Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Carter of Haslemere Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 12th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, stated in this House on 4 September last year, that the Government’s commitment is

“to ensure that any debate on assisted dying … will take place in a broader context of access to high-quality palliative and end-of-life care”.—[Official Report, 4/9/24; col. 1151.]

Well, here we are having that debate. Has access to palliative and end-of-life care improved so much in the past few months? The experts say not. We have heard—but it bears repeating—that the evidence shows that 100,000 people die each year in the UK with unmet palliative care needs. Fewer than 50% have input from a specialist palliative care team in their last three months of life.

The Bill sidesteps this crucial issue because, as was pointed out by the noble Lords, Lord Lamont and Lord Grabiner, it contains no requirement that a person who is suffering from a terminal illness must also be suffering intolerable pain. Under the Bill, anyone given a prognosis of six or fewer months to live would be eligible for assistance to die, regardless of whether they are experiencing pain. Some of these people will require palliative care in any event, but if the focus of the debate were instead on relieving intolerable pain and suffering, then it would be more apparent that we should be legislating for wider access to higher-quality palliative care, not a state-assisted death regime.

As the Health and Social Care Committee heard, patients in countries with assisted dying who request help to die frequently change their mind if provided with proper palliative care. Evidence from Oregon, for example, showed that 46% of patients who received substantive palliative care changed their minds about an assisted death, compared with just 15% who did not receive such palliative care. Yet the Bill does not require a person to receive palliative care before electing an assisted death, merely that they be given the opportunity to discuss it. There is therefore a strong case for the huge sums that would be spent on state-assisted deaths to be spent instead on improving access to specialist palliative care.

Yet the intention seems to be quite the opposite. The impact statement sets out the tens of millions of pounds currently spent on care, state pensions and benefits that would be saved if this Bill were enacted. Is this really a relevant consideration? If so, we need to re-examine our priorities here. We should be encouraging those who are ill, depressed or struggling in any way to believe that life is a precious gift and worth living. We should be treating them as individuals who never cease to be important, even in frailty or decline, and that they deserve to have a dignified life in all its seasons by being cared for to the end, with the state meeting the full costs of that.

In speaking on this Bill, each of us will individually have searched our consciences, which is exactly how it should be. In searching mine and taking the line that I have, I have been guided by my Christian beliefs on life and on how life comes to an end.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Carter of Haslemere Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 12th December 2025 Lords Chamber

I want to reiterate the question: are we keeping our prison population in mind as a vulnerable group in the Bill? Particularly when our prisons are overcrowded and, to be extremely frank—although I think the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, was franker—the desire to remove people from the system is high. I fear how the Bill could play out among the prison population and hope that noble Lords will give further consideration to this important issue.

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

My Lords, I want to make a very brief intervention in relation to the prison population. It is only the second time I have spoken on the Bill. I declare an interest as a trustee of the Prison Reform Trust.

The suicide rate among male prisoners is four times as high as that of the general population. In the year to 2024, 89 male prisoners committed suicide. The Prison Service has a duty of care towards the prison population to protect them from committing suicide—to stop it. The Government run the Prison Service, so they must have a view on what to do about a prisoner whose suicide the Prison Service has correctly thwarted under its duty of care but who then requests an assisted death under the Bill. How will the Government balance those two conflicting things?

That is my short intervention—to ask that question. I wholly support all the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, the noble Lords, Lord Moore and Lord Farmer, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester, and others on this crucial issue. I am genuinely interested to know what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, makes of this dilemma for the Prison Service and the Government.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, the moments in the Bill that most concern me are when it gets nearest to saving money. There are several occasions on which that appears to be the case, particularly when talking about people for whom many have no sympathy at all, and when you are talking about a service in which we all know we are failing. It cannot be true that any Member of this House believes that our prisons are as they should be. Yet we imprison more and more people. We imprison twice as many people as the French or the Germans. I still do not understand why we cannot take this seriously, but we still go on doing it.

First, can one really think that someone in prison circumstances finds it possible to make the same kind of decision as people who are not? Just simply, those circumstances are the pressures, the crowding and the fact that you are not in any company that you would have chosen. I do not believe that those are the circumstances in which the Bill’s proponents meant for decisions of the sort we are talking about to be made.

