Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town and Baroness Cass

Committee stage
Friday 20th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, following that, I am concerned about whether I have read Amendment 553 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, correctly. She did say at the end that maybe not all her amendments were perfectly drafted, so I may have misunderstood it.

As I read the amendment—following after the new Clause 22, as my noble and learned friend has just said —it says that any person, not just a qualifying person,

“between age 18 and 25 wishing to receive assistance under the provisions of this Act must receive consent from a parent or guardian and must be accompanied by an independent advocate in addition to parent or guardian”.

I think I am correct in reading that as everybody, not just a qualifying person.

The idea is that someone at the age of 25 still needs a parent or guardian—if they even know where their parents are. Maybe it is partly because I was brought up in the forces, but I know of people who have taken major life and death decisions by the age of 25 while in charge of military units at war. I have known people—in fact, I see some around the Committee—who by the age of 25 have given birth to children, which seems to me an enormous decision that one takes. I, well below that age, took a decision that meant I would never have children. I know of surgeons who before the age of 25 have taken decisions of a life and death magnitude in surgery. There will be people now sitting on the Bishops’ Benches who will know of circumstances in which big decisions are taken by people well below that age.

I am really surprised that we would be writing this into the Bill for those people. Suddenly, at the point when they are terminally ill and dying, we say that, up to the age of 25, they have to locate a parent—whom they may not have seen for years—and, in addition to the parent, have to have an advocate with them. I find that extraordinarily devaluing of ordinary human life and the ability to take decisions.

As I say, I could have misunderstood the amendment. The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, said that she may not have drafted it correctly, so it may be that this should apply only to a qualifying person and not all people. I still have my doubts that we really need to treat adults as if they are really young children.

[Baroness Cass (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to a number of amendments in this group. I can be briefer on some because the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, has copied some of my homework and taken it as his own—which I take to be a good thing.