Marie Tidball MP: speeches

164 published records · newest first.

Speeches

6 Mar 2025 · International Women’s Day · Hansard source
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Is it not a positive development that our Government announced this week that young girls would no longer be placed in young offender institutions?
6 Mar 2025 · International Women’s Day · Hansard source
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Does my hon. Friend agree that she is a phenomenal role model, as a woman with a great knowledge of business? She brings her special expertise to Business and Trade Committee, having worked in the fashion industry.
5 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Eighteenth sitting) · Hansard source
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As my hon. Friend knows, I have a great deal of respect for him, so I gently say that if he brings forward similar amendments later in the Bill, I would be delighted to talk to him and I ask him to include mental disorders.
5 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Eighteenth sitting) · Hansard source
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I thank my hon. Friend for his amendments, and I agree with their principle. My concern is that, again, people with mental disorders are left out. Does he agree that, if there were a way to amend the Bill later so that they could be incorporated in these proposals, that would be a positive step forward?
5 Mar 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source
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Forty-eight children that we know of have been killed by known domestically abusive parents during court-permitted contact visits, including Paul and Jack Sykes, who were tragically murdered at the hands of their father in a house fire. Their mother, and my constituent, Claire Throssell has campaigned against the presumption of contact, which allows such abusers to have unsupervised contact with their children. Will the Prime Minister meet Claire and me to discuss the urgent need to remove the presumption of contact in law?
4 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Sixteenth sitting) · Hansard source
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I rise to speak in support of the hon. Member for Spen Valley. I thank her for driving amendment 183 forward and for taking on board my input and that of others on strengthening the language in the clause to include the amendment. I will set out why I support clause 4 overall, as augmented by the language in the hon. Lady’s amendment 183, along with amendment 275 from my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central, and amendment 108. To ensure that there is a compassionate choice at the end of life, it is right that the Bill is tightly drawn around the final stage of terminal illness for adults and includes the strongest safeguards. In my speech on Second Reading, I said: “The choice of assisted dying as one option for adults when facing six months’ terminal illness must be set alongside the choice of receiving the best possible palliative and end of life care, or it is no choice at all. Having analysed the Bill closely, therefore, there are changes I would want to see in Committee to strengthen those options and ensure the way that choice is presented by medical practitioners is always in the round.” —[ Official Report , 29 November 2024; Vol. 757, c. 1052.] I am satisfied that the amendments from my hon. Friends the Members for Spen Valley and for Sunderland Central will strengthen the Bill in that way, ensuring that choice for those seeking assistance is more efficient and effectively presented in the round by medical practitioners. Amendment 183, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley, emphasises that the initial discussion under clause 4(3) may not be conducted without also explaining and discussing the matters mentioned in subsection (4). It would ensure that the registered medical practitioner must explain to and discuss with the person their diagnosis and prognosis, any treatment available and its likely effect. Amendment 275, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central, would ensure that they also discussed “all available” palliative, hospice or other care, including symptom management and psychological support. I support amendments 183 and 275 because, having looked closely at barriers to access to healthcare for disabled people and others over the past 15 years, I believe in the need for transparency, accessibility and equality of choice of healthcare as a fundamental key principle. The BMA’s written evidence, at paragraph 5.6, sets out its support for clause 4. In particular, it expounds on the principle that there should be no prohibition on a doctor initiating discussion with a patient about assisted dying. Doctors should be trusted to use their professional judgment to decide when and if discussion about assisted dying would be appropriate, taking their cue from the patient as they do on other issues. The BMA goes further, stating: “Some patients find it difficult to bring up sensitive subjects in their consultations,” Being able to have these discussions is necessary and helpful.
4 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Sixteenth sitting) · Hansard source
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I will make progress. Clause 4 creates no duty to raise assisted dying, a point supported by the BMA. Keeping things secret is not helpful for the patient making such difficult decisions about how best to live their death with dignity and respect.
4 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Sixteenth sitting) · Hansard source
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With respect, I stood earlier and your colleague acknowledged it.
4 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Sixteenth sitting) · Hansard source
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I will make progress. In reply to a question from me about those who are seeking assistance, Dr Jane Neerkin, a consultant physician in palliative medicine, said: “For them, it is about trying to regain some of that control and autonomy and being able to voice for themselves what they want. That is what I tend to see that people want back at the end of life.” –– [ Official Report, Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Public Bill Committee, 29 January 2025; c. 201, Q263.] Importantly, amendments 183 and 275 would strengthen clause 4 to ensure that we avoid a situation that gives those with the most social capital more choice, while leaving those who might otherwise be unaware of all other options available to them without that choice. If the Bill is passed by Parliament without them, it will exacerbate health inequalities rather than abating them. Together, the amendments expound and elaborate on the need for discussion of all appropriate palliative and other end-of-life options available to someone with a six-month terminal illness. I commend them to the Committee.
4 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Sixteenth sitting) · Hansard source
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Yes. I did indicate that I would.
4 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Sixteenth sitting) · Hansard source
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I did earlier.
4 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Sixteenth sitting) · Hansard source
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rose—
26 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Fifteenth sitting) · Hansard source
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I am sorry, Mrs Harris, but I may have risen too soon. I want to speak to amendment 339, but I would first like to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford, who tabled it.
26 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Fifteenth sitting) · Hansard source
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Does the hon. Member therefore disagree with the British Medical Association, whose evidence to the Committee has said specifically: “We support the Bill’s balanced position such that there is no prohibition on raising assisted dying with eligible patients where, in their professional judgement, the doctor considers this to be appropriate—but there is also no duty to raise it”. The implication is that the Bill gets that balance correct.
