Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Kirsteen Sullivan Excerpts

Friday 13th June 2025 Commons Chamber

We all agree that palliative and end-of-life care is not available to many people. Britain has entrenched poverty, and people worry terribly about money at the end of their lives. It is important to understand that the panel and commissioner would not ventilate or investigate those matters at all, because they would be looking at pressure from other people and not at those terrible societal pressures.

[Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that across all aspects of the Bill we cannot legislate only for those with good mental health, or for those who are loved, supported and protected? We must have at heart the best interests of the most vulnerable and those without a voice or without loved ones, to ensure that they are protected.

[John Grady]

I am obliged to my hon. Friend—that is precisely why I joined the Labour party as a 16-year-old. Faced with terrible circumstances, some people will seek an assisted death. I find it hard to accept that those will be truly autonomous choices. We must be clear that the very same circumstances that have denied people dignity and robbed them of autonomy throughout their lives will drive them to an assisted death. I find that deeply troubling, and I worry that we are placing too much confidence in concepts of capacity, autonomy and self-determination.

Everyone accepts that coercive control is common—indeed, it is incredibly common, as is domestic abuse and elder abuse. There are very clear risks of coercion. I recognise that the supporters of the Bill have sought to improve protections, and to protect people in those types of circumstance. I have anxiously scrutinised those protections, and I do not believe that they will achieve their aim. That is why the amendments are so important.