Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Lord Mackinlay of Richborough and Lord Pannick

Committee stage
Friday 21st November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, may I just say that other views are available in the legal community, including among many distinguished judges who I will not name. There are many law reports that question this distinction, not least for the reasons that have just been given.

[Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Con)]

My Lords, the debate on this matter this morning has been enlightening from all sides, with many with many distinctive speeches that will stay with me, including that of the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, who brought a very personal account, though he is no longer in his place.

We are talking about concepts and words—whether it is encouragement, coercion or pressure. They are in a similar collective of words, and I worry that we are dancing with words a lot in this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, brought the word “autonomy” to us this morning, which is very important. I know it has been described earlier in Committee and on the Floor here today. I would be significantly more encouraged and relieved if I could be absolutely sure that autonomy and freedom of action, freedom of movement, freedom of thought and of decision were clear, unambiguous and untainted. I cannot be assured by the Bill, as it stands, as it is weak on the coercion nature.

As I left the Chamber earlier—my wife had arrived— I thought back to the cases of Ruth Ellis and Derek Bentley, which were very significant as they stopped the death penalty in this country. It was a long time ago when the morality and thoughts of this country were in a very different place to today. One might talk about the deterrent effects of the death penalty—which is a whole different debate—but we were willing to put that aside because of the potential of getting things wrong, and we did not want miscarriages of justice. That was so powerful. However, here we are discussing this Bill with lots of suggestions on how we could strengthen the coercion measures and make sure that people are not being pushed towards an early death that they did not want. We are almost flippant about that because the unsaid words are, “They’re old and ill anyway, so they don’t really matter”.

In support of Amendment 58 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, my noble friend Lord Deben—with whom I do not always agree on everything—made a very powerful point. If you were to look at the bell curve of the wealth and status of us in this Committee, we are probably to the left of the public politically, but certainly to the right in terms of wealth and influence as a whole. There is a world of difference between how, if we were to face this, we would be treated—the voice we would have for ourselves and the way in which our families would know they have agency and power to speak—compared with others in society. It could be that the wealthy family would be in a different place, because they could afford the help at home and the support in a care home as necessary.

However, for those in the middle who perhaps have children who work away, which is increasingly likely in this country, the children are feeling guilty. There are lots of cases that have been talked about the real situation of how people feel. In cases of that type there may be no problem of wealth, but problems of support by children and others. The “I don’t want to be a burden” debate would be coming to the fore.

One of our Northern Ireland colleagues mentioned the issue of saying, “Do you know how much this costs the NHS?”. I will be exploring that in greater detail. I think Amendment 3 touched on having an independent person; I have laid amendments for another day examining whether the NHS should be part of this process at all.

I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, that I could be encouraged but I am not sure how we can overcome the facets and dimensions of autonomy and coercion, because people and families are complex. One’s situation in life is complex. Just as we were willing to change a major piece of criminal legislation on the back of two errors, we seem to be not so interested in looking after the vulnerable in this Bill. I wish I could advance an amendment that would satisfy me—a lot of these amendments would make me a little more satisfied—but, no matter what we do, I am tempted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, in saying that we need to look at this whole area of coercion and pressure all over again. It is absolutely apparent across this Committee that this is the sticking point for many of us, so please try to satisfy us.