My Lords, it is in the very best traditions of this House that there is standing room only at this debate on a Friday. It is entirely appropriate, is it not, given the profound issues that are involved? I have no doubt at all that the
country will be watching and listening to this debate in a way in which it perhaps has not done since the last of these debates, because this is one in a series. Like other noble Lords, I have taken part in all those debates; I come at the subject from having spent six years in the early part of my legal career as a part-time assistant to a part-time coroner and occasionally deputising for him. I was very vividly thrown up against the issues that are at the root of this legislation. I have to confess—I see the noble Lord, Lord Joffe, sitting yonder—that whereas I was wholly unconvinced when the noble Lord started his pilgrimage, the Bill contains the sort of protections that could make it one which we should support, given that it blocks off the thin-end-of-the-wedge fears that many of us had formerly.
I will make only one major point. We do not want to go from a situation where, as now, you have to be rich enough to go to Switzerland to get some sort of justice in these complicated matters. However, we could be in a comparable if lesser dilemma because of the cost which will attach to going to the High Court—with representation, as one would have to have—and getting an order. I have no doubt that the cost will be more than most of us expect and more than some of us fear, and legal aid is now available only to people at a very low level of income, and it will leave at least 80% of the public of this country unsustained if they wish to use the remedies that the Bill will provide. That is not right in a matter of death. One of the things we need to contemplate is whether we have some special arrangements for this life and death matter.
Secondly, the noble Lord who produced the Bill has done wonderful work, and those who tabled the amendments—the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and my noble friend Lord Carlile—have also done great work. However, there is a huge number of problems at the back of either amendment; a great number of issues that have not been considered carefully, in the round, and reported on. I hope very much that we will not vote on these amendments now or indeed at all today, because we all need time to reflect on and contemplate them. However, I would like us to think about—and, if necessary, to form— an ad hoc group to report on whether one could not deal with the issue at the heart of these amendments just as well by having either a county court judge or a special panel of justices of the peace to determine the issues concerned. Some may think, “That’s not good enough”. As one who spent a lot of time in magistrates’ courts and county courts in years past, I do not hold that view. In some ways, given that the issues are—how shall I put it?—common-sense life experience issues that will have to be determined by whoever adjudicates on this, I am not so sure that a county court judge or a panel of magistrates might not be at least as good, competent and able to undertake the decisions involved.