Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Friday 13th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Kim Leadbeater]

I have taken legal advice from Government officials to ensure that devolution is respected at every stage in proceedings. Where legislation that affects other jurisdictions needs to be amended, those conversations have already started and will continue.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Kim Leadbeater]

No, I am going to make some progress, if that is okay.

The substances that would be used would not be new substances. As we know, assisted dying is available in many other jurisdictions, and there are substances that have been used safely and, in some cases, for many years. Their safety and efficacy has been proven around the world, but they do need to be treated differently, which is the purpose of new clause 13.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Jim Shannon]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Kim Leadbeater]

I am going to make some progress.

However, it is most likely that these products are already licensed for other purposes. They could well be regulated through the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and within the Human Medicines Regulations 2012 for the purposes of the Bill, but it is important that time is given—

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[Kim Leadbeater]

Given what you have said, Mr Speaker, I will make some progress. [Interruption.] A lot of Members wish to speak today.

I now turn to new clause 14 and amendment 73. The new clause imposes a duty to make regulations prohibiting advertising of services related to voluntary assisted dying. This issue was discussed in Committee, following an amendment tabled by the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Dame Harriett Baldwin). It was proposed that there should be no advertising of assisted dying services. I agree, and there was a consensus on that in the Committee. There were some issues with the previous amendment’s workability, so I gave a commitment to return to the matter on Report—hence the inclusion of this new clause. Amendment 73 provides that regulations under new clause 14 would be subject to the affirmative procedure, providing parliamentary oversight.

[Jim Shannon]

On the evidential basis, on page 15 of today’s edition of The Times there is a story about a gentleman who was born in South Africa and lives in Australia. He has come to London this week for this particular Bill in order to give his story. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and told he had only two weeks to live: he lived for three years and one month, and he is still living. There is a growing evidential basis. He said that he was never afraid to die, but he says that he is afraid of the process of dying, and the hon. Lady is the initiator of that. Will she acknowledge the evidential basis and the importance of this subject? Does she realise that the evidential basis against this Bill is growing?

[Kim Leadbeater]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for the intervention, although I am not sure that it is relevant to the banning of advertising for assisted dying services, which I will try to stay focused on.

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[Sarah Olney]

I will not, if that is okay.

We were told that it was not practical to produce such an assessment until after Committee stage, as it would be necessary to assess the impact of amendments made in Committee.

The equality impact assessment was finally published five weeks ago. I have to say that I was pretty astounded. It does not recognise that certain groups in this country may have their lives prematurely shortened as a result of this legislation; instead, it concerns itself with the barriers that vulnerable people may face when trying to access assisted dying. I find that astonishing. Did the people who drafted the assessment not hear the speech of the hon. Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi) on Second Reading? She spoke with passion about how the underlying inequalities in access to healthcare experienced by those from black and minority ethnic backgrounds would be exacerbated if the Bill passed unamended. Did they not listen to the oral evidence that Dr Jamilla Hussain gave to the Bill Committee? She talked about her experience of working with racialised communities in Bradford and their fears of being pushed disproportionately towards an assisted dying pathway. Did they not listen to the testimony of Dr Miro Griffiths on the experience and concerns of disabled people—testimony that has been echoed by Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson and the actress Liz Carr?

I find it inexplicable that the framing of the impact on vulnerable people should be the removal of barriers to accessing assisted dying and not, as it should be, the increased risk to their health and wellbeing that the Bill presents. I am concerned that we are thinking about the impact on vulnerable people solely with reference to those who are suffering a terminal illness with less than six months to live. We are not thinking about the impact on wider society of introducing a concept of lives not being worth living and how that might disproportionately affect our more vulnerable communities.

My new clause 19 and consequential new schedule 2 and amendment 88 seek to ensure that a comprehensive range of statistics are collected about those who seek and receive an assisted death, so that proper and complete monitoring of requests can be carried out. It is imperative that we get the most detailed possible picture of who is requesting an assisted death so that any patterns of disproportionality can be properly detected and addressed.

[Jim Shannon]

What assurances does the Bill give to the families of people with a disability, or those with mental health issues and those who are anorexic? I do not see any. Does the hon. Lady see any assurances for those who want to end their lives but suffer from those ailments?

[Sarah Olney]

I welcome that intervention. I spoke extensively about the Bill’s impact on anorexic people, and I am not satisfied that those concerns have been addressed.

I am pleased to support amendment 21 tabled by my good friend, colleague and constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson), which has attracted support from across the House. It would require the Secretary of State to report on the impact that the Act has had on the healthcare available to those with palliative and end-of-life care needs. I am really pleased that the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) has agreed to accept the amendment.