The second issue is: what about the pressures there? We have been talking about the concerns of those who find themselves under pressure. Do we really believe that there will not be many prisoners for whom the whole issue will be presented as, “You will be better off and we will be better off if you make this decision”?

The third issue is surely this: we know that prisoners have much worse healthcare than people outside prison. Therefore, the fact that they are told that they have but six months to live is much more difficult than it would be if they were in normal circumstances. I put it no more sharply than that, but it does seem to be true.

Fourthly, earlier on, we were talking very strongly about the difficulty that the Government are willing to fund this when they are not funding palliative care for very large numbers of people in the country. I therefore come back to my deep concern that it will become so much easier for people to die than to continue.

The right reverend Prelate, whose experience is remarkable and whom I admire enormously for her work in the prisons, has reminded us of how old the prison population is and how much older it is becoming. I just do not think that those of us in this House who really believe that our major job in this Bill is to protect the vulnerable can possibly agree that people in prison should be included under the Bill. We should take them out.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

First, I am referring to the amendments before us. Secondly, I am advising on risk and workability, again for the assistance of your Lordships’ Committee, which, as is correct and proper, will make the decision.

These amendments appear to treat people with EHCPs differently from those who do not have them. This could give rise to potential incompatibility with Article 14 of the ECHR, when read with Article 8, and would require reasonable justification for differential treatment.

Finally, as noble Lords will be aware, the amendments in this group have not had technical drafting support from officials, so the way they are drafted means that they may not be fully workable, effective or enforceable. However, as I have said, the issues raised are rightly a matter for noble Lords to consider and decide.

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister referred to a number of articles of the ECHR, but she has not referred to Article 2, which is the duty on a state to protect life. That is why the courts have imposed a duty of care on the Prison Service and the Government to protect prisoners from committing suicide. My question goes back to what I said earlier: how do the Government reconcile that duty with a vulnerable prisoner applying for an assisted death? How does that square with the duty under Article 2 and the duty of care to prisoners?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I refer the noble Lord to the provisions within the Bill. His earlier question was very much about policy. I am sure that my noble and learned friend will also refer to this, but this is a matter of policy and therefore it is for Parliament to decide.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Carter of Haslemere Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 9th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

My Lords, I speak to the six amendments in my name in this group. I do not need to explain what they say because they are all replicated by other amendments in the group, so I can be very brief. All these amendments are intended to ensure that a person seeking assistance to end their life first be referred to a registered medical practitioner who specialises in palliative, hospice and other care for the purpose of a full assessment—the operative word being “assessment”, not necessarily treatment. The Bill currently requires merely that a medical practitioner “offer” a referral to a specialist palliative care practitioner. This is inadequate in relation to such critical decisions as choosing whether to live or seek a state-assisted death.

It is important to note that all these amendments are based on evidence. In countries with assisted dying—Oregon has been referred to—experts say that patients who request help to die often change their minds if provided with proper palliative care. Yet the Government’s impact assessment confirms that fewer than half of dying people have input from a specialist palliative care team in the last three months of their life. It seems hard to dispute the case, therefore, for the Bill requiring that persons seeking a state-assisted death be given a full palliative care assessment, with the opportunity to choose to experience modern specialist palliative care at its very best. It is about doing everything humanly possible to keep people alive with as little pain and suffering as possible, and giving priority to life over death wherever possible.

Recalling our debate yesterday about which amendments the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, might be prepared to accept, the amendments in this group are, like the previous group, pivotal to the decision a dying person will have to make if this Bill is enacted. It would save much time on Report if the noble and learned Lord could indicate now whether he can accept one or more of them. The Government would then have a responsibility to ensure that adequate palliative care specialists are available.

I recall, as I did at Second Reading, the wise words of the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, who, in answer to an Oral Question in this House on 4 September 2024, said that the Government’s

“commitment is to ensure that any debate on assisted dying … takes place in a broader context of access to high-quality palliative and end-of-life care”.—[Official Report, 4/9/24; col. 1151.]

The amendments in this group would help to ensure that a person at least has a real choice of whether to access that palliative and end-of-life care or whether to seek a state-assisted death.

