Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 16th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton (CB)]

My Lords, I hope the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, will forgive me for intervening at this stage. I know we are all in a hurry, and I have not got my name on any of the amendments—yet. Noble Lords will know that I have been away for over six months because of an accident on the high seas, when I found myself hurled across the room by a wave. I broke my leg, I dislocated my shoulder, and I had all sorts of internal injuries. I spent the next six weeks in St Thomas’ Hospital, instead of here talking about the Bill. I do not know quite where I would have rather been, but I am here now. I hope noble Lords will forgive my late interventions having not been at Second Reading, but I am jolly pleased to be back, and thank noble Lords for their welcome, which has been very nice.

I want to say something very briefly about burden and motivation. We all know that burden is one of the primary reasons for people to seek an assisted death. That is not only in the conversations I have had here, but we know it is the primary reason throughout the world. Burden is real. It is why, in another life, I set up the organisation the National Centre for Independent Living, because I realised there were hundreds of disabled people living in institutions or in their mum and dad’s back room, basically just surviving, not living.

I also campaigned for a law called the direct payments Act, with which the noble Lord, Lord Harper, will be very familiar. That allowed severely disabled people to employ their own personal assistants, so that they would no longer be a burden on their families. No one wants to rely on their families or their spouses. I certainly do not want to have to rely on my husband to get me up in the morning or to put me to bed at night. I am his wife: he is not my carer; he is my husband. And that is a good relationship.

There is an answer to burden, and it is good social care support. Good infrastructure or technology allows you to be independent and not to be a burden on others, but to begin to plot your life as you want it to be. I know this because I have helped hundreds of disabled people to do it. Some of them had progressive conditions and would not live for long, but the lives they had for those years were good lives—good months and good weeks.

I am not saying that it is always the answer, but we surely must find out from anybody who is asking for their life to be ended, “What are your reasons? Is it because you do not have adequate social care? Is it because you cannot get out of your house, because nobody from the local authority has come to build you a ramp?” For disabled people, people with terminal illnesses and people with progressive conditions, these small things can make the difference between them wanting to die and them not wanting to die.

I know this, because they have told me. Many disabled people come up to me and say, “Jane, you know, I love my independent living and I love my direct payments. If that was taken away and I was forced to go into an institution against my will, I do not know what I would do. I would probably ask for an assisted death”. They were not joking. It is the truth. We should all think about motivation and that is why I support this suite of amendments. We have not really grasped that nettle.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, I too warmly welcome the return of my noble friend Lady Campbell—the most extraordinary person and advocate for disabled people and so many more in our societies. I just remind the Committee that, in all these discussions about burdens and people who have had a stroke— I am terribly sorry that the husband of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, had a stroke—we are talking about six months for somebody who has been diagnosed with a terminal illness. We should reflect on and remember that in all our deliberations on the Bill.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I may just build on that, because the noble Baroness is quite right that it is six months. This is absolutely about choice, and behind that choice is the person’s motivation. Of course pain is a very valid reason, but it is not the only reason as, again, research has shown. For lots of people it is about the loss of dignity. For others, it is about the loss of control of bodily functions or about losing autonomy. It is about being less able to engage in enjoyable activities.

Yes, sometimes it is about feeling a burden, inadequate pain controls or financial concerns as well, but that shows that it is a complex area. On average, people gave three or four different reasons or motivations. It is not for us to assess what a valid or invalid motivation is. We should be considering whether there is any coercion in those decisions but, beyond that, it is absolutely about choice. Recognising choice is about people having their own motivations behind this. It is not for us to decide whether they are valid or not.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, I recognise that the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, will have heard this before, as will have many others, but the fact of the matter is that the Bill talks about assisted dying. “Dying” tells you what it is all about, so I do not think that we need to have the word “suicide”. I say this because I have spoken with the families and loved ones of people who wish to have an assisted death; those who wished that their loved ones had had an assisted death, because they could see the suffering endured by the person who died and the people who were caring for them; and those who are left behind. I have had many conversations and those people all feel strongly that those who want to have an assisted death are not committing suicide; they want to regain some control and want to live for the last few months of their life with some comfort. Just because they ask for an assisted death does not mean that they are actually going to fulfil that, but it gives them and their families comfort. So, please, can we not talk about suicide? We are talking about dying and that is absolutely fine. I do not wish for the people who are already suffering or the people who are caring for them to have more distress in their lives.

[Lord Moore of Etchingham (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I find it strange that the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, should be making the argument that the word “dying” tells us all that we need to know. If that were so, we would not need the Bill. The Bill is about a very specific thing, which is choosing to end your own life and getting help with it. The importance of clarity and frankness in language in the making of law is very great. It must be distinguished from perfectly legitimate what I shall call political language.

