Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Lord Blencathra and Baroness Finlay of Llandaff

Committee stage
Friday 20th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I had an amendment in this group but I withdrew it when I saw that other noble Lords had tabled an amendment that was superior to mine. So I rise to support some of their amendments and to express my concern about the new clauses proposed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer. I agree with my noble friend Lord Gove that, with a sense of decency and integrity, the noble and learned Lord has sought to bring forward a new clause that is superior to the old one. Nevertheless, I feel it falls short of what is required to protect the most vulnerable people who need assisted dying.

The new clause presents the independent advocate as a safeguard: a final protective layer for those who may be isolated, frail or at risk of coercion. But, when one examines the detail and listens to the evidence from those who work daily with vulnerable adults, it becomes clear that these clauses are a bit inadequate and underpowered, and I feel that they are structurally incapable of doing the job that Parliament has been told they will do.

The first fundamental question concerns the advocate envisaged in these clauses not being genuinely independent. The Bill allows the advocate to be appointed by the very system that is processing the assisted dying application. That is not independence; it is administrative proximity dressed up as protection. Those who work in safeguarding repeatedly warn that advocates must be structurally separate from the decision-making machinery, yet these clauses allow the advocate to be embedded within it. As one commentator put it, this risks creating a supportive facilitator, not a safeguard. Another warned that the advocate would become a procedural escort through the system, rather than a defender of the person’s rights. If the advocate’s role is to challenge, to probe, to question and to stand up for the person when others may be steering them, they cannot be beholden to the very bodies they may need to challenge.

The second problem is that the advocate is given no meaningful powers. They cannot pause the process, require further assessment or insist on a specialist review. They cannot demand that coercion concerns be investigated. They cannot even require that their own concerns be acted on. An advocate without powers is a spectator and not a safeguard. The role has been described as a box-ticking presence—someone who can be noted in the file but whose objections can be politely ignored. If the advocate cannot intervene when something is wrong, the safeguard is a fiction. It is a comfort blanket for legislators, not a protection for the vulnerable.

The third flaw is timing. Under the clauses tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, the advocate appears after the key clinical assessments have been completed—after the capacity determination, after the voluntariness assessment and after the eligibility decision. By the time the advocate arrives, the train has already left the station. How can it be a safeguard when it is applied at the end of the process, when the opportunity to identify coercion or impaired capacity has largely passed? This is a final courtesy call, not a protective intervention. If the advocate is to protect the vulnerable, they must be involved before the decisive assessments, not after them.

There is another weakness: the advocate is not even required to meet the person in person. They may rely on paperwork, remote contact or second-hand information. How can one detect coercion, fear, confusion, or subtle pressure through a file note? How can they test whether the person is speaking freely if they never see them face to face? One safeguarding specialist put it starkly: “If you do not meet the person, you are not an advocate, you are merely a reviewer of documents”. This is not a safeguard. It is an administrative gesture.

Also, the advocate may not be trained for the complexity of assisted dying, which raises questions about competence. Advocates in other statutory regimes, such as the Mental Capacity Act or the Care Act, receive training for those specific frameworks. Yet these clauses from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, contain no requirement for specialist training, accreditation or expertise. Therefore, we could end up with advocates who are well-meaning but completely out of their depth. As another commentator said, “This is a role that requires the highest level of safeguarding skill, not a generic advocate with a generic toolkit”. If the advocate is to stand between a vulnerable person and an irreversible act, they must be equipped for that task.

Finally, there is a danger that advocates can be used unintentionally to legitimise decisions made under systemic pressure. We all know the pressures: care home bed shortages; hospital discharge targets; workforce gaps; social care rationing; family exhaustion; and the subtle but real pressure not to be a burden on people. One expert warned that an advocate without power risks becoming “a witness to system pressure, not a counterweight to it”. If the advocate cannot challenge the system, the system will use the advocate to validate its decisions. That is the opposite of safeguarding.