[Baroness Brown of Silvertown (Lab)]

My Lords, my Amendment 51 and others would require the providers of assisted dying services to ensure that all persons seeking such services have discussed the range of end-of-life options available to them with a palliative care specialist.

The Government and proponents of the Bill have promised that end-of-life care will not suffer in order to accommodate assisted dying. I have significant reservations about whether this would be possible, and I fear a push factor, particularly for those who are vulnerable, those who are without family and, to be absolutely frank, those who are poor and cannot fund their own care. When done right, as we know, palliative care can provide a dignified end of life and alleviate the desire to hasten one’s death. Equitable access to options for end-of-life care must be a cornerstone for this Bill, which is why I have laid these amendments. I want to ensure, as far as humanly possible, that all people have and know that they have equal access to palliative care, to treatments that may extend life and to specialist teams to manage the symptoms and pain and to provide dignity.

This Committee must accept that equal access to these services, as for many public services, is not guaranteed and is rarely delivered. I give just one example, due to time. A Liverpool resident with the terrible asbestos-related mesothelioma cancer can undergo a specialist injection that has a high chance of abolishing the pain, whereas a resident of the Midlands, who may be unfit to travel to Liverpool, simply cannot because there are so few specialists trained to take this work on. Therefore, access is obviously limited.

Clauses 5 and 12 require doctors to have discussions about disease prognosis, treatments and symptomatic alleviation with patients. Clause 5 includes an offer to refer them to a specialist. Although these are important discussions, which must be had, they have to be conducted by somebody properly trained and experienced in such matters. For conditions that are specialist care cases, such as motor neurone disease, most doctors will have minimal involvement in the management of that condition and will likely not have the skills and training to adequately fulfil the duties that the Bill places on them. A specialist referral is absolutely necessary to that ensure patients are able to reach an informed decision about their care with somebody who properly understands the disease, how that disease will progress and what can be put in place to alleviate their distress and pain.

A person seeking assisted dying will be worried about their future, losing their independence and dignity and placing a huge burden on their families. A dedicated palliative care specialist would have the expertise, skill and training to provide the highest level of information and support, tailored to the individual needs of each patient, and have specialist knowledge of the condition that the patient is experiencing. Clause 1 requires that a person

“has a clear, settled and informed wish to end their own life”.

I believe that you can ensure a settled and informed wish and reach an informed decision only after properly exploring all available care and treatment options with dedicated palliative care specialists and having those options available to you. My amendment would therefore create a duty on all people involved in the provision of assisted dying services to ensure that those discussions have occurred, covering care options including symptom management and home care provision.

I welcome the amendments tabled by other colleagues that would ensure a dedicated palliative care assessment is part of the assisted dying process and I believe that my amendment can work alongside theirs. My amendment would also cover consultations with palliative care specialists that occur prior to a person seeking assisted dying, providing they cover the criteria outlined in the amendment. You can reach a clear, informed decision to end your own life only after having the advice and support to truly be able to weigh your options. That guarantee should absolutely be in the Bill.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Carter of Haslemere Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 23rd January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

I am very grateful to the noble and learned Lord for his explanation of informed consent. There is a little doubt as to whether giving people lots of information, leading to an informed wish, actually encapsulates them fully understanding it. I was wondering: is the answer to this not to put in a definition of informed consent? Would that not be sensible? Then it is there in black and white. I have it here—AI is very helpful sometimes, is it not? “Informed consent is a process where a person voluntarily agrees to medical treatment, research, or a procedure after receiving and understanding all relevant information, including risks, benefits, alternatives and consequences, and they have a capacity to decide and are free from pressure”. There is a beautiful little definition that you could put straight into the definition section, and everyone would be happy.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)]

I thought carefully about that. The language concerns whether it is the person’s clear, settled and informed wish. Interestingly, the law—the Supreme Court—over a period of years constantly changes what in individual cases informed consent, or informed wish, as it is in the Bill, might be. The essence of the word “informed” is that you have enough material to make the decision. I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Carter, says, and I see what AI says about it, but I think it is better just to say, “informed wish”.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Carter of Haslemere Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 30th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Non-Afl)]

I am coming to my conclusion. It is somewhat safer with the two criteria of autonomy plus life expectancy and of unbearable and irremediable suffering. It limits the scope of the moral and legal change, or regression as I would see it, that we are undertaking here. That is why I have tabled Amendment 84 and why I think it is so essential.