Take, for example, the right to life, which is one side of the argument in another matter, and the right to choice. Those are both perfectly good phrases about the subject of abortion, but they were not suitable phrases for law. When you talk about law, the word that should be used is “abortion”. That is what is actually happening. I am not saying that there is any dishonesty here, but it is inappropriate for the making of law.

I strongly support what the noble Lord, Lord Frost, said about possible ambiguities and misunderstandings. I give an example, which is nothing whatever to do with assisted dying, but it just illustrates the point. As we ran up to the 1983 general election, Labour had a policy of unilateral disarmament. The Tories were against unilateral nuclear disarmament and attacked it. Somebody wrote a letter to the Daily Telegraph saying, “I do not think people know what the word ‘unilateral’ means, and if you call it ‘one-sided disarmament’, people will understand what this is about”. The Tories seized that, suddenly changed all their propaganda to talk about one-sided disarmament and the polls shifted very dramatically against one-sided disarmament. The importance of normal English is very significant. Again and again, we can see public confusion, which must be avoided, about what is actually proposed in the Bill.

Finally, there is a contradiction in the arguments made by supporters of the Bill—I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, was in this situation. Since the greatest thing that is being argued for by supporters of the Bill is autonomy, it is important to have a word or phrase that embodies that autonomy and shows who is making this decision and whose agency it is. The phrase “committing suicide” exactly establishes the agency and exactly shows the autonomy. It is contradictory to advocate for autonomy and then to take refuge in euphemism.

Women’s Health Strategy

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

This is a very important point. The 10-year health plan restated the aim of eliminating cervical cancer by 2040 through the improved uptake of cervical screening and HPV vaccination. To the specific point, which is such an important one, in June—not many months ago—we announced that screening providers can offer home testing kits to underscreened individuals in the exact groups that the noble Lord refers to. I believe this will help tackle deeply entrenched barriers that keep some people away from life-saving screening. I am sure the whole House will reflect on the wise words and advice of His Majesty the King in imploring us all to take up the screening opportunities that there are. I certainly agree with that.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, as noble Lords will know, women over the age of 50 are particularly susceptible to fractures as a result of osteoporosis. The Government have announced that they are going to have fracture liaison services throughout the country by 2030. I wonder whether, as part of the women’s health strategy, the Government could begin the rollout of the fracture liaison services urgently.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

As my noble friend rightly observes, the Government have committed to rolling out fracture liaison services across every part of the country by 2030. We already expect musculoskeletal services to be fully incorporated into integrated care planning and decision-making. I am also glad that, since 2022, NICE has recommended two new drugs for treatment. The women’s health strategy will look at what gaps there are in the original strategy, but this is one area in which progress is already committed to.

Resident Doctors: Industrial Action

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon Excerpts

Monday 15th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I certainly understand the noble and right reverend Lord’s point. The offer we made—which covered a number of the areas that the noble and right reverend Lord referred to, plus more—is not applicable because it was not accepted. We put it forward, developed it further and did all we could that was realistic. The noble and right reverend Lord asked whether it is funded, but I will change the tense of his question: it would have been funded, but the offer was rejected and therefore is no longer on the table. That is why it is not going ahead.

On waiting lists, as I mentioned to the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, we have proved that we can maintain a near full programme of elective work, with 95% of planned care being maintained—and, again, let us pay tribute to the NHS staff who have done that. But let us not suggest that there are no effects. It affects the staff who step in to cover for their colleagues. We have an NHS in desperate need of reform. We are turning it around, but these strikes get in our way. As I mentioned, we cannot underestimate the amount of effort, finance, direction and morale—the list could go on—that these strikes take up. I am grateful to the noble and right reverend Lord for raising those points.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, I share the outrage, fury and frustration about this industrial action. My noble friend the Minister and others around the Chamber are absolutely right to pay tribute to the workforce, and I give a particular shout-out to nurses. We are always focused on doctors—I hope noble Lords present who are doctors will forgive me—but nurses do a splendid job, and too often we forget that they work for relatively little pay as well.

I was glad that when the Secretary of State was negotiating, he was talking about the training places, because the training bottleneck is absurd. I know many brilliant young resident doctors who are so frustrated and have a terrible deal, so I urge my noble friend to pass on to the Secretary of State my view that, when he is next around the negotiating table, training places should be there in the negotiations.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

My noble friend rightly refers, as I did earlier, to the training bottleneck. The Secretary of State was glad to acknowledge the need to tackle training. While he felt that there was no point on pay to be accepted, he certainly felt that the BMA resident doctors committee had a good point on jobs. To be honest, that is why it is so disappointing to be where we are today.

