Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Baroness Blackstone Excerpts

Friday 5th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for his intervention. I recall one of my first horrific experiences in your Lordships’ Chamber when I sat on those Benches. We were speaking about a Bill to which the noble Lord was opposed, and he asked the Front Bench to say I was out of order in speaking because I had gone out to get a glass of water, even though I had sat through not only that debate but all the previous debates. That hardened me to those sort of objections to free speech in your Lordships’ Chamber, and I was very disappointed in that debate and others to have noble Lords from the other side shouting at me, “Shame! Shame!” if I mentioned a view with which they disagreed. So I will persist with addressing my compromise Motion amendment, and I hope I will be brief, but if noble Lords continue to interrupt me, that will make it more difficult.

We have heard—I will not repeat the arguments—that 18 is too young given what we know about neurological science. I have one piece of evidence to add for the whole House, not for the private discussions which might take place. As I understand the rules, this is a Committee of the whole House. So we have heard about that, and I will return to that with one additional piece of information. We have heard also that the law recognises the special vulnerability of young people until the legal age of majority and how it supports different routes.

I go back to something the noble Lord, Lord Moore, said. He referred to how difficult it was for younger people, and even those who may not have given a great deal of thought to the subject, to address dying. I would add to that: to understand what it is to choose to die. For most, the thought of death is distant, and the way society has been conditioned to see death in rather euphemistic terms, in the very language we use, reinforces that remoteness. In the multigenerational families of the past, where the members shared a house, visited frequently, supported one another in all the challenges they met every day in life, death, with its traditional rituals—the funeral and the period of mourning—were ever-present in the lives of children as they grew up. I remember, as a very young child, seeing a mother who had died in childbirth—

[Baroness Blackstone (Lab)]

I apologise for interrupting the noble Baroness, but I think the Committee has really made it clear—

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Baroness Blackstone (Lab)]

May I finish what I am saying? My noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton has already made the concession that he would like very much to discuss this point. Will the noble Baroness please go straight to the compromise she is proposing, rather than referring to various other speeches that have already been made?