Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Lord Magan of Castletown Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 24th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Magan of Castletown (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Murray. We have heard a lot of nonsense from those from whom we would expect to hear a lot of nonsense. It is more surprising that those from whom we would have expected to hear some good sense have most grievously erred and strayed.

The proposed legislation will in no way stop people smoking; it will simply drive smoking underground. Health issues will not improve and highly aggressive criminal involvement in this trade will soar. His Majesty’s Treasury will be denied at least £10 billion a year, which will accrue to the benefit of the criminal underworld. This crass development will turn out to be a disastrous policy swerve. Look at the empirical evidence: prohibition or intended prohibition has turned out to be a disastrous and damaging policy in many parts of the world. This ill-thought-through legislation will have to be repealed in due course. Let us come to our collective senses: the consequences of this proposed legislation will be dire.

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

My Lords, I will be very brief. I am worried not about whether it is right or wrong to try to stop smoking but about whether this would work. There is no point in passing laws that do not work, as they are not respected. I think back to the amount of pot that was smoked when I was at university, to all the drugs generally around the place, and to the switch from alcohol to ecstasy and other things when they were cheaper because the price of alcohol had been raised. We tamper around with it, but the problem is much deeper than that: people need to take things to stave off reality a bit, from time to time.

I was not a smoker, because I saw my friends wheezing at school. I tried it; everyone was worried about the amount of chocolate I ate, so I briefly tried smoking. I gave up after my second sore throat and saw no benefit from it. To be honest, this will not be an effective way of stopping smoking, so I see no point in it. It will cause problems with policing. We can handle age verification in various ways, but I will not bore your Lordships with that now. We should not make life more complicated for everyone. They will go on smoking if they are driven to it, and we do not want to make it look attractive, which driving stuff underground does.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Magan of Castletown Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 19th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Magan of Castletown (Con)]

My Lords, I must make it clear that I oppose the Bill. Morally and ethically, this is a most fearful piece of proposed legislation. Beyond that, the Bill is very deeply flawed. The flaws are legion. We must not lose sight of the Bill’s multiple deficiencies. This legislative proposal that seeks to legitimise assisted suicide is clearly unacceptable to a significant majority of conscientious medical practitioners. It is no surprise that so many leading medical organisations and medical schools have expressed very significant concerns.

The Bill includes no requirement for a person to be suffering or in pain in order to be eligible for an assisted suicide. It is now notable that majority GP opposition has continued to increase significantly. There is a huge risk that this right to die will quickly translate into an expectation, or even a duty, for healthcare workers to facilitate death when requested. There are no effective legal safeguards to protect the elderly and vulnerable.

The overriding necessity for the provision of universally accessible, high-quality, supportive and palliative end-of-life care has been swept aside. It is particularly striking that an overwhelming majority—between 70% and 85%—of palliative care doctors are opposed to assisted suicide.

Crucially, there are no built-in checks to protect against the inevitable risk of coercion. People with disabilities, in particular older persons, may feel subtly pressurised to end their lives. The replacement of High Court judicial oversight by a judicial panel—a lawyer, a psychiatrist and a social worker—brings an uncontrolled risk that such panels will become staffed by those who favour assisted suicide. Such judicial panels are clearly not qualified to overrule the joint view of two expert medical practitioners. Further, those who are not actually dying would be eligible for assisted suicide, and “terminal illness” is not clearly defined; the law could be applied to those who have years of life ahead of them.

We must also recognise that there has been totally insufficient pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill, with no public consultation and no proper engagement with the medical profession. Most of the amendments tabled in the other place were not even debated. There is also silence as to where the necessary funding will come from. Most likely, it will have to be found from existing overstretched health budgets, removing funds from palliative support that relieves suffering and saves lives. There is a real fear that the funding will be subcontracted out, leading to a rapacious, callous, profit-driven system.

It is unsurprising that, contrary to the contention of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, support for assisted suicide among the general public is significantly waning. Rarely has our role in this House, as a scrutinising and revising Chamber, been so important. It is imperative that we do not give succour to this charter for the culture of death.