Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Baroness Lawlor and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Committee stage
Friday 24th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, we have now been debating this issue for just short of four and a half hours. It is my intention to bring proceedings to a close at around 3 pm. Both the Government and Opposition Front Benches have indicated to me that they wish to make contributions, so after the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, we should be looking to bring proceedings to a close. Maybe we will have one more speech after her—but then we want to hear from the Front Benches. Then we need to hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, and my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer before adjourning around 3 pm.

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

My Lords, the amendment this morning from the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, to the noble and learned Lord’s amendment asks us, when we note the progress of scrutiny today, to recognise the recommendations and findings of both House of Lords Committees: the Constitution Committee and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee.

The Constitution Committee is very concerned that, as a Private Member’s Bill, this Bill has not had the same kind of pre-legislative scrutiny and debate. It has not been in a manifesto and has not had the discussion or attention that a government Bill would have. Indeed, the committee points out—and we know this to be the case—that the impact assessments, which have been mentioned this morning, reached the House of Commons only after the Committee stage was concluded, on the first day on Report, 16 May 2025, after which it had two more days on Report. That is just over a month before the Third Reading in the Commons, which took place on 20 June.

In the words of the House of Lords Constitution Committee:

“The degree of deliberation, assessment and scrutiny is therefore significantly less than we would expect to see for an equivalent government bill”.


That is especially concerning given the subject matter of the Bill.

I point out, in response to the many people who have drawn attention to the fact that we have spent a lot of time scrutinising, that one of the bold print recommendations in the Constitution Committee’s report is that not only does the House of Lords play an important role in the legislative process but it is

“constitutionally appropriate for the House to scrutinise the Bill and, if so minded, vote to amend, or reject it”.

I shall not go into that point any more, but it is therefore wrong of the protagonists of the Bill to denounce the process of scrutiny that we have been doing and to accuse people who are trying to amend the Bill to make it better and safer, and indeed constitutionally to bring it up to the standard of a government Bill that has, as has been said, had all that time. I do not like the fact that reports have been given to the media suggesting that. In my experience in the House of Lords—I have not been here very long—people have been given a lot of time, including on government Bills, and Governments of both complexions have bent over backwards to be polite and take account of what Members have tried to do.

Apart from that, I will mention only one other point: delegated powers. There are many of them—we have heard today that there are 42 in the Bill, which is a particular problem. I will mention just one instance of a Henry VIII power that is worrying. It is just a technical one, but I was glad to support the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, on Clause 27, and later I had my own on Clause 37. These are to protect and regulate the supply of drugs that are designed to bring about death. They are called “approved substances” in Clause 27. We are not given any detail about the substances—no list or anything else—but are given just the meaning of an “approved substance”, without any details other than the meaning of a drug or other substance specified in the regulations in Clause 27, referred to again in Clause 37 with more about the powers to make provision on these.

These substances, as the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee notes, will be

“inherently dangerous and indeed necessarily lethal”.

What happens if someone has taken the substance but changes their mind? How rapidly would it work? Is it reversible, and how? What would the side-effects be? Bringing up such points as these may seem to protagonists of the Bill a matter of time-wasting and obstruction. But they should remember that this Bill will give Ministers—and often officials, as advisers—power to make very serious laws about regulation and determining safety, which we debate every day of the week in every other Bill that comes our way. We take a great deal of time on them, whether on the environment or anything else.

So it is very important that these matters be debated and gone into. It is important that there are answers in the Bill, as both committees want. With that, I beg the noble and learned Lord to regard the good faith with which people have tried to make his Bill better.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, we have had over four and a half hours of debate, and I want to begin to close as soon as we can after 3 pm. I will call three more speakers from the Back Benches and then move to the Opposition Front Bench. We will have three more brief contributions: the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, and my noble friend Lady Jay, former Leader of the House of Lords. Then we will move to the Front Benches.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Baroness Lawlor and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Committee stage
Friday 16th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, to help the Committee, I will interject to say that it has just gone 5 pm. Basically, we have two options. Both involve us finishing at 5.30 pm. We can either carry on this debate, which is absolutely fine. We have recorded the number of Lords who are present, so I can move to adjourn the House at a convenient point around 5.30 pm. Alternatively, if the debate is coming to an end, we can hear the Front-Bench speeches and then adjourn at 5.30 pm. I do not mind what we do, but we are going to adjourn at 5.30 pm. It is in the hands of the Committee.

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

My Lords, I have added my name to these amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Frost. I agree with what has been said. I agree with the need to avoid euphemism. The noble Lord, Lord Frost, raised the point, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, came back to it, that some will object to the phrase “commit suicide”, but I will make a stronger case on that point.

With regard to many cases of suicide, these reservations would be justified. “Commit” implies clear intention by the person concerned to take his own or her own life, but, as we have heard throughout this debate on the Bill so far, suicide can be the result not so much of firm, clear intent, but of the perpetrator sliding inexorably into hopelessness about the circumstances of their life or being confronted by a lack of help. If the inability to cope with such misfortune leads to depression and then suicide, I agree that it is misleading to talk of committing suicide, but the cases envisioned in this Bill are quite different. As the Bill makes clear, the person must have a clear, settled and informed wish to commit suicide. Here, then, “commit suicide” is indeed the appropriate phrase.

Moreover, the phrasing in the Bill, in terms of assistance to end one’s own life, carries, as has been said, a risk of confusion between what the Bill proposes—the deliberate action to bring life to an end—and the normal practice of doctors, as the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, mentioned earlier, which is to ease suffering and sometimes to use palliative measures that might, although this is not their aim, shorten life. The advocates of the Bill have often spoken in a way that blurs this distinction. It is important that the phrasing of the Bill guards against such confusion.