Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

Friday 30th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, I will briefly follow on from the noble Lord on the issue of overengineering. I had great sympathy with the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, and I suspect that there is widespread support in the Committee that face-to-face consultations should, in general practice and in the norm, be what happens in these circumstances. We get into great difficulty when we micro-legislate to cover every single circumstance that might occur. A code of practice is a more reasonable and flexible document to deal with this. The noble Lord shakes his head, but he just spoke about the dangers of having anyone else in the room in a consultation because of the possibility of coercion, yet the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, spoke potently about how important it was for there to be a family member, or support, or someone who could hear.

[Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP)]

I was not speaking against someone being in the room. I am speaking about someone being in the room whenever it is on Zoom or on camera and not in person, because you do not know whether the person in the room is privately and secretly coercing that person.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

I understand that the noble Lord was talking about a subset of consultations, but this is my point: I think he accepted that there might, in any process, be exceptional circumstances where a consultation was not in person. I am just saying that, even in that narrow subset, there might be a reason for another person to be in the room. I am not talking about that specific point; I am trying, in general, to suggest that we should try to lay down some principles but not try to overengineer and cover every possible circumstance.

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)]

My Lords, like the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, I will respond to the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone. She seemed to express a kind of common-sense view that of course we all agree that it is much better to have face-to-face interviews, and we have heard all sorts of evidence today from the medical profession and the legal profession about how that is much better. The noble Baroness thinks there should be a code of practice. I agree, but surely that code of practice should be about where there are exceptions. It would be much safer to have a Bill in which it is specified that interviews should be face to face, except for certain exceptions laid out in a code of practice. Surely it should be that way around in order that we have as safe a Bill as possible.