Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Baroness O'Loan and Lord Deben

Committee stage
Friday 21st November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I am not a lawyer, and it is dangerous to follow the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, but I think on this occasion he is mistaken. The fact that this kind of protection is not there until this Bill does not actually mean anything—perhaps it should have been there in any case—but, if we are going to have this protection, it needs to be proper protection.

I say to those who, at least today, live a privileged life that they ought to remember that there are many people in this country who, for the first time, are within touching distance of large sums of money, because the housing situation means that there are many old people who have houses of a value that those families have never seen ever before—grandma’s £200,000. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, that, as somebody who was a Member of Parliament for 40 years and works now in a community, that this is a very real fact, and we just have to accept that some people in this House are a long way away from those people. I was brought up in a slum parish by a clergyman. I have spent my life trying to deal with the very people we are talking about. I think these amendments are crucially important, because we are talking about circumstances which we are about to change deeply.

The fact is that the Bill itself changes the way in which we think about old age and infirmity. I desperately want people to know that they are always valuable and always got something to give, even at the end of life. This Bill removes that. If we are going to have it— I hope we will not, but if we are going to—we must make sure that people are protected not just from coercion but from encouragement, which I am afraid is sometimes driven by a sort of misunderstanding of what we can give. I can see people who will say, “You know that your grandson is in some real difficulty. You have a last opportunity to do something worthwhile. If you die now, your house will save his marriage, will save his firm and will look after his future”. That is what will happen. We, who are in happier circumstances, should just remember that we have a deep responsibility for those people.

[Baroness O’Loan (CB)]

My Lords, these amendments seek to prevent and/or identify coercive behaviours and pressure which may fall short of coercion, and situations in which vulnerable people may be encouraged to make what is actually an involuntary decision to end their own life that they would not otherwise have made. There is no definition of coercion or pressure in the Bill, although new offences are created by Clause 34. That is unfortunate.

Arrangements made did not enable the taking of evidence from those with disabilities until the recent Select Committee on the Bill. Liz Carr said in evidence to that committee:

“The absence of our … involvement has led to disability rights organisations making a formal complaint to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities”.


That is very serious. We know that 40% of those who die by assisted dying in Canada have lived with disabilities.

Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill

Debate between Baroness O'Loan and Lord Deben

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 15th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Loan]

I did not intend to imply in any way that Parliament is not sovereign, but there is no obligation under European law or international law to introduce abortion.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, from time to time we have to distinguish between what is utterly true, which is that Parliament is sovereign, and the particular circumstances in which that sovereignty is actually exercised. I am in the position of having been a passionate supporter—contrary to the views of the church of which I am an active member—of same-sex marriage. I do not think that anyone can suggest that I am holding things up because of my views on this. I happen to take a different view from the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, on abortion—perhaps that puts me into a rather special circumstance on this particular issue.

But I want to say to the noble Baroness that it is very difficult for any of us to get inside the minds of many people in the north of Ireland. That is a fact. We face a wholly different community from the communities to which most of us belong. That is true of people of all denominations, as a matter of fact. It is not an easy place to be. The difficulty that we have had of re-establishing devolved rule only shows how hard it all is. I have to say to my noble friend that many of us would like to see more signs of activity from the Government and the Secretary of State. I would like to feel that this was being pressed in a more active way than seems to be true—but perhaps it is being pressed and we do not know, so I do not want to carry that criticism too far.

But I beg people not to think that it is merely a matter of asserting the sovereignty of this Parliament to put through two changes in which they passionately believe—I passionately believe in one and passionately do not believe in the other. It is not just a matter of asserting our sovereignty. That is not how every community in the north of Ireland will see it. It will be seen as us deciding what we think is good for the Province.

Now I find that attractive because I very often want my opinions to be carried through more widely than they are. But we have already stretched the connection between us and the north of Ireland to breaking point over Brexit. I do not want to get into the nonsense that we have actually tried to carry through on Brexit when we ignored the problems of Ireland while going on about Brexit. We have already stretched that connection and are now suggesting that we stretch it even further. As the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, so remarkably put it, we are moving into a position in which false moves from us will change the whole nature of Northern Ireland.

There are those who want that and would see it as a benefit. But anyone here who cares about the unity of the United Kingdom should look very carefully at putting their perfectly reasonable personal views in front of the right of the Province to make up its own mind. After all, we specifically gave a series of things to Scotland, Wales and Ireland for people there to make up their own minds about.