Health Bill [HL]

I, too, support the amendment and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, for her excellent introduction to this short debate. I shall concentrate on the two ethical questions which the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, raised. The first related to the right of all human beings to have access to healthcare, which is included in a whole collection of international agreements, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which states that Governments may not limit equal access to healthcare. It seems that all sides of the Committee have a concern for compassion and a concern to establish that right of human access to healthcare. We have therefore come to a point where we need to find a way in which we can establish that. Much of the best information on destitution of, and healthcare for, asylum seekers and refused asylum seekers in Leeds comes from the Rowntree report, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, was one of the major contributors. That the need for mental healthcare among those who have come to our country fleeing torture derives originally from that torture but has been added to by destitution and the ways in which they have felt unwelcome within our own society is one of the reasons why it is important that we find a way in which we can provide properly for their healthcare. The noble Baroness developed fully the second major ethical issue; namely, that healthcare professionals are given by the present law the duty to consider a person’s immigration status rather than their need for care. That cannot be acceptable in any society, and the BMA has described it as such. I hope that we shall be able to find a way in which people from a wide variety of situations and political convictions can come together in compassion for some of those in most need in our society. Acceptance of this amendment or something like it would be a way in which we could signal our compassion and alleviate the fears not only of asylum seekers but of hundreds of others in our cities who are seeking to help them and who find it impossible to explain to them the justification for our present law.