I will pass on my noble friend’s generous comments to the Secretary of State. He offered to introduce emergency legislation in the new year to prioritise UK medical graduates and other doctors with significant experience of working in the NHS in speciality training posts. That would have made a huge difference, but it has been rejected. He also offered to increase the number of training posts over the next three years, from the 1,000 that was originally announced to 4,000, bringing forward 1,000 of those training posts to start next year—that would have made a huge difference. I could go on, but I have made my point.

I agree with my noble friend’s point about acknowledging the role of nurses. In fact, if my noble friend will allow me, I will go further: we are talking about the whole healthcare team. That is another point to the issue on pay: while the BMA doctors committee continues to press for a pay deal far in excess of anything that anyone else is getting, the impact across the NHS, both on staff and on services, continues to be under threat—and we cannot allow that.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 12th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O’Loan (CB)]

My Lords, I have put my name to Amendment 16. I also support Amendments 16A, 114 and 114A because the very general definition in Clause 1 of a terminally ill adult who has the capacity to take their own life does not contain any consideration of those who have been deprived of their liberty under Section 4 of the Mental Capacity Act. It is an unfortunate reality that many of those detained in hospitals or care homes are detained because they lack the capacity to make a decision about their own care or treatment. As the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, said, in such circumstances it is surely axiomatic that there should be careful consideration of cases involving individuals subject to a DoLS.

As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, said, even assessing the capacity of someone with dementia or another neurological condition, for example, can be profoundly difficult. This is not just because of the frequent fluctuation of both capacity and the extent to which any identified capacity enables the making of a particular decision; a medical practitioner or social worker who meets a person for the first time may be misled as to the capacity they actually have. As the Royal College of Psychiatrists noted in its written evidence,

“an assessment of a person’s mental capacity to decide to end their own life is an entirely different and more complex determination requiring a higher level of understanding”

than in other assessments of capacity.

In the 1997 case of Re MB, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said:

“The graver the consequences of the decision, the commensurately greater the level of competence required to take the decision”.


Capacity assessment is not a precise science. The unique context of this Bill makes taking a cautious approach appropriate. It is common sense that there is a likely correlation between incapacity in one area, so extreme that the state must deprive the person of their liberty, and incapacity to decide whether to end one’s own life. People whose incapacity for basic decisions is so severe that they are deprived of their liberty are the most vulnerable members of society.

I want to give your Lordships a brief example. I was aware of a woman in her late 80s who had been assessed and was subject to a DoLS. She objected to it and appealed against it. Intellectually, she was enormously able, possessed of considerable social skills despite her dementia. She was able to persuade those dealing with her appeal that she had capacity despite the very real concerns of her family, who knew the extent of her incapacity. The DoLS was lifted and she went back to her own home. Shortly afterwards, she was found playing golf in the road in her pyjamas at two o’clock in the morning. She was going to the supermarket at 4 am. She was leaving the door unlocked all night for her husband and cooking his dinner every night; he had died some 20 years previously.

That lady was my mother. She certainly would not have understood a suggestion that she should opt for an assisted death. The DoLS was subsequently reinstated. This is not an unusual situation. If the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, rejects these amendments, how does he consider that such vulnerable individuals can be protected from making this final decision, although they may not understand exactly what they are doing?

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, forgive me. What the noble Baroness is saying is extremely interesting, but the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, has already said that he will seek a meeting with the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and all other noble Lords who are interested in this. He is not rejecting the amendments; he is willing to enter into a discussion.

[Baroness O’Loan (CB)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that helpful intervention, but we do not know what the outcome of that meeting will be. I think I have the right to make my remarks.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 21st November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)]

It will depend on the circumstances. If, for example, the doctor had a very severe doubt about whether somebody was being coerced, I would expect them to ask very many questions about their domestic circumstances. Suppose, however, it was somebody who was clearly not, on the face of it, at the slightest risk of coercion—a person of 60 in the full flush of his or her pomp, as it were—and who had said, right from the outset, “I can’t bear the thought of this illness”, and the idea that this person has been coerced is not really plausible, then I would expect the doctor to be asking different questions from the sorts of questions that they would be asking if the circumstances of somebody’s home life were completely different. It would obviously depend on what you knew as the doctor, or had found out as the panel, about the circumstances of the individual.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

I apologise for interrupting my noble and learned friend, but I just point out that the BMA itself is very clear that the doctors should be able to make their own judgment in all these cases.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)]

