Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Lord Carlile of Berriew and Lord Deben

Committee stage
Friday 6th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, I signed the noble and learned Lord’s amendment, and I thank him very much for introducing it. In my view, it is a very important amendment. Noble Lords who have seen a serious eating disorder at close quarters will know that it not only disturbs the person who suffers from that eating disorder, but dramatically affects everybody around them. It is all too easy to be fatalistic about it, not challenge it and try to make one’s way through it.

It is a condition that, in my view, produces three possible outcomes. One, in all too many cases, as we have heard, is suicide. For some, indeed in quite a number of cases, there is recovery. However, perhaps most people who suffer from anorexia, particularly at a young age, learn to live with it. It is that living with it that, in my view, is the most important reason for ensuring that it plays no part in the outcomes envisaged in this Bill. For everybody who suffers from an eating disorder—this perhaps particularly needs to be said to teenagers who suffer from eating disorders, whether boys or girls—the important thing is that there is hope of some kind of good recovery, even if it is just learning to live with it. Something that offers such hope should not, in my view, be part of anything remotely resembling this Bill.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I wanted to say, as I have several times pointed out, that one reason why this Bill has taken so long is that the proponents have not been willing to make some of the changes that many of us feel would be perfectly sensible. I therefore thank the noble and learned Lord for this amendment. I think he must also agree that the debate that has followed has brought to the surface a number of issues that need to be considered, and no doubt will be when we get to Report.

However, the reason I rise is just to say to him that I find it pretty unacceptable, when I have sat through almost every moment on this Bill and have learned so much from the discussions that have taken place, for him to suggest that somehow or other we ought to do it more quickly. The fact is that this is a very badly produced Bill. It is opposed by every single organisation representing the people who have to actually do it and by every single representative of disabled people. If this House is not here to go through the details that others have raised outside, I really do wonder what the House of Lords is supposed to be. The noble and learned Lord ought to give some of us credit for the fact that, whatever we think about the Bill, we want to make it as good as it can be. That means we have to discuss it properly.