I am also pleased to support amendments 103 and 104 in the name of my other constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler). They seek to make all statutory instruments made under the Act subject to the affirmative procedure rather than the negative procedure. As it stands, the Act will come into force in four years’ time with no further scrutiny by MPs, yet a whole host of issues that have been delegated to the Secretary of State or have not even been considered will need to be legislated for after Royal Assent. As the Bill stands, the only way for Parliament to scrutinise those powers will be to call for a 90-minute debate on a motion that cannot be amended and will be voted on only if the Leader of the Opposition calls for a vote. Making statutory instruments subject to the affirmative procedure rather than the negative procedure would mean that the Secretary of State, whoever that is, can exercise the powers delegated to them only with the approval of Parliament. For an issue as sensitive and profound as assisted dying, I believe that to be an appropriate level of scrutiny.

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It is beginning to feel as if this were a deliberate tactic. “Keep things vague, do not make anything too real or tangible, and do not confront what this will mean day-to-day. Let’s just keep it light. Let’s keep it airy-fairy. Let’s keep it in the cloud of principle and, somehow or another, through benign intervention, good will accrue.” This is too serious an issue in which to place that faith, because it could be misplaced. That relies on us as Members of Parliament not to care—to switch off when we hear the words “secondary legislation”, something that we know can often be dealt with in five or 10 minutes in a Committee room, with 14 or 20 people selected by the Whips and no debate on the Floor of the House. This is not a niche issue for the Hansard Society or the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, and it would be a shame and a stain on this House and this Parliament if we were to nod through a Bill that gives us the idea that Henry VIII is the way to go.

[Jim Shannon]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Simon Hoare]

I will not; I am very conscious of time.

Madam Deputy Speaker, given that so many right hon. and hon. Members have been constrained in the length of their contributions because of your persistent cough—I say that not as a criticism—and that next week we have a lot of one-line Whips and the following week we have exactly the same, more time really should be given to the Bill. I do wish the Government had taken it on, not as a Government Bill but by finding Government time for Report on the Floor of the House. This is too serious an issue to have as many gaps and lacunae as this Bill has.

The founding fathers of the United States worked on the basis that the vague generalities of the constitution would always be adhered to, and that men and women of goodwill would adhere to it. I am pretty certain that they are now beginning posthumously, with the current incarnation, to wonder whether that is true. We should not be legislating to leave it up to Ministers to define regulations and decide how they come forward. We have Bills that have page after page after page which, when people ask themselves, “What is this all about?”, actually amount to very little. The amendments that have been tabled, and which I support, have been tabled in good faith, but I am afraid to say that, in trying to improve the Bill, they are trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

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[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

I rise to support and speak briefly to amendment (a) to amendment 77, tabled by the hon. Member for South Antrim (Robin Swann), and I will speak to new clause 13, amendment 96 and other amendments if time permits.

I was rather confused when I looked at the amendment paper a few days ago and noticed that amendments that would directly impact on Northern Ireland had been tabled. When last I checked, the Bill as a whole extended only to England and Wales, so I find amendments 76 and 77 perplexing. To be clear, health and criminal justice are devolved matters. The people of Northern Ireland elect their own Assembly to make precisely these sensitive decisions, including whether to legislate for assisted suicide, which is an issue of profound moral weight and cultural consequence.

[Jim Shannon]

My hon. Friend is right to pursue this matter. The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh) said it earlier on: the NHS was formed by the Labour party and is of the Labour party. These amendments would ensure that the Secretary of State could overrule Assembly Members. In other words, 90 Members of the Assembly could make a decision, but the Secretary of State could overrule it—surely that is incredibly wrong. It flies in the face of the democratic process that we are here to uphold.

[Carla Lockhart]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. On a constitutional basis alone, amendment (a) to amendment 77 is necessary, and I hope that hon. Members will feel they can support it.

Moving on to factors beyond the constitution, I am concerned that there is a dangerous absence of an adequate regulatory framework for lethal drugs under the Bill. At present, clause 25 gives the Secretary of State powers to approve lethal drugs, while clause 34 mandates the Secretary of State to make provision for prescribing, dispensing, transportation, storage, handling, disposal and record keeping, as well as enforcement and civil penalties. However, the fundamental issue of how these approved substances are actually approved remains alarmingly weak. The Bill defines “approved substances” simply as

“a drug or other substance specified”

by the Secretary of State in regulations. There is no explicit requirement for those substances to undergo specific, rigorous testing for their use in assisted dying.

When this issue was debated in Committee, I was disappointed to see good-faith amendments to engage, such as amendment 443, being dismissed.