Clause 4 - Best interests
Mental Capacity Bill
9:30 am
Mr David Lammy (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs; Tottenham, Labour)
May I say to the hon. Lady, looking her in the eye and answering her question directly, that she is attempting to push me down a medical road? It is for Parliament not to substitute the judgment of the medics, nurses, carers and parents in our hospitals, but to give them the framework in which to make difficult decisions. That is why the Bill talks about best interests and why we are preoccupied with them at this point in Committee. That is the judgment that we require of our medics. It is not for me to tell our doctors—many of whom have 15, 16 or 17 years of neurological expertise, which I do not have—how they should make those fine judgments on care and treatment.