Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Bailey of Paddington Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 19th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)]

My Lords, I rise, with deep concern, to oppose this Bill, not out of indifference to suffering but because I fear that it will place the most vulnerable at the greatest risk. We should be clear: this is not just assisted dying; it is assisted suicide. Far from offering genuine choice, it risks becoming a pathway to people struggling with poverty, poor care or depression seeing it as their only option. This is not dignity and it is not compassion.

I have been written to by many members of the public, as we all have. I want to put on record their voices. They are worried about where the Bill is leading us. I cannot cover all the points they raised but I will cover a few.

There is no requirement for suffering: the Bill does not require a person to be in pain or distress. The only requirement is an irreversible illness and a prognosis of six months. Extraordinary as it may seem, there is no consideration of palliative care or pain relief. A person could qualify even if they are not suffering at all. For my own community—a working community, a poor community—this is deeply troubling. Many face hard financial realities and social pressures every day, and adding a law that allows assisted suicide without any requirement for suffering could turn hardship into a reason for death itself. This is where coercion is born.

Research in Oregon shows that nearly one in 10 people who opted for assisted death did so partly because of financial pressures. We cannot allow a situation where people feel forced into death because they cannot afford life. Coercion is not only about another person’s influence; it can also be about the crushing weight of poverty, isolation, fear, and loneliness. Listening to the great speech made by my noble friend Lord Banner, the Bill already has mission creep built in.

Research by the Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Department found that prognoses can be accurate only 23% of the time. Many patients given six months to live survive and even thrive for years. In a community such as mine, which struggles, the danger is doubled; such a prognosis may make people feel the pressure to give up too soon because of financial worries. This combination could be lethal. To legislate with such weak foundations is reckless.

This Bill cannot and should not pass into law. It is built on a flawed assumption and will expose the most vulnerable in our society to irreparable harm. We are told that it is about choice. But it could lead the poor, the sick, the isolated, the terrified, the people who have grown up relying on the system—not people such as us in this Chamber, who have benefited from it, but the people who rely on it, trust it and believe in it—to see this as a burden, a pressure, and even a duty to take their own life.

We cannot expose the poorest people in this country, the people most dependent on we in this Chamber to do the right thing for them, to this poorly thought-out legislation. It will devastate communities—communities that many of us have never been to and do not understand. We will be enacting something that will become a myth in those communities. We will be pre-legislating for people’s early deaths because their lives have been hard.

As the Bill stands, instead of working for vulnerable people, it will make more people vulnerable. We must choose life over fear.

Prostate Cancer

Lord Bailey of Paddington Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)]

My Lords, prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men, but the risk is not shared equally. Black men face a one in four lifetime risk, compared with a one in eight risk for white men. They are also most likely to be diagnosed at a late stage, when treatment is less effective. Men with a family history of BRCA mutations or who live in more deprived areas are also at greater risk. Yet the current guidelines treat all men the same. GPs are told not to raise the issue unless the man has symptoms, but prostate cancer often has no symptoms until it is advanced.

Prostate Cancer UK argues that this is outdated and dangerous. It is calling for GPs to be allowed to proactively speak to black men aged 45 about PSA testing. This small change could save lives by enabling diagnosis and treatment. Previous trials have not included enough black men to show the full benefits of screening, but this gap in evidence should not justify inaction. Updating guidelines to reflect this risk is a matter of public health and fairness. I urge the Government to act so that this inequity and this postcode lottery no longer dictate a man’s chances of surviving prostate cancer.

I had to badger my GP to have it done. I had to point out that I am of West Indian descent and that my family has had this happen before. That was the only point at which it became relevant to my GP. If you did not have my tenacity, that could be a death sentence. You would not be willing, would not be able and would not even know that you need to take on this system. There are many poor communities, black and white, that need this change if our men are to survive.

Prostate Cancer: National Screening Programme

Lord Bailey of Paddington Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I agree about the need for clear messages, and I hope the noble and right reverend Lord will agree on the need for striving to do rather better.

[Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)]

My Lords, in many deprived communities, and in the black community in particular, there is a very high incidence of prostate cancer. Before they get to the PSA test, what work is being done to educate communities even to be involved with seeking out that test in order to protect their health?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

The noble Lord is quite right to raise this. I am glad to say that the TRANSFORM trial I referred to will help to address this by ensuring that a significant proportion of participants are black men, who suffer disproportionately in this regard. That is really important, because previous trials have not included enough black men. The trial will address those disparities, and therefore the results that we get from that will be really important. It is always the case that working with specific communities to get the right message out is key to what we do.

NHS Plan: Consultation

Lord Bailey of Paddington Excerpts

Monday 2nd December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

My noble friend allows me to say—and I hope your Lordships’ House will agree with this—that our approach will of course focus on addressing the social determinants of health. The goal will be to halve the gap in healthy life expectancy between the richest and the poorest regions. We are not just going to be moving from sickness to prevention as one of our three pillars, important though that is; we are also seeking, across government, to address the root causes of health inequalities. Again, that is being highlighted as part of the consultation.

[Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)]

What special efforts will be made to speak to young people, who are often very far away from the health system—those leaving care, those who have just left prison and those from very poor communities? What effort will be made to hear their voices? They are often far away from the NHS because they do not need it yet, but they will in the future.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord. Yesterday, I was at an in-person event in Folkestone, and as with all such events up and down the country, it had used systems to find a wide range of people, including young people, who, as he rightly says, are often unlinked with the health service. I emphasise our continued monitoring and our efforts to reach the groups he speaks of. So far, we know that men, those aged under 35, and black Asian and black British people have engaged least with Change NHS. We are now stepping up our efforts.