Clause 4 - Best interests
Mental Capacity Bill
9:30 am
Mrs Angela Browning (Tiverton and Honiton, Conservative)
I am pressing the issue because when a Bill becomes an Act of Parliament, there are inevitably court cases in which people ask what Parliament's intention was when legislating. That is why I am asking the Minister, as the legislator, to put on record his understanding of the meaning of a word in his Bill. What is the meaning of the word ''treatment'', for the purposes of the Bill? I am referring not just to people in a permanent vegetative state, as I think I explained in our last sitting; in some ways, those are more complex cases. I am talking about the many thousands of people who may not be able to access nutrition and hydration by their own means, purely because of frailty and other such circumstances.
When we legislate, it is important that we and the people outside the House are clear about Parliament's intention. Again, I ask the Minister in charge of this Bill whether it is his understanding that, for the purposes of the Bill, the word ''treatment'' means hydration and nourishment, howsoever delivered?