Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Rees of Easton Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 12th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rees of Easton (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, begin by thanking the many members of the public and Members of this House for the letters I have received, as many others have, and for the power of the personal testimonies that have been brought to me. I have been particularly struck by the hand-written letters which have been sent, which speaks about people’s real dedication.

I find this a difficult debate, not because I do not have clarity on my position, but because I absolutely hear the legitimacy of those in favour of the Bill: the very real pain in people’s lives. I am thinking about some of the key words that have floated around today. We have talked about choice, fear, pain and protection. The reality is that those things do not land equally in different people’s lives. They mean different things, people have different degrees of vulnerability to them, and they have different sources.

I bring two areas of experience to this discussion. The first is my time as mayor of my city for eight years. One of the reflections we had at the end was that good things can have negative consequences for some people. That is a very real danger. One of the things we grappled with in Bristol was that there was a 10-year life expectancy difference and a 16-year healthy life expectancy difference. People on lower incomes, born into poor backgrounds, were destined to become unwell to the point of being unable to work 16 years before the wealthiest. That means that those people from those backgrounds will be more likely to end up in situations in which they feel the pressures towards the end of life.

The second is that I was the manager of race equality in mental health—the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, was head of the NHS at the time—and we looked at the reality that, from determinants to access to experience to outcomes, people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds were disproportionately getting the bad end of the stick in terms of our mental health services. One of the things we recognised was that services designed by people in positions of power are designed for people in positions of power, not for vulnerable people. If you are not one of those people, you do not have the resources to navigate those services. Even if those services are good, you can fall into the cracks between those services if you do not have the personal assets to navigate those limbos.

The social, political and economic inequalities within which this Bill would be put, if it were to pass, are not inconsequential. What this service means is not just what exists on paper and how it is designed; it is the product of its interaction with those inequalities. I fear that, landing on such an unequal society as we have today, the circumstances and consequences could be quite dire for some communities.

It is also true that we have not tackled inequalities in NHS services—from access to experience to outcomes. I fear that putting a terminal service into an organisation that, to all intents and purposes, has not solved health inequalities will mean that both the context within which it will work and the outcomes for our population will be incredibly risky.

The challenge of palliative care has been raised. While I absolutely agree with the principle of dignity in dying, that cannot be detached from an absolute commitment to dignity in life and dignity in sickness. That means tackling the social, economic and political context in which people experience life.

Finally, because the consequences are so big, we cannot afford to try to fix this on the move. It has to be sorted before the legislation goes through.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Rees of Easton Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 8th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

I would like to find that there is something on which I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough. I think his point about assisting assimilation is very strong, but it is not an alternative to the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord German.

The Minister knows full well that I have been boring him for years about the right to work, and he used to show some personal sympathy for the point. I am with the noble Lord, Lord German, in not believing very strongly in the pull factor. I think people come here basically to escape persecution, famine and war. I think pull factors are, to the extent they exist, much less important. I think, secondly, that the best way to deal with pull factors to the extent that they do exist is with identity cards. I am a strong believer in identity cards. We made a great mistake when we dropped the idea; we should get back to it.

I support Amendments 151 and 155A. Amendment 155A is a very modest proposal; I hope that the Minister will feel that he can consider it. I think there is much to be said for the Treasury approach to this issue. That is an unusual statement to make but, in the Treasury, the right to work would have a double benefit: it would increase the tax take, and it would reduce public expenditure. These are both quite desirable benefits; if you are in the Treasury in current circumstances, they are highly desirable. The main argument for the right to work is human dignity and assisting the assimilation process. The Exchequer arguments are subordinate arguments, but they are real. We ought to reduce the cost of the queue. Of course, the best thing—as the Government are trying to do—would be to reduce the length of the queue but, if we can reduce the cost of the queue and increase the tax take, these must be things that are worth doing.

I have long felt that this is something that we ought to be able to do something about. I hope that the Minister will be able to indicate at least an open mind on the softest of these amendments, Amendment 155A—the one that simply calls for a report.

[Lord Rees of Easton (Lab)]

My Lords, that may be my cue to speak to my Amendment 155A. I start by pointing to my declarations in the register of interests on two matters: first, the support that I received from the Refugee, Asylum Migration and Policy Project; and, secondly, my role as a paid chair of the Mayors Migration Council, which is a voice that I want to bring into the Room today. The Mayors Migration Council is a worldwide network of mayors. I was a founding member. It includes the mayors from Freetown, Amman, Zürich, Montreal, Rio and now, once again, Chicago. These are mayors who have been incredibly frustrated with the way that national Governments and networks of national Governments have approached migration while they as mayors have tried to create the conditions within which densely packed people within their boundaries live, and the conditions in which they can build the powerful economies that the nations depend on.

As the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, pointed out, we think that this is a very careful amendment. The way that the debate around asylum seekers and immigration has been happening in the UK generally is what I would describe as somewhat falling into “fight or flight”; it is quite panicked. One of the things that I have longed for, both as a resident of the UK and now as a Member of the House of Lords, is that we can make some space to take a deep breath and engage with the evidence—and not get caught up in the frenzy and fear that has been stoked around this question.

If the amendment is passed, we would require the Secretary of State to report back to Parliament annually on the Government’s working rights policies for people in the asylum system and for both Houses of Parliament to have the opportunity to debate a Motion on the report. That deliberately avoids jumping in two-footed and saying we should just lift the ban on asylum seekers working straight away, because I am sensitive to the potential of people accidentally or deliberately misunderstanding that and making more hay with it. But if we had this in place, with our Secretary of State coming back, it would give us the space to engage with the evidence and to take a breath, reflect on it, and begin to influence policy in response to that.