Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Empey Excerpts

Friday 20th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

As noble Lords will be aware, engaging with the devolved Governments is a matter for the sponsor, not the Government.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, we have heard talk in this debate about respecting the devolution settlement. No, we do not. It is not that long ago, for instance, that the Northern Ireland Assembly voted against abortion but got abortion, and everybody on both Front Benches voted for it. So let us not fool ourselves that we have this great commitment to devolution and respect the views of the relevant assemblies. No, we do not.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I note the comments that the noble Lord has made.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Polak (Con)]

My Lords, I will raise 50% of a registered interest: I am 100% deaf in my left ear. The maths works, right? My right ear is quite good, thank God, but it is useful in many aspects of my life when I pretend that I did not hear at all.

I support all the amendments in this group. I was not going to speak, but I am moved to speak to Amendment 171 from the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson, whom I have known for many years. I pay tribute to her bravery and courage, which has enabled her success in her life of service to vulnerable people, and to my noble friend Lady Fraser for her Amendment 167, which she so eloquently introduced. Her professional work with people who often cannot communicate for themselves is well known.

The point I want to make to people who support the Bill and want to rush it through is that this group of amendments shows the vital importance of the process that we are going through. It is a real disgrace that these people are intent on trying to rush this flawed legislation through without this sort of vital discussion. These amendments may affect one person to whom by accident, by being unable to communicate or hear, the wrong thing happens. The Bill should be, and should work, for every individual. That is why I urge the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, to find a way to include these matters and these important aspects in the Bill.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, I think everybody must have been affected by the comments from the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson. She made very sobering revelations about her experience, which is very broad and much to be admired.

This group of amendments brings into sharp focus the sheer scale of the complexity of bringing assisted suicide into the NHS context. We have heard pleas from the movers of some of the amendments that specific provision be considered because of the needs of those with complex communication difficulties, including hearing, language and cultural challenges.

I will draw the House’s attention to other matters that have not been addressed in the context of a busy hospital with overworked staff. In addressing other groups of amendments, I said that many people seem to view the operation of the current NHS through rose-tinted glasses. Hospitals these days are not as they are portrayed in the TV series “Heartbeat” or “Call the Midwife”, which are set in the 1960s. Gone are the days when consultants had time to come round for friendly chats at their leisure with patients and family. Parliament and Governments have demanded that targets be met because of increasing demand and a relentless growth in our population. Meeting targets means throughput, and throughput means patients going in and out as quickly as possible. I struggle to see how the Bill, if enacted, can be safely implemented in current hospital settings.

In a busy NHS ward, consultants doing their ward rounds in the mornings have only a few minutes, maybe once or twice a week, to assess a patient and give instructions to registrars and nurses as to what treatment is to be applied. Introducing complex processes involving safety, providing the means by which patients can take their lives with poisonous substances, and co-ordinating all the relevant personnel at the right time to oversee this, will be a mammoth task in our overstretched NHS.

Let us look at some of the realities to which this group of amendments draws attention. We have discussed language. I was astonished to learn that, in London alone, 300 languages are spoken. Some 1.7 million Londoners do not have English as their first language, and 300,000 or more do not speak English at all. That is equivalent to the population of a city such as Cardiff or Glasgow.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I declare an interest as a non-executive director of the Whittington Hospital, where we serve many of these communities. I can assure the noble Lord that we put a lot of resource, very successfully, into supporting our clients and patients, from whichever group they come and whatever capacity problems they may have. You have to live in these communities to understand that the NHS is completely aware of the need to do that.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

I am delighted to hear that, but I am also very aware of the pressures on an NHS hospital—perhaps not in London but in other places—where the staff are run off their feet day and night. We are imposing—

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I also note that I come from Bradford, where all my family live, and we do the same there, too.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

I am delighted to hear that, but I can assure the noble Baroness that it is not a universal situation. As I was saying, 1.7 million Londoners do not have English as their first language and 300,000 do not have English at all—that is equivalent to a significantly sized city. According to the 2021 census, only 63.8% of households consisted of members who all had the same main language—I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, also mentioned the 2021 census. Some 6%, or 1.5 million households, consisted of people who had different main languages in the same house. Those figures are five years out of date, and with the surge in immigration since then, I am sure the figures are much greater.

The noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson, highlighted the circumstances of people with hearing difficulties. Added to that, in a traumatic situation of discussing whether a person wishes to be assisted to die, how will a patient be able to absorb such difficult information from a medical practitioner who perhaps does not have English as his first language or vice versa—a medical practitioner may have a patient whose first language is not English?