26 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Fifteenth sitting) · Hansard source
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To build on the points the hon. Members for Reigate and for East Wiltshire were trying to make, does the Minister agree that a reasonable person on the street would believe that the act of disconnecting a respirator was a positive act? Currently, the Mental Capacity Act is applied to that act in relation to decision making; that is therefore analogous to the process for which it will be used in relation to this Bill.
26 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Fifteenth sitting) · Hansard source
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It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Harris. I will be supporting amendments 319 and 320 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford. I am a great admirer of my hon. Friend’s work in championing people with learning disabilities, and his mission to give them a strong voice in this Bill. It is an area very close to my heart, having spent over a decade and a half working with people with learning disabilities and the advocacy organisations that support them. I will, however, not be supporting my hon. Friend’s amendment 339, merely because I am drafting something to strengthen those measures even further. My amendments will go beyond amendment 339 and amend the code of practice so that seeking advocacy and access to an appropriate adult applies across the pathway to those seeking assistance, not merely in relation to the content of clause 4, as in that amendment. I want to ensure that access to an independent advocate or appropriate adult is expanded to cover those with autism, a learning disability or a mental disorder, which is not currently covered by amendment 339. That will enable those people to engage with any of the provisions under this Bill through the support that they would receive from an independent advocate or appropriate adult. As I say, I am also seeking to strengthen access to such advocacy across the pathway, through seeking assistance at each stage. I have huge respect for my hon. Friend, but I want to make sure that we specifically include the language of “mental disorder”, to make sure that that particular group of people with mental health problems is able to access independent advocates, as well as those with learning disabilities and autism. I am also looking at whether we need a consequential amendment or new clause that would make the Secretary of State put in place provisions for regulations as to the appointment of persons as independent advocates in order to ensure that those seeking assistance under the legislation who have a learning disability, autism or a mental disorder can have proper access to such advocates. That would strengthen the resource provision and access for that group. I have worked closely with Mencap on the amendments that I am drawing up and will continue to do so, and I would welcome input from my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford. Although I support his intent in principle, I will be tabling amendments to cover a broader group of individuals to access such appropriate adults and independent advocates, so that they can seek and access advocacy across the pathway and period of seeking assistance. My amendments would put access to appropriate adults and independent mental health advocates on a much firmer footing in the Bill.
25 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Thirteenth sitting) · Hansard source
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Just to clarify, I will not be supporting that amendment.
25 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Thirteenth sitting) · Hansard source
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I stand here as a disabled woman. Under the Bill, as a disabled woman, I would not —by reason only of being a disabled woman—be eligible to have access to assisted dying. The amendment clarifies that I would not be eligible only through being a woman who has a disability. However, if I develop a condition that means that I have a terminal illness, leaving me with only six months left to live, I would be permitted to have that choice. It is right, I think, that I should have that choice. As I said in my Second Reading speech, this is about giving people access to a good death and living a good death. This is about giving that choice, where they choose to make it, to disabled people, while building in sufficient safeguards so that this is not something pressed upon them—
25 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Thirteenth sitting) · Hansard source
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Does the Minister agree that the language of clause 2(1)(a)— “cannot be reversed by treatment”— is reassuring? Indeed, the written evidence from Professor Emily Jackson notes: “Someone with a condition that is not inevitably progressive, or which could be reversed by treatment, would be ineligible under the Act.” That covers the case raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich.
25 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Thirteenth sitting) · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend is correct in his interpretation of the judgments in those cases, but does he agree that the evidence given by Chris Whitty to clarify his statement was helpful in clarifying that the application of the test for capacity is heavily orientated towards the gravity and complexity of the decisions to be made? That is also underpinned, as my hon. Friend underlined, by the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley.
12 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source
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The hon. Gentleman may remember the speech that I made in the Chamber about my own experience of extreme physical pain, and indeed extreme physical suffering, as a child. The level of morphine that I needed was so high that my skin began to itch. I would not have voted for the Bill to proceed to Committee if it had been based on suffering. I voted for it because it was defined very tightly around the language of terminal illness. With the greatest respect to the hon. Gentleman, I think he undermines that case by arguing that we should move to the extremis and focus on pain. We all want to ensure that the Bill gives people the choice to seek assistance with six months’ terminality, set among other choices, including the ability to palliate and achieve other support at the end of life. I am afraid that the amendments would undermine that and, for the reasons that I set out on Second Reading and have just highlighted, I do not support them.
12 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source
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I am delighted that the right hon. Gentleman has made that point. Inserting the amendment—and the language of, and focus on, “benefit”—in a paragraph that deals with the two criminal concepts of coercion and pressure, actually undermines the existing focus of the paragraph. Does he agree that it is better and stronger to keep the focus on the two criminal concepts, which would require the mens rea—which I think some colleagues are indicating—and the actus reus, and that that is not achieved by inserting the language about benefits?
12 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source
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I thank the hon. Lady for the work she has done today. As a fellow new Member who sat on the Employment Rights Bill Committee, I can tell her that we debated many amendments from both sides. Sometimes, they arrived from both sides on the day and we had to absorb them on the day.
12 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source
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Okay. Would the hon. Lady not agree that it has been an extraordinarily rich discussion that reflects our ability to build on the oral evidence that we heard the week before last to develop amendments that reflect that evidence in an extraordinary scenario? This discussion is among the most deliberative that we have had.
12 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source
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Will the hon. Lady give way?

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