Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Baroness Berridge and Lord Pannick

Friday 27th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, I just want to respond to the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, on the importance of conscientious objection. The strength of Clause 31 and Schedule 3 is that they are not confined to those who can show that they have a conscientious objection to assisted suicide. Any doctor or any other person who does not wish to assist has a legal right not to do so, for any reason—indeed, they do not have to give a reason. That is the broadest possible protection. Let us not forget that it is broader than the protection which Parliament included in the Abortion Act 1967. Under Section 4 of that Act, the doctor or other person who does not wish to participate must not only have a “conscientious objection”; they must be able to prove that they have a conscientious objection if there is any issue about it. The Bill from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, includes the broadest possible protection.

My reaction to many of these amendments is the reaction I have had over 13 days to the amendments to this Bill which we have debated. Whatever their intention—I make no allegations about intention—their effect will inevitably be, unnecessarily, to impede the ability of persons who are dying to receive the assistance that they so desperately want.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the clarity, but I draw attention to the fact that this is a position that could have been put, and still could be put, in a meeting with the various royal colleges to assure them that the Bill does what the noble and learned Lord and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, say it does. We are faced with a situation where the practitioners are not satisfied and do not have the confidence that the noble Lord alludes to: that the Bill will give them the protection that they want.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

Of course, some practitioners do not have confidence. We are not going to get to any conclusion on the Bill that will enable Parliament to implement the view of the vast majority of people in this country.

Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Baroness Berridge and Lord Pannick

Committee stage
Monday 2nd February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

He can, but as I have already said, the difficulty is that, however sympathetic the guidance, the circumstances of the woman concerned have to be investigated in order to identify whether her case falls within those criteria. Therefore, the damage he has done to the woman who has recently lost the child is caused, however sensitive the investigation and whatever the criteria. That is the problem.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

The noble Lord says that there is a profound difference. However, there are circumstances—maybe others are aware—where parents lose a very young child in the home to sudden infant death syndrome. In certain of those circumstances, the police have to come through the door. There is no profound difference there: unfortunately, we need to investigate sensitive things, and that is not a reason to not change the law.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

I entirely understand and accept that the police will investigate many alleged possible offences in highly sensitive circumstances, but the issue that arises for Parliament, and your Lordships’ House in particular today, is whether we should adopt special criteria where the sensitivity and the distress relate to a woman who has recently lost the child that she is carrying. It is very difficult, in my view—I am obviously not an expert on this; women in the Committee will have a stronger view than I do—but I can understand the real, particular and damaging concern that arises where a woman who has carried her child for however many months loses that child and is then the subject of a criminal investigation. It is difficult to imagine anything that is more distressing to the woman concerned in those circumstances. The Committee therefore has to take a view on this. My current view—

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Baroness Berridge and Lord Pannick

Committee stage
Friday 21st November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

It might help noble Lords to know that we are being followed on Twitter. This issue—I am aiming to save time—of the Pannick dilemma has been commented on by Philip Murray, who is a law lecturer at Robinson College in Cambridge. He said the following, and we may wish to seek his advice:

“I find it astonishing that various Lords”—


forgive me for the embarrassment—

“including those who should know better (Lord Pannick …), keep conflating withdrawal of treatment and assisted suicide. The act/omission distinction has underpinned morality and law for millennia”.

I hope that either of the noble Lords, Lord Pannick or Lord Dobbs, will reach out to this gentleman to aid all noble Lords so we will not spend any further time on that dilemma.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, may I just say that other views are available in the legal community, including among many distinguished judges who I will not name. There are many law reports that question this distinction, not least for the reasons that have just been given.