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

My Lords, I added my name to Amendment 84 since I think the noble Lord, Lord Frost, has struck gold with this amendment. Requiring

“unbearable suffering … which cannot be relieved by treatment”,

raises four critical issues at the epicentre of the Bill. First, his amendment exposes the total unreliability of a six-month prognosis of a terminal illness, as we have heard from numerous noble Lords. Trying to predict life expectancy is a hopeless exercise, especially when medical advances are improving at such a phenomenal rate. As the noble and learned Lord, the sponsor, said in relation to a prediction of six months to live, we are not dealing with certainty. I am with him on that.

Let me give the Committee an illustration from a real case. I know of somebody who was given a 5% chance of living for 10 years because he was suffering from an advanced aggressive cancer. It is not exact, but a 5% chance of living for 10 years approximates broadly to a reasonable expectation of dying within six months. That was 21 years ago and, as far as I know, I am still here—noble Lords will correct me if I have got that wrong. It does sometimes feel slightly otherworldly, listening to these debates.

Secondly, the requirement in Amendment 84 for unbearable suffering that cannot be relieved by treatment would have the obvious merit of bringing the effectiveness of palliative care into play, which is not currently the case as the Bill stands. As we know, the experts say that palliative care relieves pain in most cases and can help people who want to die to want to live. That is why a full assessment by a palliative care specialist is so important, as earlier amendments sensibly proposed. But the noble and learned Lord has said he is

“incredibly opposed to unbearable suffering as the root”

of this Bill. His view is unsurprising since the effectiveness of palliative care would significantly reduce the Bill’s impact.

So the noble and learned Lord falls back on the personal autonomy argument, telling the Select Committee that the essence of the Bill is autonomy—you have a choice, it is autonomy—and it would give people the option of an assisted death if they have simply had enough of life. This is the third issue that would be resolved by Amendment 84. Should the National Health—health—Service really be assisting a person to kill themselves if they have simply had enough of life, whether or not they are in pain and whether or not their feelings relate to their terminal illness? Is that what a health service should be doing? That starts to look very much like assisted suicide.

Fourthly, I respectfully suggest that the noble and learned Lord gets on the Clapham omnibus and asks anyone who supports assisted dying the reasons why they do so. Overwhelmingly, they will say that people should not have to suffer unbearable suffering. Yet, astonishingly, you will not find the words “pain” or “suffering” anywhere in the Bill. I read it word for word last night at great length to check that point. I could not find those words. Without any reference to unbearable suffering, there will be a massive disconnect between the public’s expectation and the Bill’s contents.

Let us be clear: the vast majority of the public are not on the edge of their seats watching our deliberations. Very few indeed will have read the Bill. They will therefore have a view of the Bill based on the common-sense assumption that people seeking an assisted death will be suffering unbearable pain. The compelling amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Frost, injects that common sense into the Bill by providing for that, and I heartily support him and Amendment 84.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

My Lords, I am reluctant to involve myself in this debate, but I see this whole legislative process as being about practicalities in the end. It is good that we have had an exposition of the articulation of the motivation of the people seeking success for this Bill, but I am very concerned as a citizen because I think this is about palliative care and relief from suffering.

The Bill should have been about those very matters. However, it is not. It is about all the incentives, from government to public authorities. For those people that the legislation actually motivates, it is about promoting the idea that assisting dying—or assisted suicide—is available; whereas the medical profession prefers, and what all the medical colleges have said they want to see, is proper palliative care. We do not want a competition for the funding of one against the other. I can see that in individual and family lives—and the social life we have together, governed by a Government—the pressures are not going to be towards relief of suffering through palliative care but for assisted suicide. I do not agree with that and that is why I oppose the Bill.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Carter of Haslemere Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 13th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meyer (Con)]

My Amendment 169 is a very modest one. It simply proposes that, if the Bill proceeds, before any doctor raises the possibility of assisted dying, the patient should first receive a psychological assessment from an appropriately qualified specialist. This is not an onerous hurdle but a basic and sensible safeguard.

