Baroness Murphy: My Lords, I support this amendment. The problem is to do with so-called normal children. The noble Lord has already talked about the partial defence that is available to the mentally handicapped adult who is intellectually functioning, or who may have a developmental delay in other emotional areas as a result of learning disabilities, for example. The law provides for that, but developmental...
Baroness Murphy: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord. I think that he will find that it is the jury that finds for diminished responsibility as well. The judge recommends, but it is for the jury to find. It is a different verdict.
Baroness Murphy: My Lords, I repeat what I said in Committee in strong support for the amendment. I am particularly concerned—other people have not mentioned this—about people with peculiar mental states who will not now fit into the new criteria for diminished responsibility because they will not fit conveniently into the diagnostic and statistical manual and the international classification of diseases....
Baroness Murphy: My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for raising this debate. I want to concentrate on the problem of the relationships between GPs and community pharmacists, which have long been tense, but which can be changed for the better with the right policy incentives. From the 16th century until the mid-19th century, GPs and pharmacists were one and the same thing. They...
Baroness Murphy: Some of us believe in original sin and others do not. Perhaps the Daily Mail is going back to the original sin hypothesis. I am aware that in expressing my views on the amendment I was not hoping that we would obtain a reversal in the legislation; I admit that. I noticed that those who appeared to speak in its support were not speaking for the amendment. With friends like that, who needs...
Baroness Murphy: I move Amendment 161 with a degree of pessimism. We have already referred to the reversed provisions of doli incapax today, and I will be very brief. I was hoping that this would be debated before the other amendment on children, but I throw it in anyway and offer it for discussion. This amendment reverses the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 which, in turn, reversed the previous law that children...
Baroness Murphy: I have a number of amendments in this group. I will address developmental immaturity first, but before I do, I shall get in yet another side-swipe on the issue of diminished responsibility as a partial defence. Lawyers and psychiatrists—it is nearly always psychiatrists who appear in court—come from different planets. I think lawyers are from Mars and psychiatrists are from Venus, or...
Baroness Murphy: Perhaps the noble and learned Baroness will give way for a moment. Does she accept that in fact that is exactly what happens in relation to the current law of diminished responsibility? The jury makes the decision about the verdict in a case, and there are widespread differences between juries, just as there are widespread differences in time. That plea used to be used 130 times a year; now...
Baroness Murphy: I am very attracted to the ingeniously simple wording of the amendment and am a strong supporter of it. It would stop, as the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, said, the performance of stretching the criteria of diminished responsibility, which should surely be constrained to those whose diminished responsibility is a result of a mental disorder or disability or some other specific criteria. At the...
Baroness Murphy: I admit to having had an interest in the law on homicide ever since serving as a psychiatrist on Lord Lane's committee back in 1993 to consider the penalty for homicide. That report, like many others, recommended the abolition of the mandatory life sentence. It was binned immediately by the then Home Secretary, Michael Howard. As the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, said, the law is in...
Baroness Murphy: My Lords, I thank the Minister for her very helpful response. With that little hint of more money to come, I feel even more optimistic. I am very grateful for the wise contributions that have been made to the debate today. The personal story of the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, has moved us all and reminds us that we cannot take away the personal tragedy for the people who love those who suffer...
Baroness Murphy: My Lords, the average age of Peers in this House is 68, so I can tell noble Lords here today with some confidence that one third of us will die with dementia. It is us next. Dementia is the most feared illness of all. The writer AA Gill memorably described it recently as, "the unspeakable plague of our medically privileged generation". Dementia is dying of the self, bit by bit. Not just...
Baroness Murphy: As always, I have been stimulated and surprised at the elucidation of the law by listening to colleagues in the Committee discussing these amendments. I must confess that it had not sunk in—I had not clocked—that there was a possibility of going to this new figure, the Chief Coroner. For some of the cases I can immediately think about, that might address the issue of the public having...
Baroness Murphy: I apologise that I got the figure wrong. I must have had an earlier figure from when the 1988 Act was first enacted or from the next 10 years or so. I am still not entirely convinced that members of the public and relatives of patients and prisoners who die under distressing circumstances that are not obviously violent or untoward deaths would have reassurance without a jury. I am not sure at...
Baroness Murphy: I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 15 withdrawn. Amendments 16 and 17 not moved. Amendment 18 Moved by Lord Craig of Radley 18: Clause 7, page 4, line 29, at end insert— "(d) that the death occurred while the deceased was undertaking training carried out by Her Majesty's Forces, and either— (i) the death was a violent or unnatural one, or (ii) the cause of death is unknown,...
Baroness Murphy: I rise to speak for the first time on the Bill. I was unable to be present at Second Reading, but I want to express my thanks to my noble friend Lord Patel for his generosity in incorporating my main points in his Second Reading speech. I turn to this group of amendments, in which I have two with slightly different implications. We come to address the rules that deal with when a coroner must...
Baroness Murphy: My Lords, does the Minister accept that, given the political realities that have been described, while we currently invest £70 billion in the criminalisation policy, there is ample evidence from abroad that more effective means of harm reduction can be brought about by the policies that go alongside? Does he also accept that the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, that there are...
Baroness Murphy: My Lords, we are here today to praise the value of work, but I cannot help remembering that some wit said that if work was such a wonderful thing, surely the rich would have kept it all to themselves. Looking around, I see that there are many of my colleagues in the House today. We are addicted to work because it keeps us connected to a community that we share values with. I do not think we...
Baroness Murphy: My Lords, I hope noble Lords will forgive me if I seem to be turning into a legalistic nit-picker here today, because I am exceedingly sympathetic to what they are driving at. I am particularly sympathetic to Amendment 34 about the prize. Of course, it is an NHS prize, meant for the delivery of innovation in NHS care. Quite whether this is the right amendment to ensure that the right people...
Baroness Murphy: My Lords, I cannot help but be sympathetic to the amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Howe, and recognise the points that have been made by my noble friend Lord Walton. However, this seems to me to come down to the matter raised by the noble Earl who is ultimately responsible for the commissioning of these services, which legally is the primary care trusts or another NHS authority. It seems...