Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Friday 12th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Noble Lords]

Order!

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)]

My Lords, can we follow the normal courtesies of the House, please? As the noble Baroness was not here at the beginning of this group of amendments, she cannot participate on this group of amendments. I urge noble Lords to take note of where we were and move forward.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, in fact destroys her own argument, because access to GPs, unfortunately, is still a major problem. In that respect, I greatly congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Gerada, who gave a fantastic maiden speech yesterday explaining the role of the GP and the ideal situation. The fact is, in this Chamber, there will be a number of people who, quite rightly, absolutely deplore or disagree with assisted dying, as they have every right to do.

It is also true that, in my practice many years ago, I saw patients who had requested termination of pregnancy—certainly, in more than one case. However, there is one particular patient who I remember very clearly. Several years after the Abortion Act had been agreed to and had started, I saw a patient who came into the hospital having been refused referral by a GP because he disapproved, as he was entitled to do, of abortion. She did not get a further referral. She went to an illegal practitioner in the East End of London and ended up with infection of the uterus and was in bed for several weeks with septicaemia. She did not die, but her laparotomy required her uterus, tubes and most of her pelvis to be removed. That is the risk. It is always going to be the case that individual GPs have the absolute right to decide how they might handle a particular difficult ethical issue. Of course, the problem here is that these vary from patient to patient; we have to understand that, and simply relying on the GP in this way seems to me to be deeply flawed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

My Lords, the noble and learned Lord thought that it was ludicrous that a patient would see the same doctor. Is it ludicrous, in his view, that, on average, 3.5% of consultations between a patient and a doctor are face to face? Is it ludicrous that we should expect those consultations to be with the same doctor?

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)]

I am sure that my noble and learned friend will respond to that in the debate, but the noble Baroness has just intervened on an intervention. The Chief Whip made clear reference to that earlier.

[Baroness Hollins (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome the comments from the noble and learned Lord. General practice is very different today from when I practised as a GP earlier in my career; it was certainly not as part of a multidisciplinary team.

I added my name to the very reasonable Amendment 21 tabled by my noble friend Lady Grey-Thompson. The debate has not been about whether assisted dying should be part of a GP’s role; it has, very helpfully, focused on the importance of continuity of care and accurate records.

I congratulate my noble friend Lady Gerada on her first contribution in Committee; she is correct that GPs now work as part of a multidisciplinary team. I think that patients accept that, but they also expect that a doctor is ultimately responsible for their care when they are seriously ill. Perhaps Amendment 21 could meet the noble and learned Lord’s requirements if it were amended to refer to the medical practice rather than to the general practitioner.