Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown and Baroness Lawlor

Friday 30th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP)]

My Lords, there are just a few remarks I would like to make. We live in an age where it is hard to get a human to interact with any more. We lift the phone and speak to a voice that says that if you want one thing, press 1, and if you want something else, press 2. I fear that this is what we are heading for: if you want death, just press a button.

I have no doubt that if this legislation is passed as it is, in the near future we will be heading towards AI assessment procedures. My concern is not where we start in this process, but where it leads to and where it ends.

I am informed that, in the Netherlands, it has been proposed to use AI to kill patients in cases where doctors are unwilling to participate. Indeed, it is suggested that AI could be less prone to human error. Surely, in crucial assessments and decision-making processes for a person seeking assisted suicide, AI could not identify subtle coercion and assess nuanced capacity, bearing in mind the irreversible nature of the outcome. There are concerns about the risk of coercion or encouragement by AI. It should be noted that, with the newly developed AI functions and chatbots, there are already cases globally of individuals being coerced into all sorts of different behaviours, practices and decision-making.

Clause 5 allows doctors to direct the person

“to where they can obtain information and have the preliminary discussion”.

That source of information could be AI or a chatbot. Is there anything in the Bill that will prevent this?

AI undermines accountability. If the technology fails, who bears responsibility? Traditionally in the health service, the doctor bears responsibility. If AI is used, who bears responsibility?

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

My Lords, to add to what has been said, AI is based on large language models, which involve big datasets. I ask your Lordships to consider whether such large datasets, based on assessing a snippet of data to assist diagnosis, are a good way of assessing individual patients. They were not designed to assess individual patients. Every doctor will tell you that each individual case is different, and that diagnosis can vary. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, for sharing the results of the 98,000 cases that were assessed for accuracy. Therefore, I am not sure that it is a suitable tool to assess and diagnose individual cases.