Kidney Transplant Bill [HL]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on bringing forward the Bill. I understand her frustration when she thought that presumed full consent was not going to be available in the near future. However, I am sure that the Prime Minister’s statement at the weekend has given her hope, as it has given me. As many noble Lords will know, my youngest daughter developed diabetes when she was four and a half. This year, she had to have both her legs off. I thought I would come here today and put forward arguments that nobody could deny about the need for full presumed consent. I thought my arguments would be so strong that nobody could deny them. The facts and figures would all be there. Then I rang my daughter this morning, and she was yawning. I said to her, ““You could do with a lie in, Janet””. She said quietly and simply, ““Mum, I can never have a lie in””. Those words brought home to me what it must be like to be attached to a machine all night and every afternoon. How you are restricted in what you can do and where you can go. How you think, ““Why I am here? Why can I not do these things?”” Yet she, like so many other brave people, knows that out there there is somebody with a kidney that would give her hope and more freedom who would, if asked, give a kidney to enable her to have a fuller life. She and other brave people like her are my reason for wanting full consent. I do not need any other.