I pay tribute to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer. His clauses are well-intentioned. He has sought to deliver on what the Delegated Powers Committee said but, as I have said, the clauses are structurally inadequate. They create the appearance of protection without the substance. They offer the language of safeguarding without the mechanics, thus giving Parliament false reassurance while leaving vulnerable people exposed. If we are to legislate for assisted dying —an irreversible act, taken by people who may be frail, frightened, isolated or under pressure—the safeguards must be real, not rhetorical.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, this is a very interesting group of amendments, because it seems to me that two separate things are going on. We have the neutral adviser of the noble Lord, Lord Frost, who, unfortunately, arrived too late to be able to speak to his own amendments—though they have been spoken to—and the other is the independent advocates. I share some of the concerns about the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lady Grey-Thompson, but I also have some about the amendments that the noble and learned Lord, the Bill’s sponsor, has already spoken to, whereas those proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, certainly seem to fulfil an important role and have a narrower scope.

If I might talk briefly about the neutral advisers, that role seems compatible with the scheme that I outlined last week at the beginning of proceedings. Those amendments have been very well introduced, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Gove, who spoke about that role and the importance of neutral advice.

I turn to the independent advocates. The intention is obviously that disabled people and those with learning difficulties are supported through a very challenging process and time in their life. However, there is a risk that these independent advocates become enablers who function a little like the sweepers in curling: sweeping away blocks and smoothing people’s passage towards an assisted death. The advocates must be advocates for the patients, not advocates for assisted suicide. Given the way that the amendments are written by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, I fear that the advocates’ behaviour could be influential, as opposed to independent, because the role does not appear to be independent of the wider voluntary assisted dying service. If I have understood correctly, they would be managerially and professionally answerable to the service, but I may have misunderstood that. The way that they are appointed, who they are answerable to and who employs them is important. It would therefore be very helpful if that could be clarified.

There certainly seems to be a gap that the proposals are designed to fill; they are in response in the reply that the noble and learned Lord gave to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in paragraphs 13 to 18 of the report. He certainly tried to address the issues raised and we have now seen these amendments. Perhaps the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, can clarify whether the role that he drew on was based on the role of independent mental capacity advocates, but with their role extended because having capacity is obviously an essential qualifying criterion under this Bill. The independent mental capacity advocates also have a safeguarding role, which is very important. Conversely, the independent mental health advocates, who were created through the Mental Health Act, act for individuals detained under mental health legislation, regardless of their capacity.

It would be helpful to understand how his amendments were formulated because of some of the criteria in the wording of his amendment that relate to how mental capacity is assessed. Given the difficulties of capacity assessment and the current Clause 3, which I have previously argued is unsatisfactory, it seems important that these people fulfil the role adequately and should have a specified minimum training in end-of-life law, disability rights, expertise in capacity assessment itself, coercion detection, palliative care and ethics.

In the other place, the Minister raised issues that need to be resolved and I ask the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, how his amendments will address these. Basically, who would be obliged to ensure that the independent advocate is present and the precise nature of obligations around their appointment? Is the advocate entitled to be, or do they have to be, present in the room during all discussions? How will a person be determined to be a “qualifying person” as the definition seems quite broad and to encompass a wide range of people with varying support and advocacy needs? Who will pay the advocates and how will they be funded? Most importantly, what assurance is there that the independent advocate could not take on the character of someone hired specifically to support vulnerable people to seek assisted suicide rather than simply support them in their decision-making as they explore the option?

We are here to make this legislation safer. While the Bill is before Parliament, it would seem irresponsible to leave such lacunae open or completely unplugged. There is the same concern over regulations being left to an unknown Secretary of State in the future.

Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Lord Blencathra and Baroness Finlay of Llandaff

Committee stage
Thursday 27th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, for having given my Amendment 235A a positive acclamation. However, I did not move it because it struck me that the amendment we are now debating is actually better than the one I tabled. Therefore, there seemed no point in having a double debate. I listened very carefully to the excellent exposition of the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Brown of Silvertown, which is really important.

I came to this having looked after three children’s homes when I was a GP. I became suspicious that there was something funny going on in one of them but could never put a finger on it or get social services to recognise it. However, I am sure there was, because one Christmas the children in that home set fire to it and burnt it down—but I really do not know what was happening, and I never found out.

