Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Beith Excerpts

Friday 5th December 2025 Lords Chamber

I will be among those who, in a later group, will be looking to strengthen the safeguards being applied to the eligibility test, but I do not recognise this question of residence as a safeguard. I regard pretty much all these amendments, other than my own, as devices to create bureaucratic impediments to people’s eligibility for this service. Whatever we may think in principle, for or against the Bill, we should not be depriving people who are accessing NHS services in this country of access to this service for reasons of bureaucratic differentiation, rather than because they are eligible or otherwise for substantive reasons. I hope that, on Report, my amendments might find favour with the sponsor of the Bill.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

The noble Lord talked about bureaucratic impediments. A later amendment of mine addresses the bureaucratic impediment that if you are a resident in England and Wales who lives a few miles from a general practice in Scotland, and you are registered with that practice, you are disqualified from the scope of the Bill. It seems to me there is quite a bit of work to be done on these border issues, which I hope the noble and learned Lord might indicate he is willing to see done, to try to sort them out. If he is so willing, I will not need to move Amendment 17, which we come to a little later.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)]

I am very willing to address these border issues, which are incredibly important. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, specifically raised them in the context of the Isle of Man patient who comes to, say, Liverpool for treatment. What will happen when Scotland and the Isle of Man have different laws on assisted dying? If, as this draft says, you have to be ordinarily resident in England and Wales to get the benefit of the exception to the Suicide Act, those who offer to help someone get back to the Isle of Man for an assisted death there would be committing a criminal offence because the person would not be ordinarily resident in England and Wales.

The British Medical Association has a proposal that we amend the Bill to say that if you help somebody to go to another part of the country to have an assisted death in accordance with the laws there, that would not be a crime. To answer the point by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, I have been in discussion with the BMA as to how one might introduce an amendment to that effect. We need to discuss that, and these cross-border issues definitely need to be discussed. I would very much welcome such a discussion taking place with interested parties.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

What I am talking about is a group of people who live in England, are ordinarily resident in England, but who happen to be registered with a general practice in Scotland. That has no impact on what the Scottish situation would be in other respects—that is a matter for the Scottish Parliament—but it does affect the scope of the Bill.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)]

I was addressing the wider issue, the one that the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, was talking about. But it goes to those ordinarily resident in Scotland, who come to England for their medical advice—and if the medical advice says, “Go back to Scotland if you want an assisted death”, would that be a crime? But I also wish to deal with the GP point. If you live in England but have a GP in Scotland, does it debar you from getting it here? I am more than happy to include that in the discussion.