Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Mackinlay of Richborough Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 19th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Con)]

My Lords, I will present five bases of rejection to the Bill. The first is the evolution of the Bill in the other place, which we can hardly call Parliament at its best. It was deemed to be a Private Member’s Bill, but I am sorry to say that I think we are being fooled here; it is quite obviously a government Bill in disguise. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, indicated this last week in his fine speech, when he referred to the Civil Service assistance he had had to date, which is more than unusual for any Private Member’s Bill.

From the start, Committee in the other place was stilted in its composition, and many respected institutions that will be operating in the space of the Bill were denied their opportunity for input. What worried me more than anything else were the joyous, tear-flecked celebrations by some parliamentarians of the passing of the Bill in the Commons; it is a Bill of death. I found that quite bizarre and chilling. I should not be surprised, however, as many of the same people are jubilant about the opportunity to home-conduct abortions up to full term without sanction. I celebrate life rather than death.

The Bill as originally drafted had 16 Henry VIII clauses; that has now grown to 42, including many that will allow ministerial powers and secondary legislation to create criminal sanctions. Noble Lords will be aware that this is just not right in legislation; this should not happen without great cause, to create criminal sanctions by secondary legislation. It is usually widely condemned.

My second objection is the reality of what we have seen in other jurisdictions, where we have seen a loosening throughout—whether that be in Australia, Canada or most certainly Belgium. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, predicted last week that only 1% of deaths would be through legalised suicide within 10 years. That does not fit very well with Australia’s 3% and Canada’s just under 5%. In all jurisdictions, “I don’t want to be a burden” has become bigger and bigger. In Belgium, children as young as nine are being euthanised under similar legislation—let me repeat that: in Belgium, children aged nine are being euthanised. I have grave concerns about the human rights industry in this country, where whatever happens in Parliament gets overturned through judicial activism. I am absolutely sure that this would be watered down to death on the state on demand in due course. That is my great fear.

My third grave concern is inheritance. I am professionally trained and licensed to do probate work through the Institute of Chartered Accountants; believe me, post-death battles over inheritance can get very ugly. I am fearful of the coercion of the elderly and the vulnerable. It is so obvious.

Fourthly, I am worried about the six-month time limit. We have a similar thing in the DWP for end-of-life PIP, where you have to have an assessment that you may live for only up to 12 months. The reality is very different: the average is over two years, and very commonly people live for three when the assessment was just a year. Are we really going to terminate lives earlier than may be the case? The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, gave a fine speech last week: a personal account of his father. What he is looking for, and what I would be looking for, is that very end-of-life solution where things can be put right, the making a person comfortable, that we know happens, sort of, today. If that is the bit that needs codification into legislation, that is fine; we should be considering that.

Fifthly and finally, I am concerned that we want to embed an option for death within the NHS, where its modus operandi should be for life and for doing its bit, obviously, when palliative care is needed. To have this as an option is very dangerous. I would like to see—if we have to have this at all—a separation, because unfortunately the NHS would have skin in the game in terms of costs and staff problems. This is an unwholesome Bill, and I will oppose it.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Mackinlay of Richborough Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 14th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (CB)]

My Lords, I shall be even more brief than the noble Lord, Lord Tyrie, but I put on record that I am quite in favour of Damascene conversions on this occasion. This last hour and a half have shown us that this is irrespective of the aims of the Bill. The way the Bill is written has so many flaws that I do not think that, however long we debate it, this House will be able to get it to a stage where it is legislatively fit to be passed, and that is our role: we should not vote for anything that cannot legislatively be properly implemented.

[Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Con)]

My Lords, I am in favour of the amendments from my noble friend Lady Coffey. This has been a fascinating debate about the issues that we have with the devolution settlements across our United Kingdom. It is not only about the issues across the English-Welsh border, which have been so ably demonstrated and described by my noble friend Lord Harper, who has experience in this matter from the other place, but we have other strange dynamics going on in this country on the English border over into Scotland, where things are very different. There are other differences between England and Northern Ireland. We are not proposing to usurp the settlement with Scotland or to usurp the settlement with Northern Ireland.

I am quite interested to hear, at the appropriate time, whether the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, will declare whether he is no longer quite so keen on the old devolution settlements that I can but assume he was part of during the Government that he served in, in that it is not quite as convenient now in this Bill to do the things required by those devolution settlements.