As many noble Lords have said, when people are approaching the end of their life, they are often in a very vulnerable state. Feelings of sadness, anxiety or despair are not unusual and even the most resilient of individuals is affected. That vulnerability can become much more acute when patients are told that they have a terminal illness and perhaps only six months to live. Such news can be profoundly shocking and can often trigger despair and even suicidal thoughts.

The evidence reflects this reality. Research drawing on data from the Office for National Statistics, King’s College London and the University of Manchester shows that the risk of suicide rises significantly in the first six months after diagnosis. In other words, the period immediately following diagnosis is often when patients are at their most fragile psychologically. This is precisely why we must proceed with great care.

Before introducing the possibility of assisted dying, it seems only prudent to understand the patient’s mental state. Without a proper psychological assessment, we cannot know whether patients are coping as well as they appear to be or whether they may be struggling with depression and even suicidal thoughts. Studies suggest that from 20% up to 40% of patients with advanced cancer experience clinical depression. Dr Rachel Clarke, a palliative care physician, warned the Commons Public Bill Committee exactly about this situation, saying that raising the question of assisted dying can unintentionally place pressure on a vulnerable patient.

Autonomy is often far more fragile and complex than we assume. When someone has just received devastating news, even a carefully framed question may be interpreted in ways that we never intended. Both the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Psychiatrists, as well as palliative care and disability groups, have warned that vulnerable patients are not adequately protected by the Bill as it currently stands.

Ordinary doctors are not usually trained to make complex psychological assessments. According to the Government’s own impact assessment, doctors involved in these early conversations may receive as little as 90 minutes of e-learning and one hour of an online interactive session. Surely that is unlikely to equip them to recognise subtle depressions or suicidal feelings in patients who are already known to be at great risk.

My son is a consultant physician at the largest psychiatric hospital in Berlin. For many years he has worked on the front line treating patients in acute crises and teaching junior doctors how to recognise mental illness. His view is very clear: depression can be remarkably easy to miss if you are not a specialist.

We assume that every human has free will, but this will be impeded by severe depression. People suffering from severe depression may appear calm, rational and composed—they may even seem cheerful—yet internally they may be struggling with profound hopelessness and suicidal thoughts that impair their judgment and decision-making. Research published in the Lancet has shown that general practitioners detect depression in only 50% of cases. This is not a criticism of them. It simply reflects the fact that recognising depression, especially in people with a serious physical illness, requires time, training and specialist experience. In the context of assisted dying, this matters enormously. A misdiagnosis is not a harmless mistake. It can have fatal consequences for a patient whose suicidal thoughts might be treatable and whose desire to die may have been only temporary.

For that reason, many psychiatrists across the United Kingdom and Europe believe that a specialist psychological assessment should come at the very beginning of the process. It is a careful, humane and responsible safeguard that ensures that a request for assisted dying reflects a settled decision, not untreated despair at a moment of profound vulnerability. If we fail to make that assessment first, we risk confusing a treatable cry for help with a settled and autonomous decision to die. To proceed without that knowledge is unfair, unethical and legally questionable, as many noble Lords have said before me. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, one of the most authoritative medical voices in the Lords, has warned:

“Without proper psychiatric assessment, a request to die may reflect treatable depression rather than a settled wish to end life”.


I very much hope that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, will take into account these worries and accept my amendment.

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

My Lords, I have tabled four amendments towards the end of this group, Amendments 317, 346, 457 and 512, which are in identical terms. They are designed to ensure that a person seeking a state-assisted death is not acting out of a temporary feeling of fear, panic or anxiety in relation to their diagnosis and prognosis. I am grateful for the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, and the noble Lord, Lord Farmer. I can testify that when a person is told that they have a terminal illness with only a year or so at best to live, it is difficult to think rationally. It does not occur to you that it will often be a wholly inaccurate prognosis or that specialist palliative care can deal with most pain. My amendments therefore seek to ensure that the assessing doctors are satisfied that a person seeking a state-assisted death is not acting from such feelings of panic.

