Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Baroness O'Loan and Lord Markham

Committee stage
Friday 23rd January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

Yes, absolutely. That is what these debates are all about: trying to find an approach that makes assisted dying tight and safe, safeguarding all sorts of vulnerable groups, but also navigable. I know that is what the sponsors of the Bill are trying to do and what the noble Lords are trying to do in this amendment. I commend the amendment for that reason. I do not think they are trying to be prescriptive. They are trying to start a conversation with the Bill’s sponsors that will go on between now and Report, which is an entirely constructive way to do it.

On how the service is best provided, I was on the Select Committee and it is one for the NHS to commission in the best way. Commissioning can use the NHS or voluntary services, and I think we would all agree that, in the hospice sector, voluntary services provide very well. It is wrong at this stage for us to try to be prescriptive in terms of a one-size-fits-all NHS provision. The main thing on these amendments is trying to get a constructive approach, which I am sure the Bill’s sponsors will pick up, to how we make this as simple as possible to use for those who are in the most distressing period of their lives, when they have less than six months to live and they want to die in a method of their choice and in the most comfortable way possible.

[Baroness O'Loan (CB)]

My Lords, of the 43 amendments in this group, 35 are in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Pannick and Lord Birt. They propose a framework for a completely new process outside that already created by this defective Bill, requiring a service of both advice and assistance. This includes the provision of assisted suicide every day of the year, including public holidays, Christmas, Easter et cetera, from 8 am to 6 pm, unless the doctor is in the house where the drug is being administered, in which case he has to stay. As has been said, there is no impact assessment on the cost of this new service and it is a relevant matter. Concerns must arise, given the advice of the Health Secretary that there is already a lack of access to high-quality end-of-life care and that there are tightened finances within the NHS, which could add to the pressure faced by dying patients.

These amendments require a new service that must be part of the NHS. We have heard arguments against that, and I support them. They impose deadlines and create processes for enforcing those deadlines, which will provide assisted death at a time when the person who is terminally ill will, in many cases, struggle to access palliative care; they may even never be able to do so.

The assisted suicide service would take priority. There is no process, as has been said, for a personal guide to get palliative care or the necessary social care. Would the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, be willing to accept amendments that would require palliative care treatment options to be available and accessible within similar structures and timeframes?

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Baroness O'Loan and Lord Markham

Committee stage
Friday 12th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O’Loan (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her intervention. It is of course the case that the Select Committee was very truncated in its ability to hear evidence. That was a decision of the House and, although we would have preferred to hear evidence from others, it was not possible.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I just say, if I may, as a member of the Select Committee, that it was decision by the Select Committee not to hear from terminally ill people. It was not to do with the time available; it was to do with the majority of the committee being opposed to hearing from terminally ill people.

[Baroness O’Loan (CB)]

I cannot comment on the deliberations of the committee. I think there are others here who possibly can.