Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Lewis Atkinson and Karen Bradley

2nd reading
Friday 11th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dame Karen Bradley]

I am sorry; I really must make progress.

We could have thousands of people entering the system immediately. If the safeguards are not right on day one, vulnerable people will be exposed on day one.

We also have the updated equality impact assessment, to which the hon. Member for Bradford West referred, and its conclusions should give every Member pause. It recognises that

“disabled people may feel subtle pressure due to attitudinal barriers or a lack of alternative appropriate services and support…This could also include structural pressures such as neglect, poverty and difficult living conditions”.

It also recognises that we may see

“disproportionate numbers of ethnic minority people choosing to have an assisted death to avoid financial hardship or escape abuse.”

I believe that the Bill is not finished, but we are effectively voting today for a completed and finished Bill. That worries me enormously. Much has been said previously in the debate—I will not repeat the point—but we are giving powers to a future Government to implement this Bill. We are not giving those powers to the Ministers sitting on the Front Bench today, and we are not necessarily giving them to those on the Opposition Front Bench; we are giving them to a future Government of any political persuasion. When I was a Government Minister, I remember always asking myself, “Would I be happy if another Government took this forward—if they had the power to do this?”

I ask Members to apply a test that we too rarely apply when legislating: do not ask whether you trust the people who will administer these powers today; ask whether you would be content with the political party you trust least possessing them tomorrow. There is simply not enough detail in the Bill to constrain how many of these decisions would be made. The National Down Syndrome Policy Group put it best: this Bill hopes for the best rather than prepares for the worst.

[Lewis Atkinson (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Member give way?

[Dame Karen Bradley]

I feel sorry for my hon. Friend from the Home Affairs Committee, but I really must make progress, because Madam Deputy Speaker has been clear to me that I must.

I say to colleagues who supported the Bill before and have wrestled sincerely with the issue since: you do not have to repudiate the vote you cast last time to vote differently today. You do not have to decide that assisted dying can never be right. You do not have to abandon the compassion that led you to support the principle. You need only ask whether this Bill, in this form, on the evidence before us today, is safe enough for Parliament to force it into law. That is today’s test. There is no shame whatsoever in concluding that the answer to a different question is different. Indeed, there would be something profoundly wrong with a Parliament in which Members felt bound by an earlier vote, regardless of everything they had learned since.

Success is rare for private Members’ Bills. It is an amazing route when legislation is simple and consensus is easily achieved, and the whole House came together last Friday to do something quite remarkable for babies, but it is a terrible route when the risks of getting it wrong are great and there is great complexity and such emotion.

Before a Government Bill is introduced, Departments will normally spend months or years developing the policy—sometimes that is too slow, but that is what they do. They consult experts and those affected, test the legal and practical implications, produce impact assessments, secure cross-Government agreement and have the legislation professionally drafted and scrutinised by parliamentary counsel. Finally, the legislation goes through the Parliamentary Business and Legislation Committee, where Ministers have to prove to the rest of Government that the Bill is fit for purpose. That is what we needed here, when dealing with one of the most profound changes that Parliament could make to the relationship between the citizen, medicine and the state.

Some say they want to amend the Bill. Have there been any reassurances that those amendments will be supported? The promoter controls the make-up of the Public Bill Committee and will have a majority. On Report, if we are fortunate Members may have the opportunity to vote on only a handful of issues, and those who support the Bill will be asked to reject each one. We are being asked to support the Bill as it stands, alongside a commitment to force it into law regardless of what safeguards are forgone or what gaps, through which vulnerable people may fall, remain.

There is no one else to whom we can pass responsibility. We cannot say that the other place will sort it out, or that we will fix it later. If the Bill becomes law, Parliament may not get another opportunity to reopen it and put right what we discover we got wrong. The consequences will instead be worked out in practice—in hospitals, homes and, ultimately, the courts, where judges will make decisions based on the law before us today. For the people affected by a mistake, “We will sort it out later,” is no safeguard at all.

My appeal today, particularly to those who voted for the Bill before, is this. Look at what we know now. Look at the people who will depend on our having got every safeguard right. Remember the quiet ones. Are you prepared today to say that this Bill, in this form, is safe to be forced into law?