Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Baroness O'Loan and Baroness Berridge

Friday 13th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

Am I right in understanding that the noble Baroness’s amendments are designed to achieve a situation where someone experiences and receives the best palliative care before the discussion takes place? Otherwise, as the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury has said, any choice that you exercise could be illusory, unless you are in that situation.

[Baroness O’Loan (CB)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her helpful intervention.

There is a further problem. As drafted, there is nothing to prevent any other health professional—a nurse, health visitor or physio—raising assisted dying with a patient. Sometimes, patients form stronger relationships with these people than with doctors because they see more of them. It is essential, therefore, that there is no possibility of a warm-up conversation being initiated by a professional to ease the ground for the doctor when he wants to make his approach. It may be said that this would not happen, but we have seen ample evidence of situations in which cost savings to be secured by freeing up beds and ending treatment are regarded as justification for assisted death. We have, of course, seen situations in which a person who has suffered an amputation or has a terminal cancer seeks a wheelchair and is told the waiting list is two years, but that assisted dying can be provided tomorrow. Any situation in which assisted dying is discussed for the first time must be strictly patient initiated, tightly confined and take place through a clearly defined process.

Amendment 205, to which I put my name, as well as Amendments 207 and 207A and other amendments in the group, would prevent any discussion about assisted suicide with a person who has a learning difficulty or autism without a family member, guardian or independent person present. The effect of this would be to do what all professionals and caring organisations do when dealing with or engaging with people with such disabilities. I also support Amendments 317, 346, 457 and 512 in this group, which seek to protect those who experience feelings of suicidal ideation, which may be transient.

What about the doctors? The MDU, which represents over 200,000 healthcare professionals, is deeply concerned about the proposals in the Bill. The MDU points out that the position whereby doctors are not required to raise this but are still permitted to do so is the worst of both worlds for doctors because they would be liable to complaints in either situation. If the doctor does not raise it, a complaint can be made against them for not having done so; if they do raise it, a complaint can be made against them. As the MDU points out:

“Such proceedings can take a vast toll on doctors. The time taken; the emotional toll; the procedural concerns. This cannot be overstated”.


This is one of the many unintended consequences emanating from this clause as drafted. The clause requires substantial amendment to make it safe.

There seems to me to be a whole range of circumstances that you would want a doctor to be able to talk to the patient about. It is not simply, “We can offer you a way”, and they only talk to you and say, “This is the palliative care available, and only if you have heard that, seen it and chosen from it can we then talk to you about something different, which is assisting your death”. It seems to me—

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Baroness O'Loan and Baroness Berridge

Committee stage
Friday 27th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

For the accuracy of the record, I am grateful that my noble friend referred to a story that I presented to him at lunchtime because it was relevant to Suffolk. Marie Curie’s overnight nursing service—the part of the service that offers palliative care in Ipswich and Suffolk—will end after the NHS withdrew funding. The service supported 470 patients and delivered 15,385 hours of vital care in the last financial year. It relates to my noble friend’s particular area of the country. I know I was not here at the start of the group but, for the accuracy of the record, I have intervened.

[Baroness O'Loan (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser, for these amendments. There is a very serious issue here, evidenced by the nature of the conversation we are having, because it is a conversation about realities. The noble Lord, Lord Empey, said that it was time we started using the language that described exactly what we are doing. I think that is what we are doing now. We are talking about how this is going to be paid for and who should pay for it. How should it be managed?

We have seen the Canadian experience. The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, spoke about wheelchair access. In Canada, it is regularly reported that people who cannot get wheelchairs are offered assisted dying instead. I grant you that that would not necessarily apply in this particular Bill, but you can see how, with mission creep and with changes, this could happen. We could end up in a situation in which we are making the kind of decisions that the noble Lord just referred to in this matter.

I must declare that I have an interest, because I am a trustee of a hospice—an unpaid trustee, I would add, and it is not in my register of interests for that reason, but it is relevant to this debate.

The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, defined the variety of costs attached to the proposals quite clearly. I have to ask, following the noble Lord, Lord Deben, if the estimate of £2,000 is in any way realistic for providing a service which requires for each individual the cost of clinicians, the commissioner, panels, admin staff, communications, monitoring and audit, et cetera. That is to say nothing of maybe a national help service, independent advocates and all sorts of other things. We know that to die at Dignitas and places like that costs an average of £10,000, not £2,000. I would like the noble and learned Lord to ask the Minister if we can have a proper assessment of what is currently planned might cost and where it is to come from.

I have another question for the noble and learned Lord, because it is not the Government who pay; it is us. It is taxpayers who pay. If the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, rejects these proposals or something which approximates to taking the cost away from the National Health Service—as the noble Lord, Lord Deben, says, it is in such a parlous state that palliative care services are being extinguished or diminished very significantly—does he think that the public and the voters will think well of a Government who fund suicide while not funding hospices properly? Does he think it will enhance trust and confidence in the Government?

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Baroness O'Loan and Baroness Berridge

Committee stage
Friday 12th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O’Loan (CB)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that helpful intervention, but we do not know what the outcome of that meeting will be. I think I have the right to make my remarks.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to the amendments in this group. I did not table one in my name about a group of people who are also subject to deprivation of liberty safeguards. I am pleased to hear the noble and learned Lord repeat his offer of a meeting, which was made last Friday. I was disappointed not to receive an invitation to a group meeting to discuss the various groups of vulnerable people who may need additional conditions. Had there been such a meeting, I would not be taking up time today or on the later group, where I had offered to withdraw amendments had a meeting taken place.

There is another group of people under deprivation of liberty safeguards who are not under the Mental Capacity Act. These are young people who are under the High Court jurisdiction of deprivation of liberty safeguards—called High Court DoLS. I thank the President of the Family Division for ensuring that there is research available on this group and the Children’s Commissioner, who has visited very many of them. Those young people are so troubled that their liberty needs to be restricted, but they cannot currently be detained under Section 25 of the Children Act in a secure children’s home. That was for a variety of reasons. One was that we ran out of places, but another was that some of them were in such a situation that they could not even bear a communal secure environment like that.

I did not table an amendment also because under the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill these young people will possibly be brought under the statutory jurisdiction of the Children Act, though it would not be all of them. There were 1,280 applications made last year, and around 90% of them were granted, so this is not, as was originally envisaged, a handful of young people. Are any of those young people also ill? Are noble Lords content that at 18 years and one day old they should have assisted suicide raised with them? Are they also happy that if a child has been under mental health treatment but is also physically ill, at 18 years and one day they come under the jurisdiction of this Bill? The same applies to those detained in a young offender institution. Sadly, due to the Private Member’s Bill process, I do not believe that there has been any consultation, a White Paper or pre-legislative scrutiny to flush out the details and data that we need to properly legislate.

I am grateful to the Children’s Commissioner for attending the Select Committee, but I was surprised that the Public Bill Committee in the House of Commons did not hear from her.

In addition to the issue of those who are 18 years old and one day, some of whom are still under the jurisdiction of the Children’s Commissioner until they are 25 and under the jurisdiction of the local authority, it is not wrong to say that there will be enormous societal change that affects children. I would be grateful to know, whether now or in the meeting that the noble and learned Lord has promised, whether he is aware of this group of children and what meetings he has had to establish how many would be affected at 18 years old, how many are in this group and how they can be protected by additional conditions and safeguards.