Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Baroness Berger and Baroness Fox of Buckley

Committee stage
Friday 24th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berger (Lab)]

Before my noble friend sits down, I say that I have been accused of dishonesty in my representations. I will just repeat what I said. I was very clear that, while the overwhelming majority—bar one, I think—of the royal medical colleges take a neutral position on the principle of assisted dying, there is not a single medical royal college in this country that will attest to the safety of the Bill. I reiterate that that should concern us all.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I acknowledge that those who have been campaigning for the Bill, inside and outside here, are well motivated. Many have watched a loved one die in great discomfort, even agony, and are informed by grief. Understandably, they do not want that for their loved ones or themselves. I also acknowledge that they are often driven by choice and autonomy, which are honourable virtues. Facing death, when illness threatens to remove bodily or cognitive control, can be daunting. As the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Prentis, so vividly and movingly described earlier, you can feel how people would therefore want to assert control at the end of their life.

I acknowledge that absolutely, but I want to refute something that keeps being thrown out regularly: the accusation that those of us who raise concerns about the Bill do not care about those campaigners and that we have never listened, or are not listening, to the terminally ill. To note, the terminally ill are not an undifferentiated identity group with a fixed view. Sadly, we will all know people who are terminally ill now. I can tell the House that those I know find that politicians’ enthusiasm for assisted dying—in preference to energy going into palliative care or hospices—makes them feel like a burden, and they are demoralised and dispirited.

It seems that some people are determined to undermine the motivations of those of us who tabled amendments, as though we are all part of some malign Machiavellian plot. Media reports this week—by the way, I must give credit to Dignity in Dying for its good comms and PR; its media work is second to none—have said that we in the Lords should hang our heads in shame. Actually, we should hold our heads up high. At the moment, it is fashionable in politics to look the other way—to see no evil, hear no evil, and so on—but we were charged with a huge task and a heavy responsibility. If there was to be a law that would mean that the state and doctors could help end the lives of the terminally ill, how could we pass that law without creating recklessly unsafe legislation?

This has not been some tactical coup, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hunter, implied. The task was to scrutinise the longest Private Member’s Bill on record—all without any guidance from Government Ministers beyond narrow, technical comments on legal and operational workability, not safety. Also, we were charged with the task of scrutiny not just because of our intrinsic role here but because MPs in the elected House told us that they were relying on our House to fix a flawed Bill.

Contrary to the point made earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Gerada, what has become obvious is that the people who are not grounded in reality are those who support the abstract ideals of the sponsors. Once amendments try to pin down the practical, specific mechanisms of the Bill about how an assisted dying service would operate on the ground, worrying implications and unintended consequences are exposed. When the Health Minister, Stephen Kinnock, admits that the Government would need to reprioritise spending from NHS budgets to fund assisted dying, it is our duty not to stay shtum. We should not talk it out but we should be talking about it, because we should ask: which health services will be cut? Could palliative care get even less money? When the Royal College of Psychiatrists warns that the requirement for members to sit on AD panels would mean taking them away from overstretched, front-line mental health services, our job is not to ignore that but to ask: would that mean even longer waiting lists for those who are mentally distressed, or a reduction in people at the coalface of suicide prevention because they have been diverted into okaying the state assisting individuals in taking their own lives—that is, not suicide prevention? Such moral dilemmas hint at the fundamental shift in the—

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Baroness Berger and Baroness Fox of Buckley

Committee stage
Friday 13th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berger (Lab)]

It was so moving to hear the contribution from the noble Baroness, Lady Monckton, and the points that others made about the words that people may hear, including people with learning disabilities. I was reflecting on the evidence we heard at the Select Committee from the National Down Syndrome Policy Group. It is not just the words that people may hear; it is also what they see in front of them. In particular, what was really striking—I had not thought about this—was that even the uniform of the doctor who is having that conversation could suggest a position of authority that someone with a learning disability should show acquiescence to. I thought that was something for us to consider in the light of all these important amendments.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

That is very helpful. When I see a uniform, I get a bit quivery as well—