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Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

I really cannot; I am so sorry to my hon. Friend.

We could have dealt with this over the summer; we had time to work on it. We could have included, for example, a clause that would have given an equal right to palliative care or a simple assessment of unmet need—something, anything, to allow there to be a genuine choice. But that opportunity is now gone.

Let me be absolutely clear about what today’s vote is and what it is not. It is not another vote on the principle of assisted dying as on an ordinary Second Reading debate, and the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood said that herself. It is not a vote to allow this House to improve the Bill. It is not even a vote to allow the other place to improve it, because that is not in this House’s hands. If this Bill is sent to the other place and falls for whatever reason—even if that is because Parliament prorogues early and it receives not a single further hour of debate—it could be forced into law as it is. The Hansard Society put it plainly in saying

“bills proceeding under the Parliament Act have been subject to only minimal amendment.”

The House needs to understand that the proposed approach requires

“preserving an unchanged bill with…defects”.

That is a very different decision.

I know that there will be Members in the House saying to themselves, “Nothing has changed since I voted for this before—why should I change my vote now?” My answer is simple. A great deal has changed, though not, unfortunately, in the Bill itself. We know more now than we did then, and changing one’s conclusion when the evidence changes is what Parliament is supposed to do.

We now have revised estimates from the Government showing that many more people may seek an assisted death than Members previously understood: up to 4,610 may apply in the first year, and up to 10,428 in year 10. That is more than 1,000 times the number going to Dignitas each year. That is not a slow run-up during which we can watch the system develop, identify mistakes and quietly correct them.