The noble and learned Lord the sponsor may say in response that the Bill already requires the doctor to ascertain whether the person has a “clear, settled” wish to end their life. However, it seems to me that a person can have such a clear and settled wish as a temporary result of fear, panic or anxiety. These amendments seek to raise the threshold at which an assessing doctor can be satisfied that the person has such a clear and settled wish.

It is at moments like that, when people are at their most vulnerable, that great care needs to be taken to ensure that they do not opt to go down a path which, on deeper and longer reflection, they might decide is wholly unnecessary or inappropriate for them. Yes, in theory they can change their mind later, but many people might feel reluctant, for all sorts of reasons, to reverse their decision once they are on that track, so the initial discussions with the assessing doctor are critically important.

A full specialist palliative care assessment, which was in an amendment I previously tabled in Committee that was rejected by the noble and learned Lord the sponsor, would help to ensure that they are not acting out of despair, fear, anxiety or panic, since it would put a pause on the whole process and ensure that their wish to end their life was properly informed, as required by the Bill. Both these sorts of amendments strike me as obviously desirable in a Bill of this nature, and I urge the noble and learned Lord the sponsor to avoid the need to have to bring them back on Report.

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

My Lords, Amendments 158 and 163 are in my name. I will speak also to Amendments 157 and 164, in the name of my noble friend Lord Ahmad, who cannot be with us here today. Amendment 157 in my noble friend’s name

“seeks to ensure that a doctor may not raise assisted suicide with a patient who has ‘opted-out”’.

The statement on Amendment 158 in my name says:

“The Bill appears to permit any doctor to raise ending a patient’s life, even if they have no prior relationship with the patient. This amendment specifies that a preliminary discussion can only take place with a registered medical practitioner who has known the patient for a minimum of six months”.


Amendment 164 in my noble friend’s name would insert:

“If a person has informed their general practitioner that they do not wish to discuss the subject of the provision of assistance in accordance with this Act, that fact must be added to their medical records, and a registered medical practitioner must not discuss it with them”.


In his observations on the previous group, the noble Lord, Lord Deben, made a powerful point. He said that, based on his experience as a constituency MP, many members of the public are worried by doctors and hospitals, so when we debate medical issues in this House and put legislation on the statute book, it worries very great numbers of the population. It reminded me of my grandmother, who died 10 years ago. She lived until she was 97, but she had a theory that if you went into hospital, you did not come out alive. When I went to see her in East Cheshire Hospice—an outstanding hospice—at the age of 97, she grabbed hold of my arm and said, “What did I tell you? They’re trying to kill me. Get me out of this place”. But she died a very dignified death.

It was similar with my 90 year-old mother. There was an outstanding family GP service that knew our family, and we knew the GPs. There was good service from the local NHS, outstanding palliative care and, again, the outstanding East Cheshire Hospice. The glue that helped my family members to have a dignified death was that of a loving family. On a previous day in our debates, the noble Lord, Lord Harper, made a powerful point: it is okay if you have a loving family network around you to take care of you and think of your interests when interacting with doctors and hospitals. But he then referred to those people who are poor, lonely and ill, and without the loving network around them to look after them.

A recent case happened that was very close to your Lordships’ House. A noble friend was admitted to a regional general hospital with sepsis: a very ill friend indeed. One issue that the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, mentioned was about the NHS and the pressures on it, whether through funding or at times of stress, such as when the junior doctors are on strike. An assessment was made that my noble friend needed to be operated on urgently—a life-saving operation—but, because of the junior doctors’ strike, they were unable to get the necessary staffing for the operation, so the decision was made that they could not operate on my noble friend. My noble friend’s daughter was distraught, as you can imagine, so she contacted the Whips’ Office and asked whether they could help.

Your Lordships’ House is full of eminent clinicians. A Member of your Lordships’ House was able to find a crew that could operate on my noble friend in London. All they had to do was extract her from the NHS hospital in the regions and bring her down to the private hospital in London, which was duly done. However, they could not operate on my noble friend because she was dehydrated. The decision had been made in that regional hospital to not continue with food and liquids. The good news is that, when she was rehydrated, they operated. I am very happy to say that my noble friend made a full recovery and to this day makes a huge contribution to this House from our Front Bench.