I was interested to hear the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Weir, because the Northern Ireland arrangement has a further dynamic, between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, where there is, again, a swapping over and a commonality of health provision, and it is quite commonplace that people come and go.

The matter of abortion was also raised. That has had a different dynamic across our United Kingdom over many years. My voting record in the House of Commons will show that I took no part in the rather heated debate on abortion that happened some years ago. I abstained because I appreciated that the devolution settlement was a matter for the Northern Ireland Assembly to come to its own conclusions on.

We have to ask ourselves what this Bill is. Is it a criminal justice Bill? We have 42 Henry VIII powers, exercisable by Ministers, so the Bill before us is not actually the Bill that will affect people’s lives; that will be written later because this Bill has so many of those Henry VIII powers in it. Many of those powers, as I described at Second Reading, should not really be there. We should not be having Henry VIII powers to create criminal matters under statutory instruments and delegated legislation; that is just not the way we do things.

So is this a criminal justice Bill? I do not think it is, because it has now morphed very much into a health Bill. It seeks to amend the NHS Act. I think it is the intent of many of the Bill’s supporters that it is the NHS that does these things: advise, provide the medical staff and do the deed. I do not know which chemical might be used. It may be barbiturates in England; it might be heaven knows what in Scotland. These are serious matters.

Is this a medical Bill? I believe that it is. Because it has morphed increasingly into a medical Bill, whether or not we agree with the devolution settlements, we have to respect them. As my noble friend Lord Harper highlighted very clearly, this is the danger of a Private Member’s Bill that is so interwoven with and entrenched in the complications of a devolution settlement. Whether you are for or against this Bill, or whatever, these are complex matters. These are matters of a different potential life or death, depending on which border you are close to in this United Kingdom. This is a matter of health in Wales.

Looking back to Covid, I know that it is a period we all rather like to forget, unpleasant as it was. At that time, I and my noble friend Lord Harper—I am sorry to keep mentioning him—were somewhat active in the space. Do noble Lords remember? These were matters of life and death; I mean, Covid was deemed to be. I was not quite so keen on the measures and voted against them all, but they were deemed to be measures of life and death; that is why they were so draconian.

I remember very clearly that I came up with what I called the Wilkinson conundrum. It is not a good conundrum now, because Wilkinson has subsequently gone into liquidation, but I made the point that because Wilkinson sold everything—fresh fruit and vegetables, tins of beans, and pots and pans—it was allowed to open. The lunacy was that the independent trader next door who sold only pots and pans was not allowed to open. We did that for whatever reason—it was deemed to be a matter of life and death—but Wales did something entirely different. In Wales, Wilkinson had to hide the pots and pans; one could buy beans and everything else, but a cover had to be put over the pots and pans. In matters of life and death, we allowed Wales to have its way.

This is most seriously a matter of life and death. We have a devolution settlement, and it has to be respected.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests in this debate: I chair Sport Wales, which is an arm’s-length body of the Welsh Government; I am the president of the LGA; and I am a director of Living and Dying Well. I also spoke recently at a fundraiser event for a hospice in Wales.

A fundamental part of why we are here is to debate legislation, including looking at how this Bill might impact various parts of the UK—most specifically, England and Wales. I am concerned that we could end up with vastly different systems in England and Wales. Generally, there is a lack of understanding on devolution. In sport, I seem to spend quite a lot of time in meetings asking, “What about devolution?”, and we have to be careful about what we do in Westminster and what should be a matter for Wales when the health service is devolved.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Mackinlay of Richborough Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 21st November 2025 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Con)]

My Lords, the debate on this matter this morning has been enlightening from all sides, with many with many distinctive speeches that will stay with me, including that of the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, who brought a very personal account, though he is no longer in his place.

We are talking about concepts and words—whether it is encouragement, coercion or pressure. They are in a similar collective of words, and I worry that we are dancing with words a lot in this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, brought the word “autonomy” to us this morning, which is very important. I know it has been described earlier in Committee and on the Floor here today. I would be significantly more encouraged and relieved if I could be absolutely sure that autonomy and freedom of action, freedom of movement, freedom of thought and of decision were clear, unambiguous and untainted. I cannot be assured by the Bill, as it stands, as it is weak on the coercion nature.