As I understand it, Amendment 222, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, would establish a specialist service to provide psychological assessment and support and then bereavement support for those seeking an assisted death. My noble friend Lady Merron has indicated the difficulties in relation to that. On the question of a psychological assessment, the position is that some work has been done abroad in relation to this. California introduced, in addition to what was required by the law in a particular part of California, a psychiatric assessment for everyone who wanted an assisted death but concluded that that was not necessary because the numbers of psychiatric assessments were producing nothing. It was only where special requirements were required that suggested it was a good thing. So I respect the suggestion but I do not think it is necessary.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 19th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the Bill. I'm grateful to Kim Leadbeater for her work, and to advocates such as my courageous friend Esther Rantzen. I am also grateful to my noble friend Lady Berger for showing us a way forward, in terms of a committee, and for setting out a clear timetable.

While I warmly welcome the compassionate and moderate tone of last week’s debate, from which we learned a lot, like my noble friend Lady Thornton, I was dismayed at the conflation made by some of suicide and assisted dying. This is not just about careless language; it is actively damaging to people who are already suffering. Let us be clear: people who choose assisted dying are not suicidal. They are dying and they want to regain some choice, control and dignity where it has otherwise been stripped away. We should hear the views of terminally ill people, some of whom had a letter published in the Independent this week:

“We are not suicidal – we want to live, and to make the most of the time we have left with the people we love. But we are dying and we have no choice or ability to change that … We are not seeking to make a choice between living and dying but between two kinds of death … To equate choice and control over the timing and manner of inevitable and imminent death with suicide is deeply insensitive to those of us facing this position”.


Australia’s leading suicide prevention organisations have warned that confusing these terms can delay access to suicide prevention services for people in distress, and complicate or delay care for people with terminal illness who are seeking an additional choice at the end of life. When in 2021 I asked the Government to provide data on the number of people who take their own life every year, I did so because this debate needs to be guided by evidence and the lived experience of dying people and their families. The best available evidence estimates that around 300 terminally ill people end their own life at home every year in England. These deaths are recorded as suicides, but it is clear from talking to and listening to bereaved family members that these are not people who wish to end their own life but people who are taking drastic and often violent steps to control an inevitable and imminent death.

There is absolutely no evidence that assisted dying undermines or runs counter to effective suicide prevention strategies, nor is there evidence to suggest that legalised assisted dying leads to a shift in attitudes towards suicide. Figures from Victoria in Australia show a slight decrease in suicide rates since it introduced assisted dying.

In 2021, at Second Reading of the Assisted Dying Bill of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, I said:

“The current blanket ban on assisted dying does not eradicate demand for choice at the end of life; it simply forces people to take matters into their own hands in loneliness and in fear”.—[Official Report, 22/10/21; col. 495.]


Those words remain true today. We continue to hear of dying people taking their own life and we continue to hear about the devastating impact this has on their families. It is time to change the law.

I am a humanist. I respect those who believe in the sanctity of life and I subscribe to many of their values, but this Bill will not compel anyone to act against their conscience. It provides agency and choice for people who are near death, with the ability to decide how they spend their final days—whether they have faith or no faith. I am confident that the scrutiny of the Bill will be as robust in your Lordships’ House as it was in the Commons. We will do our work with compassion and diligence, improving the Bill, including by making anorexia outwith the Bill. But we must always be mindful of our duty to respect the primacy of the Commons.

Prostate Cancer

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful for this debate, understanding that when men have prostate cancer and when they die, their loved ones also suffer. I welcome the review by the national screening committee, and I look forward to its conclusions. But in parallel, there must be change in the guidance given to GPs to ensure that men at the highest risk are informed of the risk and offered a PSA test.

If the screening committee decides to recommend targeted screening, which I fervently hope that it will, it will take years to implement. It is crazy that current NHS guidelines prevent GPs discussing the disease with those who are most likely to have it, and late diagnosis of incurable cancer. The system benefits men who are aware of the issue and able to interact with doctors, entrenching biological and societal inequalities. It cannot be right that it is awareness, not risk, that determines who gets tested. This exacerbates inequality and leads to death. Surely, if a GP is in front of a black man or a man with a family history of the disease, they should say, “Have you thought about a test for prostate cancer?” The noble Lord, Lord Patel, and others rightly say that PSA tests are not always accurate. Yes, we need better tests, but, in the meantime, we have PSA tests, so let us use them, because targeted testing saves lives.

Raising awareness is critical. and I pay tribute to the wonderful work of charities such as Prostate Cancer UK, with its great campaigns and whose badge I usually wear. I urge the Minister to work closely with those charities and to embrace the research they are undertaking all the time. I look forward to a positive response from her.

