Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Lord Deben and Lord Jackson of Peterborough

Committee stage
Friday 27th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben (Con)]

We have already told the noble and learned Lord what we think about the impact assessment. We have been asking for an updated impact assessment which takes into account the debates we have had and the assessments we have made. The Government have said they will not do that—that is what I am referring to. I want to see an absolutely up-to-date impact assessment based on the debates in which we have expressed and explained real issues which have not been raised before, so that we can, first, know how much it costs and, secondly, begin to ask ourselves, “Is this the priority?”

I will end on this. Is it a priority to provide people with the free chance to kill themselves and not provide people with Marie Curie nurses so they may live the end of their lives in a happier and better place? Anyone who suggests that we get that priority right by funding assisted suicide rather than Marie Curie nurses seems to me to be saying something that the public would not accept. One of the problems with this whole debate is that we have never been prepared to tell the public what the real effect of this is. Therefore, I very much support this amendment—not that I would normally support the kind of position my noble friend raises in his particular way, but he did it most elegantly. I support it entirely because, at long last, we are talking about the facts and what this really means for the people of Britain.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

Before my noble friend sits down, he might be interested to know that we have been here before. He will know that, in 2012, as a result of replies to freedom of information requests about the discredited Liverpool care pathway, it was revealed that £12 million was promised to various trusts across the country to hit targets in respect of the Liverpool care pathway. There was fiscal inducement to facilitate the death of patients. So this is not a scare story; we have seen evidence of it within living memory.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for that intervention, and it is important. I have been trying to be very careful not to suggest that those in favour of this Bill are in favour of it as a money-saving operation. I do not believe that is true, but I have to challenge them with simply this: once this were in the system, it would be a serious temptation.

There are two big temptations in this Bill. The first is summed up by that old phrase “Where there’s a will, there’s a relative”. There is a real issue about coercion. The second great problem is that you change the fundamental relationship between the ill person and the doctor. You also create circumstances in which it is very likely that it would be cheaper for people no longer to be there. If anyone thinks that that creates confidence, either in the medical profession or in the National Health Service, I do not.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Lord Deben and Lord Jackson of Peterborough

Report stage
Wednesday 29th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Foster. I am appalled by the statement read to the House by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. Noble Lords have to understand that it is very embarrassing for me to be on the side of the noble Lord, Lord Foster, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, but I have to say that what she just read out shows what a disgraceful industry this is and how much money is being made out of the poorest and most deprived places.

I have lived with this problem for many years. My father was a clergyman in one of the worst slum areas of Britain. He always said that gambling was much more damaging than drink or any of the other things to which referred. It was particularly damaging in his parish, which contained a large number of military personnel, both retired and present.

I hope that the Minister will not make the speech that I suspect I might have had written for me as a Minister. It goes like this: “This is a planning Bill, and this amendment refers to the licensing duties of a local authority. I know that we already said that it was more appropriate for licensing authorities than the Planning Bill but, because this is a planning Bill, we really believe that it should be left for a different piece of legislation”. Yet the Government have said that they will make these changes immediately when there is some opportunity in Parliament to do it.

This amendment is an opportunity. What is more, it has been shown to be within the long title of the Bill, so, if the Minister says that it cannot be done because it is not appropriate, I will have to say to her that I do not believe the House should accept that. The House should simply say that it is clearly appropriate and that this is a clear opportunity. If the Government do not support that, I say something very tough to them: this is about the very people whom this Government are always banging on about and are supposed to be supporting. These are the people who are most at risk from the bloodsuckers who run the gambling industry and know what they are doing. They are applying to the very people who are most vulnerable and from whom they get most of their money.

I say this to the Minister: there is a growing anger around the country at what is happening and at the vast sums of money that some of the people who own these companies make. The biggest payer of income tax in Britain runs a betting company. That says something deeply offensive about our society; I do not believe that any of us should stop the battle to change this.

I wish also to say one thing about my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe’s amendment. I hope that the Government will not say that it is not necessary to make the point about small businesses. My noble friend has concentrated on the construction industry but, very recently—in the past three years—I applied to the local authority to change a residential building back to what it had originally been since 1463: a public house.

That piece of planning change for a very small business —I do not know what I was doing starting a small business at my age, but there we were—for the benefit of the community, took a year. It was the year in which construction prices rose faster than they had for generations. At the end of that year, the cost of what one was trying to do for the community was significantly greater than at the beginning. The reasons for holding it up included the conservation officer complaining that we were going to use second-hand pamments and bricks; we were obviously going to do so because that is my attitude to these things. My architect said, “My client is strongly concerned about climate change and wishes, therefore, to use second-hand materials”. He got back from the conservation officer a note that said, “I don’t care about climate change; I’m interested only in conservation”.

Even if you know something about these things, it is very difficult to put up with a year of that kind of conversation. I merely say to the Minister that it is essential that we have in this Bill a clear statement that small businesses must be treated with the consideration that they do not have the means to do things that big businesses have. I really hope that we can resurrect small construction businesses, but we will not do that unless they have special understanding as far as planning is concerned.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I will be brief; I had not intended to speak but I want to say a few words.

First, I completely agree with my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe’s excellent amendment; I pay tribute to her persistence and indefatigability in defending small and medium-sized enterprises. However, I find myself agreeing with my noble friend Lord Deben—not always a common phenomenon—and with his excellent, passionate remarks in support of Amendment 117 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Foster. I say this only because my own experience leads me to believe that we have a responsibility to ensure that there is balance and fairness in the planning system between betting companies, which have significant resources at their disposal—in particular, legal resources—and planning departments, which are often in small local authorities and do not have the capacity to push back against some of the planning policies that allow betting companies to put fixed-odds betting terminals in very deprived areas, for instance.

I raised this issue when I had the privilege of serving in the other place with, among others, my right honourable friend Iain Duncan Smith, the Member of Parliament for Chingford and Woodford Green. As a communitarian, not a libertarian, I believe that civic society is about protecting those people who are most likely to be the victims of market dysfunction. This is another example of market dysfunction. It is zeroing in on people who have very little money; advantage is being taken of them. This is not a draconian proposal to close down betting shops, gaming arcades and other facilities; it is about redressing the balance to allow there to be a cumulative impact assessment on issues around adult social care and on the depression, illness and penury, frankly, with which many people suffer; I saw this in my constituency of Peterborough a number of times.

You do not have to be liberal, anti-capitalist or anti-free market to support this amendment. It is about fairness and equity, treating people equally giving planning officers, in our local councils and on planning committees, the weapons to make a reasoned, fact-based case for preventing development that would be undesirable and damaging to their local communities. It is on that basis that I support the noble Lord’s excellent amendment. I hope that the Minister will give it a fair hearing, because it is well thought through and considered. I know that my Front Bench will do a similar job in analysing the amendment. I think there is consensus that fair play should be at the heart of this and that planners need weapons to deal with potentially very unsuitable developments.