Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Baroness Berridge Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 6th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

Where that clarity can exist then that clearly must be the right thing, but my understanding of the many amendments that have been tabled is that a lot of them seek to replace the Mental Capacity Act with a new decision-making process, which, inevitably, is not tried and tested and so could be confusing. I reiterate that I am not an expert in this—

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

I would be grateful to hear from my noble friend further evidence that Professor Sir Chris Whitty has drawn on expertise from other specialties in addition to epidemiology. Could he perhaps contact him and ask who he drew on before he gave his evidence in the other place, as he then had to write a letter, I think after one of the key votes had taken place in the other place, correcting his view?

In addition, the noble Lord mentions individual psychiatrists. One can often find individuals who will say their views, but is he not also concerned, and should we not give greater weight to the fact, that the royal college has been worried about this since Second Reading in the other place?

--- Later in debate ---

While I appreciate that we will come back to amendments to Clause 22 later, it would be useful to get a certain amount of understanding about what is envisaged at this point. Otherwise, I have some sympathy with Amendment 235 tabled by my noble friend Lord Moylan.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 107 and just wish to ask a few questions regarding the amendment. Along with my noble friend Lady Coffey, I note that when the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, brought forth his “bring back the judge” amendments, the MCA exited the Bill under that requirement. In relation to the MCA, it was useful to hear the eloquent speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, on the evidence of the Chief Medical Officer because, when you have someone so familiar like that, it would be useful for us to know when they last did an MCA assessment. She put that very eloquently.

In relation to the comments made by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss—this is something that again arose in a previous group—on the different statutory regimes of the Mental Health Act and the Mental Capacity Act, these are not, even now, separate. I served on your Lordships’ House’s Select Committee on the Mental Health Bill, and one of the first things that we had to look at was the situation in Northern Ireland, where the choice was made to fuse these parts of the law. That was not part of the independent review by Sir Simon Wessely, but it would have been one of the options at that time, because there is an overlap between the jurisdictions.

I know that the Minister said, on the previous group, that if she is silent, that is okay, but I ask the noble and learned Lord to invite the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, to the meeting that is planned for next week with Alex Ruck Keene KC, because at the moment it is not clear that we have patients under one regime and patients under another regime. When you are detained under the Mental Health Act, one of the bases of that, when you potentially want to take your own life, is that you are under the prevention of suicide regime, with psychiatrists and clinicians there. But under this Bill, obviously, you are not, so the clinicians are asking for that clarity. I hope that we will be able to come back to your Lordships’ House after the meeting next week with that clarity. I also hope that the sponsor of the Bill could outline this.

I am surprised that we are still talking about this, because the Royal College of Psychiatrists has been raising this issue since November 2024. If we had had the amendments that could deal with its concerns, they could have truncated the debate. We had this discussion in relation to the advertising amendments. With the concerns from professional bodies, why do we not have amendments at this stage of the Bill, even though the noble and learned Lord said that amendments would be forthcoming? A year or more has gone by since these concerns were raised. I hope that he will be able to clarify why that is, at this stage. It is imperative that we see these amendments in Committee.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, before the Minister rises to speak, I have a question for her about workability arising from one of the amendments included in this debate. In his Amendment 581A, my noble friend Lord Sandhurst posed a specific question on capacity at the moment when a person is given the substances with which they will take their own life. He is surely right that at that critical moment appropriate safeguards are needed where, for any reason at all, there is doubt about the person’s capacity—for example, where there is a history of fluctuating capacity. The doctor should clearly know how to respond to that situation. Can the Minister say whether she believes that the situation that my noble friend has described would require specific guidance to be issued by the Government over and above guidance already issued under the Mental Capacity Act?