Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Baroness Grey-Thompson and Baroness Berridge

Committee stage
Friday 9th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

The noble Baroness used the phrase “moral pressure”. I mentioned in my speech that this is a fundamental change. If Clause 3 has gone, not by way of clause stand part, then actually, “pressure” has now gone from the test here. We now have “undue influence or coercion”, not “dishonesty, coercion and pressure”. Does she have any view—I mentioned domestic abuse victims—on whether that makes any change to the safety of the Bill for disabled people?

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

Oh, absolutely: I think pressure is something incredibly important that we have to assess. Certainly, from the huge number of disabled people I have spoken to, pressure comes in many different ways, and it is very difficult to detect. If we do not take that seriously, I think people will be coerced into thinking that this is their only option, rather than that they have a range of options. That is picked up in some of my other amendments, but I thank the noble Baroness for her intervention.

We talked about the equality impact assessment. We need to look at the impacts on the Crown Court, on health and education committees and on children with SEND, and I think we probably need another version of the equality impact assessment to enable us to make the best decision on the way forward for the Bill. I am minded to support my noble friend Lord Carlile, because I think that what he proposes is much better than the panel currently in the Bill.

Mindful of time, I will leave my last comment to the Medical Defence Union, the leading indemnifiers of UK doctors, which gave evidence to the Commons Bill Committee:

“The involvement of the judiciary is essential. Its absence leaves doctors unduly exposed. Media reports suggest that an alternative safeguard is being mooted”—


noble Lords should understand that this was the context when the evidence was given—

“No ‘independent panel’, however so constituted, can replace the legal authority of a course of action sealed and ratified by a judge. Doctors deserve that certainty when relying upon this Bill to provide the very best for their patients at the most delicate moment of their duty of care”.


This is one group we have not really heard a lot from, and we should be minded of its role in the system as well.