Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Ben Spencer Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 11th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Lauren Edwards]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Obviously, Members have previously raised concerns about doctors getting their prognosis wrong when it comes to how long someone is able to live. My understanding is that, given the international evidence, six months was seen a reasonable line to draw, because as the time of death gets closer, the accuracy of the diagnosis is increased.

[Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Lauren Edwards]

I am sorry, but I will not give way.

I thank all those who took part in the debate on the Bill in this Chamber during the last parliamentary Session. We showed politics at its best through our robust but courteous debates. We did our job, and we did it well; now it is time for us to send this assisted dying Bill back to the House of Lords, so that it can finish what it started. Whatever our respective views on the form and composition of the second Chamber, I hope we can agree that peers play an important role in scrutinising, refining and strengthening the legislation that we send there.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Lewin]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention. I do not have that number; what I do have is the number of amendments that were proposed. There were 1,286 wrecking amendments.

There are many thoughtful and compassionate critics of the Bill who I respect deeply. I want to put on record my admiration for my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Ashley Dalton) and for her astonishingly brave speech. However, what I cannot condone is the actions of Members of the other place whose motivation in the last Session of Parliament appeared to be to block the democratic process.

[Dr Ben Spencer]

Is a requirement to ask someone why they want to have a physician-assisted suicide a wrecking amendment?

[Andrew Lewin]

The point I was making, which I believe many colleagues will recognise, was that having over 100 hours of debate and more than 1,000 amendments was not conducive to the idea of making serious progress with the Bill; it was, to all intents and purposes, a filibuster.

Our role today extends beyond debating the Bill. It is also to reaffirm the will and primacy of the House of Commons.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)]

As a former mental health doctor and someone who has done research on decision-making capacity, I want to talk about stigma in the brief time I have today. I have looked after many hundreds of people—perhaps thousands—who have self-harmed or attempted suicide. Of course, a desire for one’s life to end can be entirely reasonable and an understandable wish, but it is often a manifestation of a treatable mental disorder. With the right intervention, care and support, people can get better. They can look back and say, “What was that about? I’m so thankful I didn’t succeed” when they get the care and treatment they need.

The Bill refuses to acknowledge that. It frames the debate—the intervention—as shortening the death process or some form of assisted dying rather than what it is, which is physician-assisted suicide. The Bill is designed to take at face value an expression of a wish to die as an absolute fact—an expression of autonomy—and not a possible manifestation of mental illness. That is its blind spot. That is its most tragic flaw, and it is from there that I believe all its problems derive.

Mental disorder can be very tricky to detect. There is nothing stigmatising about mental disorder. If someone in hospital expressed a wish to die, if someone in a care home or an outpatient clinic expressed a wish to die, if someone here in the Chamber expressed a wish to die or if a loved one expressed a wish to die, the first person I would want them to see would be a psychiatrist, not an assisted dying practitioner.