Draft Mental Health Bill

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

As noble Lords discussed during the Health and Care Bill, prevention is crucial. One thing I became aware of when I became a Minister was, when talking to the NHS and others, how they want to move away from purely curing to prevention. In response to the noble Baroness’s specific question, I commit to write to her on the exact allocation of that, but there is one area that plays an incredibly important role. We know, for example, looking back on the crisis, that when we did not know how long it would last, that created a lot of uncertainty. Uncertainty is very unbalancing for people, and it is a huge factor in them having mental health issues. Clearly, one of the issues that came up during the Bill was the use of civil society organisations, social prescribing, music and art therapy, but also conversations—people being able to talk to someone about the issue they are facing and feeling they are not alone. Clearly, that is something we have looked at, in terms of prevention, but in response to the specific question I commit to write to the noble Baroness.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sure that prevention will be part of the new 10-year mental health strategy—or I hope that it will be—and also part of the 10-year suicide strategy. My noble friend asked when we might expect to receive a copy of that strategy, because of the exponential need, which the Minister has recognised, especially in relation to young people. I remind noble Lords of my interests in the register. I urge the Government to produce that strategy as soon as possible.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

Clearly, there are a number of different facets to mental health and what we are looking at, but suicide is one of those areas. In fact, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State met a very well-known anti-suicide charity, or support group, the other day, to talk about this specific issue. It is a tragedy; we must do all we can and treat it with the same urgency that we would any other major killer. We know about the high percentage of male suicides and what proportion that is of young men’s deaths. We are looking at the drivers linked to suicide, including those that were not necessarily reflected in our previous strategy, such as gambling, domestic abuse and online safety.

We are engaging widely to shape our plan. We have announced a number of commitments for that plan, including a best practice guide, safety plans, et cetera, by early next year. I do not have the exact date yet, but I keep being told it is soon. That is not very helpful, I know, but I will try to get more information for the noble Baroness.

Covid-19: UK Arrivals

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government why international students and others who have been fully vaccinated and are not required to self-isolate on arrival in the United Kingdom subsequently have to self-isolate if a close contact contracts COVID-19; and what plans they have to change this policy.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)]

Our current system for validating the vaccination status of close contacts relies on checking against records in the NHS national immunisation management system. We do not have access to equivalent records for those vaccinated overseas. We recognise the pressing need to resolve this issue as soon as possible and are urgently exploring a number of different options to extend the existing exemptions to contacts who have been vaccinated overseas. I hope to be in a position very shortly to brief the House on a proposed solution.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, I will welcome that solution when it comes. The Minister talks of urgency but we have been waiting since the beginning of September for a resolution to a problem that I believe is rather small but which clearly disadvantages international students. To me, it feels slightly xenophobic and as though to date the Government have been intransigent. I know that Public Health England agrees that the policy is not logical in any sense or form, so why do international students have to self-isolate for 10 days when our own students from the UK do not? This disadvantages the international students and puts people off coming to this country. Also, how can international students who have had non-MHRA-approved vaccines be immunised in the UK in order to get a Covid pass, should that be necessary in the not too distant future, as it is in some other parts of the UK?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

As someone whose family comes from outside the EU, who has taught in universities and who recognises the great asset that there is and the great advantages that there are in being open to the world, and global Britain, I share the noble Baroness’s frustration. Yes, we have left the EU, which is very much a project of white privilege, and moved to a more global outlook. It is really important that we now focus on the world generally. The issue is quite technical at the moment. One of the things needed for the test and trace system to work is that you need access to the underlying data and verification. We are looking at a number of different options for how to achieve that.

Carers: Support

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

This is crucial. We must ensure that young carers, who are often unseen in the system, have the support that they need and are not overburdened by caring responsibilities. That is why we have been working with the Carers Trust and the Children’s Society. The Children’s Society has led a project to identify and disseminate best practice to support and enable young adult carers, between the ages of 16 and 24, to make a positive transition. Guidance and resources have been published this week, and we will ensure that this is implemented effectively. As the noble Baroness rightly says, this is a crucial part of implementing the carers action plan.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, one group that is desperately in need of support and respite care is the carers of children who are dying. A recent report stated that hospices for children are no longer able to help parents in those categories. They are having to shut down some of their facilities because of lack of investment. What are the Government going to do to help the families who keep these kids going, without whom the whole system will fall apart? The Government must help children’s hospices.

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right. This is an important part of the system. I noted those reports with serious concern. Significant work has been put into providing carers’ breaks and respite care within the Carers Action Plan. Local authorities are required to provide that support. We shall investigate what has happened in those instances.