Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Lord Hamilton of Epsom and Lord Moylan

Committee stage
Friday 20th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

We are all agreed that the reference to six months is to be found in Clause 2, where it says that

“an inevitably progressive illness or disease which cannot be reversed by treatment, and … the person’s death in consequence of that illness or disease can reasonably be expected within six months”.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I have always considered that the six months was critical to the essence of this Bill, because there has to be some point at which doctors say that you are likely to die. Misdiagnosis has been a problem. I recognise the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy. We have discussed misdiagnosis before, but when we did, and it was then summed up by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, he airily said that perhaps some of these diagnoses of six months may be a little wrong and it could be more like eight months. What he failed to address was my noble friend Lord Polak, who was given six months to live. That was 32 years ago—and we are still counting. When you get things that badly wrong, you have to really question whether these diagnoses are going to be in any way meaningful at all.

It seems to me that, if we have these tremendous variations, they totally undermine the whole essence of the Bill. We are saying that, if people have got only six months to live, they should apply for assisted dying, but it may be that they live for years afterwards.