the choice about how to handle their family, and particularly their children. My hon. Friend might have a particular approach, and mine might be completely different, but I should have that choice. She seems to think the family know best for the dying person—how come she does not think the dying person knows best for their family?
12 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-second sitting) · Hansard source
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The amendment is very sensible, not least because there are some conditions in which people experience a very significant decline at the end. In a matter of days, they may lose the ability to speak, while retaining capacity, so the ability for people in a small number of cases to give pre-recorded answers is incredibly sensible.
12 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-third sitting) · Hansard source
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No, I do not acknowledge that at all. Over the years we have started to use judges relatively flexibly—even, for example, for non-statutory inquiries; my hon. Friend has referred only to statutory inquiries—and that is so much the better. I am not a lawyer myself but I believe in the rule of law, so I think that having judges opining on our freedoms or otherwise is generally good for the country. I want to amplify a couple of points. On Second Reading, I made the case for the High Court to be involved. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for East Wiltshire: at that stage, I was very happy for there to be effectively a scrutiny and authorisation third layer to the Bill. My understanding of judicial opinion was that, certainly in Lord Sumption’s view, that level was unnecessary; I think he referred to it being a profoundly intimate conversation that really should just be between the patient and the doctor. However, I think my hon. Friend the Member for East Wiltshire is right that the weight of the moment and opinion in the House then was that there should be that third layer of scrutiny and opinion. I also dismiss the argument about the capacity of the judiciary to absorb this. I fear that if we start to accept that argument, we go down a very difficult road for Parliament—not least, for example, because we should then have opposed the Bill that went through the House on Monday night, because of its greater impositions. As many will know, the Crime and Policing Bill went through without a vote. It will impose new burdens on the judiciary and the police, as will the new offence of spiking. No doubt the immigration Bill coming through will also put significant extra burdens on the police and the courts. There are two separate questions here: one is what Parliament does, and the other is the capacity of the public sector to absorb that. The answer is not to say, “Well, I am afraid all you people have to go through a death you do not want to go through”; it is to say that we do not have enough judges and to recruit more judges, if that is required. In my personal view it is not, but at the time my view was that if as a footballer I could show up in the middle of the night and get an injunction to stop The Daily Mirror from publishing unpleasant stories about me, then the judges should be able to find time in their schedule to accommodate the requirements of my death.
12 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-third sitting) · Hansard source
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No, I do not share that regret, because until today, and until we all vote on it, the Government do not actually know what they are facing. They have undertaken that they will produce exactly the assessment that my hon. Friend is talking about between the end of this process and Report, so we can all have a look at what it will be. At that point, Members can put a price on other people’s death and other people’s pain if they want to, but there are lots of situations where the House of Commons decides about things on the basis of moral principle and public interest, and then we ask the public sector to absorb it. If that causes operational problems, then we solve those separately. In my 10 years in the House, I cannot remember anybody ever standing up and saying, “We shouldn’t do this because the public sector can’t cope.”
12 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-third sitting) · Hansard source
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Or “youse”.
12 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-third sitting) · Hansard source
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And the panel.
12 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-third sitting) · Hansard source
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To be clear, does my hon. Friend envisage that I would either be in the hearing, or lying in my bed listening to the hearing—the fungating tumours in my neck restricting my ability to breathe—having gone through all the eligibility criteria, but having to listen to someone argue that I should go through a death that I am trying to avoid, by arguing that I do not have capacity? Does he not see that that could be profoundly distressing to someone who is in the closing moments of their life? In many ways, it might actually be cruel and traumatic for me to hear somebody arguing, frankly, that I should endure the pain, in their opinion.
12 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-third sitting) · Hansard source
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I rise briefly to amplify a couple of points from the excellent speeches by the hon. Members for Rother Valley and for Ipswich. First, in clarification, I understand that there are situations where judges can sit in essentially supervisory positions—not least, for example, on the BBC board—and they can of course be Cross Benchers in the House of Lords. They are allowed to undertake other charitable trustee roles, although they are restricted in their activities.
12 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-third sitting) · Hansard source
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Forgive me, Sir Roger. Will the hon. Lady give way?

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