Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Friday 12th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, but I am speaking in a personal capacity. This is particularly pertinent today because the EHRC has briefed on the Bill and I must therefore stress that my remarks are entirely personal and to my own circumstances and knowledge.

Some colleagues will know that I was found to have advanced stage 3 ovarian cancer last summer, after seven months of an unsuccessful diagnosis at a major NHS teaching hospital. My experience in that distressing period was of a disregarding and, at best, incompetent NHS. Finally, I turned to the private sector last August. Since then, I have had two rounds of chemotherapy and three operations, and I am now on relatively debilitating medication until 2027. So in this period, I too feel as though I glimpsed the Grim Reaper through my hospital window, in a morphine-induced haze. We know that 460 people die of cancer every day in this country, so I know I am not alone.

Before going further, I acknowledge the great suffering that is caused by several other illnesses that may result in applications for assisted dying but, today, in our limited time, I will concentrate on cancer. This is because the data tells us that, for every four-week delay in treatment, a patient is 10% more likely to die. The EIA on the Bill tells us that, in New Zealand and California, two-thirds of those who seek to end their lives this way are cancer sufferers.

I recognise the need for dispassion and objectivity when one is trying to pass legislation, so I turn to the flaws that I see in the Bill. The Constitution Committee of this House has stated that a Private Member’s Bill on this subject is wholly inadequate. Recognising the repeated attempts in my 21 years here to put this kind of legislation on the statute book, I would have expected the Government to have taken over the Bill and paused it for pre-legislative scrutiny through a Joint Committee. The amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Berger, may give us that opportunity and I intend to vote for it.

The second flaw lies in the definitions of the Bill. How do we define “terminal illness”, measure the six months to live or calculate monetary equations that measure our lifespans more poorly than they do bats in HS2 railway tunnels, as in this impact assessment? What do we make of the impact of these measures, the lack of compassion for those genuinely concerned about the impact on disabled people or the questions of mental capacity—or for religious individuals and, of course, the elderly, who feel unwanted enough as it is?

Importantly, the most critical agents in this story, other than the patients themselves—GPs and specialist doctors—are given an impossible task. Doctors dread that inevitable question from the patient, “How long do I have?” It puts them in an invidious position, particularly in the case of cancer care, where management of the illness is the challenge. “How well?” and “How long?” are the critical questions asked on a daily basis. In England, a third question arises: “How much?” This is because NHS drugs for some cancer treatments in Scotland and Wales are simply not available here. That is the cruellest aspect of that postcode lottery.

There is much to discuss in the scrutiny of this flawed Bill—and I say that as someone who previously supported assisted dying. I wish we did not have to deal with this flawed Bill, but we will do so in good faith.