Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 9th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harper (Con)]

I am aware of that. I want to know whether it will contain detailed costings for the court process. Obviously, I do not know what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, is going to say, but one of the things discussed yesterday was whether he will accept any of the amendments that have been tabled. The point I am making is that, if he were minded to accept the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, which obviously have a cost implication, there is a role for the Government in assessing those costs as well as a role for the sponsors. I am simply asking whether, if the noble and learned Lord were to accept them—he may not, of course—he would also provide the costs to the Committee. At that point, I draw my remarks to a conclusion.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I will not detain the Committee for very long; the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, can be reassured that I am not in the business of making a long speech.

I have in the past expressed my concerns to the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, as to whether judges are the best people to make these decisions and whether they can do so against the advice of the contracting doctor. The problem is that the doctor will be absolutely adamant that he is right in his case; I do not see why a judge should be able to overrule that, and I am not at all certain that a panel makes it much better. We should concentrate very much on the question of the contracting doctor; my forthcoming amendments will, I hope, address that point.

The problem is that doctors are sometimes malevolent. I accept that the doctors in this House are dedicated to looking after their patients and the public good, but that is not always the case. There are occasions—the noble Lord, Lord McCrea, referred to them—when doctors get it completely wrong.

I am very pleased that although Esther Rantzen was given six months to live, that was two and a half years ago. She wrote an article in the newspaper saying how much she has enjoyed the extra time that she has been given, although she is an advocate of this Bill. We must accept that doctors get these things wrong, and I think we should be concentrating on the contracting doctor rather than on the process of review.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 16th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

Does the noble Baroness not share my concerns about the misdiagnosis of six months, when you think of all the people who live for much longer afterwards?

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

While that is absolutely a legitimate thing to discuss, and I would always defer to doctors on that, it makes no difference to this part of the argument of whether we call it dying. The noble Lord may well want to raise the question of whether we can ever be sure that someone is dying, although I have to say that I cannot be the only one who has been with someone where it is jolly clear that they are not going to live till the end of the week. There are times when you absolutely know that someone is going to die. While he may well be right that there are other cases, that is not the issue of this word. This word in the Bill is to give to the public the understanding that we are talking about whether there is a way of helping either the final timing or the way of those final days. We are not talking about someone who just decides to commit suicide for some other reason; we are talking about people who are dying from some sort of terminal illness.