Kit Malthouse MP: speeches 2025

319 published records · newest first.

Speeches

19 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-seventh sitting) · Hansard source
More
It would be interesting, if my hon. Friend’s amendments go through, to see the series of plebiscites taking place in care homes and communal situations across the country as to what the residents do and do not want, presumably by a majority. He asserted that there had been a mass exodus of healthcare workers when VAD came in, but I am struggling to find any evidence to support that claim. In fact, the evidence seems to say that that is not the case. Although there have been some resignations, that has largely been because of pay and conditions, as one might expect.
19 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-seventh sitting) · Hansard source
More
Will the hon. Lady respond to the point about injunctions? The Minister might want to respond to this as well. My understanding is that in order to obtain an injunction, someone does not have to establish that there is either a civil wrong or a criminal offence. They have to establish that there is a serious matter to be adjudicated, and that there is a strong likelihood of harm taking place. In those circumstances, a court would consider granting an interim injunction, subject then to a further hearing, ex parte or otherwise. The idea that some kind of civil tort needs to be established is not actually correct in seeking an injunction.
19 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-seventh sitting) · Hansard source
More
My assumption is that once a commissioner is appointed, and in drawing up the regulations and guidelines for reporting, there will be consultation between the Government and the commissioner about what the commissioner actually wants to report on. From what the Minister is saying, I assume that, unless we collect the data, the commissioner will have nothing to say in their report.
19 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-sixth sitting) · Hansard source
More
To clarify my remarks, I was not necessarily saying that they should have the right to deny, but by default they would if they were, in effect, a closed community that was discriminating in favour of like-minded individuals—a home for retired Catholic priests, for example. By default it would be someone who was unlikely to offer those services. The other point to ask is: if I am in a hospice, in my bed at the last with visitors coming to see me, and one of those visitors is the doctor who is coming to administer to me, I am not quite sure how that would be prevented, unless people are willing for there to be a wrestling match at the door of my room.
19 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-sixth sitting) · Hansard source
More
This is obviously a difficult and sensitive area, but does the hon. Lady think, for example, that a women’s refuge run by a Catholic foundation should be allowed to evict a woman who wants or has an abortion?
19 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-sixth sitting) · Hansard source
More
The hon. Lady is outlining the issues very effectively. No one, of course, is saying that anybody who works at the hospice that may object has to participate. It may say, “No one here will assist.” We have talked about the importance of place. To a certain extent, I have a right as a tenant in a place where I am resident. It seems that my hon. Friend the Member for East Wiltshire is proposing actively to prevent someone from being able to access this in a place that they choose. That feels to me the wrong balance. I wonder whether that is broadly where she is heading.
19 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-sixth sitting) · Hansard source
More
I am wondering about the difference between my own home with my partner, and my care home with lots of people that may or may not be strangers, and why I should have the right in one but not in the other.
19 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-sixth sitting) · Hansard source
More
She said exactly that.
19 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-sixth sitting) · Hansard source
More
Having also thought about this overnight, I think there is a freedom-of-association argument. If it were a Roman Catholic organisation designed just for Roman Catholics to live in, such as a home for retired priests, or if it were a Jewish organisation just for Jewish residents, I could see that, but that is not a service that is generally on offer to the public. My concern is whether we could see a situation in which the board of trustees of Hampshire hospitals foundation trust has a majority of people who have a strong religious conviction, and they vote that the service shall not be provided across the three hospitals that the trust manages. If the provision is drawn tightly and the freedom-of-association argument could be made, I could see it. Having said that, there is no institutional objection power in law for abortion: people just do not offer it because they do not have the staff to offer it. It feels to me as though that is what the hon. Gentleman is pointing to.
18 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fourth sitting) · Hansard source
More
I am not sure what compulsion there is in wider legislation for there to be a duty of care to patients who do not choose assisted dying in the first place. For thousands and thousands of patients who die, there is no legislation that imposes certain duties on medics or others to look after them; we rely on the professional standards and overall atmosphere of the healthcare system, as we would in the case of these patients. As my hon. Friend knows, overseas experience shows that a large proportion of the people who obtain the right to an assisted death—up to a third—do not cancel but do not exercise it. As we have said before, for many people assisted dying is an insurance card that they may choose to use if and when they think their life becomes intolerable.
18 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fourth sitting) · Hansard source
More
After 10 years of campaigning on this issue and spending so much time with people whose family have gone to Switzerland, one of the things they consistently say is that people went to Switzerland much earlier than they wanted to because they had to go while they were still physically able. I think this is a critical point that people have to realise. We should not compel people to do this earlier than they would otherwise wish to simply because of these restrictions.
18 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fourth sitting) · Hansard source
More
I am not entirely certain that my hon. Friend’s remarks are germane to the amendments, but nevertheless. As we discussed when debating clause 13, at the stage he is talking about, the patient will have had all their options—“all appropriate”, as I think we have amended the Bill to say, services that will be available to them—explained to them. If they are cancelling, the presumption has to be, in respecting their autonomy, that they are choosing one of the alternative paths that has been laid out to them. It is quite hard to legislate for a negative.
18 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fourth sitting) · Hansard source
More
I want to emphasise that at the moment the patient reaches that point, they will have had their palliative care options explained to them extensively, under the Bill, and it is highly unlikely at that point, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Wiltshire said, that anyone would not be in receipt of palliative care, given the very late stage of their disease.
18 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fourth sitting) · Hansard source
More
Does the Minister agree that, unfortunately, my hon. Friend the Member for East Wiltshire seems to be labouring under the misapprehension that there is some reputational test in becoming an attorney? In truth, I can appoint anybody I want to be my attorney. There is no verification or otherwise until there is some form of dispute around the exercise of the power of attorney. In fact, the regulations may mean that we have stronger verification of the bona fides of the person who is a proxy than we would have through the LPA route. Does the Minister not also find it slightly sad that, given the type of Conservative I know my hon. Friend the Member for East Wiltshire is, he thinks the concept of being of good standing in society is somehow meaningless?
18 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fourth sitting) · Hansard source
More
rose—
18 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fourth sitting) · Hansard source
More
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
More
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
More
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
More
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
More
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
More
rose—
18 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fifth sitting) · Hansard source
More
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
More
A legal activity.
18 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty-fifth sitting) · Hansard source
More
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
More
In receipt of public funds—

Published records only — not a full account of an MP’s work. How we work →