It is terrifying the layers with which children can be enticed, encouraged and supported into criminal activity and then become quite expert at it. They are terribly intimidated and frightened for their lives. The intimidation may not be overt but covert. They have threats made against them, their families, for their lives, or of mutilation. They get beaten up and all kinds of terrible things happen. That locks them further into a world of criminality.

It therefore seemed that this would be the third side of the triangle, if you like. We talk about prosecuting the exploiter, and we talk about prosecuting the child for whatever crimes they have committed. Let us be honest: these are sometimes very difficult children. They are severely emotionally damaged, very difficult to get close to, and will not disclose to people in authority what is really happening to them, because they are so terrified. Therefore, they may be unwilling to disclose information to the police. Then, we have this gap which still leaves them liable and open to exploitation.

It was with that thought that this amendment, this concept, came forward, to try to close that gap a little bit. I hope when the Minister sums up—and perhaps criticises this clause, because I anticipate we might be told it is not necessary—that he explains what harm such an order would do. I cannot see how it would make anything worse, but it may certainly make things better, and that was the sentiment behind the support of the Opposition Front Bench for this concept.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, when I first saw this new clause, I did not pay too much attention, but having looked at it in more detail, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong of Hill Top, and the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, since I think they are on to something here. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, has confirmed that. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, who has a long track record of fighting for the rights of children, from trying to save the children’s playground in Victoria Tower Gardens from the Holocaust Memorial Bill to his track record of tabling amendments to this Bill and others.

Researching the Casey review recently with regard to my amendments on grooming gangs prompted me to look at this again. Then, I realised that a CEPO would be valid in dealing with some of the problems caused by those grooming gangs. The criminal exploitation of children is a real, growing concern across the UK, with increasing numbers of young people being coerced, manipulated or forced into criminal activity by adults or older peers.

As the Committee knows, these vulnerable children suffer significant harm, both physically and psychologically, and often find themselves trapped in cycles of offending, unable to escape the influence of exploiters. In response to this issue, the concept of a criminal exploitation protection order is possibly a very sensible idea to offer targeted legal protection for children who have been victims of criminal exploitation.

Existing legal frameworks, while robust in certain areas, do not sufficiently address the unique vulnerabilities of children subject to criminal exploitation. Traditional criminal justice responses may inadvertently criminalise victims—as we have seen all too frequently with the grooming gangs cases—or fail to disrupt the exploitative relationships at the heart of their offending.

A CEPO could fill this gap by prioritising the welfare and protection of exploited children, recognising them as victims rather than solely perpetrators. The order would empower authorities to intervene proactively, preventing further harm and breaking the cycle of exploitation.

The details are not in the Bill, and the regulations will set out the details, but I would expect and hope that the regulations may do the following. On prohibitions, the CEPO could prohibit children from engaging in specified activities that are linked to their exploitation, such as associating with certain individuals, visiting particular locations or possessing items used in criminal activity.

On the positive requirements for the children, the order may require them to take positive steps such as attending counselling, engaging with support services or participating in educational programmes designed to build resilience and reduce vulnerability. Those are just a few examples, but I hope that the regulations would detail a whole range of things that children could be stopped from doing and encourage them to do good things.

Importantly, this is a holistic approach: by combining restrictions on the one hand and supportive measures on the other, the CEPO could address both the immediate risks and underlying factors that contribute to continued exploitation. CEPOs could prevent further harm, as the order would be seen as a protective barrier, reducing the likelihood of children being drawn back into criminal activity and shielding them from exploiters.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Blencathra and Baroness Finlay of Llandaff

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 8th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Finlay of Llandaff) (CB)]

I have received a request from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, to ask a short question for elucidation.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, this is not a question as such. I want to commend my noble friend Lord Hayward for mentioning the 1983 Boundary Commission review, which I intended to mention but clean forgot. That was implemented by the late, great Viscount Whitelaw of Penrith. He did it, even though it added large swathes of Lib Dem-held wards to his own constituency. In the by-election which followed his elevation to this place, I almost lost the seat because of that. As usual, Willie did the right thing. The Government are doing the right thing now and I commend them.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Finlay of Llandaff) (CB)]

Does the Minister wish to respond?