As I left the Chamber earlier—my wife had arrived— I thought back to the cases of Ruth Ellis and Derek Bentley, which were very significant as they stopped the death penalty in this country. It was a long time ago when the morality and thoughts of this country were in a very different place to today. One might talk about the deterrent effects of the death penalty—which is a whole different debate—but we were willing to put that aside because of the potential of getting things wrong, and we did not want miscarriages of justice. That was so powerful. However, here we are discussing this Bill with lots of suggestions on how we could strengthen the coercion measures and make sure that people are not being pushed towards an early death that they did not want. We are almost flippant about that because the unsaid words are, “They’re old and ill anyway, so they don’t really matter”.

In support of Amendment 58 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, my noble friend Lord Deben—with whom I do not always agree on everything—made a very powerful point. If you were to look at the bell curve of the wealth and status of us in this Committee, we are probably to the left of the public politically, but certainly to the right in terms of wealth and influence as a whole. There is a world of difference between how, if we were to face this, we would be treated—the voice we would have for ourselves and the way in which our families would know they have agency and power to speak—compared with others in society. It could be that the wealthy family would be in a different place, because they could afford the help at home and the support in a care home as necessary.

However, for those in the middle who perhaps have children who work away, which is increasingly likely in this country, the children are feeling guilty. There are lots of cases that have been talked about the real situation of how people feel. In cases of that type there may be no problem of wealth, but problems of support by children and others. The “I don’t want to be a burden” debate would be coming to the fore.

One of our Northern Ireland colleagues mentioned the issue of saying, “Do you know how much this costs the NHS?”. I will be exploring that in greater detail. I think Amendment 3 touched on having an independent person; I have laid amendments for another day examining whether the NHS should be part of this process at all.

I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, that I could be encouraged but I am not sure how we can overcome the facets and dimensions of autonomy and coercion, because people and families are complex. One’s situation in life is complex. Just as we were willing to change a major piece of criminal legislation on the back of two errors, we seem to be not so interested in looking after the vulnerable in this Bill. I wish I could advance an amendment that would satisfy me—a lot of these amendments would make me a little more satisfied—but, no matter what we do, I am tempted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, in saying that we need to look at this whole area of coercion and pressure all over again. It is absolutely apparent across this Committee that this is the sticking point for many of us, so please try to satisfy us.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, in their various ways, the amendments in this group seek to protect those who are terminally ill from being coerced or pressured into a decision to seek an assisted death. One of the most worrying concerns that have been raised by opponents of this Bill is the risk of especially vulnerable people being encouraged or coerced into ending their own life. The noble Lord, Lord Dodds, was right about that. For that reason, I do not think the Committee should feel embarrassed about having spent the time on this debate that we have.

As has been pointed out, the Bill already seeks to cover the coercion issue in its existing drafting. However, given that it creates a totally new role for medical practitioners in a situation where a terminally ill person wishes to end their life, in my opinion noble Lords are surely right that a laser focus should be applied to delivering protections designed to prevent any such coercion or pressure.

As a number of speakers have pointed out, coercion can come from anywhere—family members, friends, neighbours, other trusted people in our lives or an institution—and it does not have to be overt. It can and often does take the subtlest of forms. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and my noble friend Lord Deben vividly described situations of that nature. Of course, the vast majority of family and friends of someone suffering from a progressive terminal illness will act in good faith to support their loved one through what is in many if not most cases an incredibly difficult time. However, when framing legislation around a decision as momentous as whether to opt for an assisted death and, as the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, pointed out, human nature being what it is, it is doubly incumbent on us to look for ways of safeguarding those who might be most susceptible to external pressure.

Amendment 3 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, would state more clearly in the Bill that the decision to end one’s life must be made independently. I hope the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, will look favourably on this amendment, as it seems to me in tune with the Bill’s aims and purpose.

The question, though, as posed by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, is whether it is necessary. As far as I can see, in no part of the Bill is there any indication that where a person finds it difficult to make a decision about an assisted death, or where the possibility of an assisted death has not even entered their head, it would be appropriate for their thoughts to be influenced or guided by another individual. Indeed, the Bill contains specific prohibitions on advertisement and promotion, as well as the offences set out in Clause 34 in respect of inducing a person to seek an assisted death by dishonesty, coercion or pressure.