Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Harries of Pentregarth Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 12th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)]

My Lords, if we pass this Bill, we choose to go down a particular road. Before we do that, we ought to ask where the road leads and whether there are any stopping places on the way. First, I much respect those who have long campaigned for this Bill. Their position rests on two convictions that I share: the importance of free choice, and a desire to relieve human suffering. However, I ask supporters of the Bill to think about those who experience unbearable suffering but who have many years to live.

In 2008, 23 year-old Daniel James went to Switzerland with Dignitas. As a 16 year-old he played rugby for England, but, paralysed from the waist down as a result of an injury, he could not bear the thought of a whole life in that situation. The hearts of all of us go out to people in that position. It is of course difficult to weigh the intensity of one person’s suffering against another, but we can measure time. Is not the thought of having 60 years of hopelessness ahead worse than six months of pain? In the course of my life, I have met many people suffering from acute schizophrenia and multipolar disorder who time and again have tried to kill themselves. Even when they are in a good period, they have said that they would rather be dead than have to go through the cycle of their illness again. One has to ask whether it is worse to have six months to live, or a lifetime of mental anguish.

It seems to me clear that, if the desire is to relieve people of unbearable suffering and they have the right to choose whether they live or die, the logic of the argument—if you like, the argument of compassion—is absolutely inescapable: that a Bill more along the lines of the one in Canada or the Netherlands is the only one that will do what is needed. If this Bill goes through, there will be inevitable pressure to amend it to include unbearable suffering of many kinds, physical and mental, not perhaps in the next year or two but certainly within a few years. It is inevitable because the logic of compassion is even more strongly in favour of such a Bill than it is in favour of the present one.

Therefore, I ask the supporters of this Bill to think about whether they really want a situation such as in Canada and the Netherlands, where it is possible to be assisted in dying for a whole range of causes, mental as well as physical. I am not arguing for or against a Bill like that; I am just asking whether supporters of the present Bill regard that as desirable. In 20 years’ time, the proportion of elderly in the population will be much higher. Millions will be suffering from dementia, and it is difficult to believe that the resources to care for them, already badly stretched, will be adequate. There is a kind of nightmare scenario of assisted dying becoming the default option.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, pointed out that the law in Oregon on assisted dying for the terminally ill has lasted now for 25 years or so and has not been changed to a law like the one in Canada or the Netherlands. That is a good and absolutely fair point, and I totally accept it, in principle. But my argument is that the argument from compassion based upon free choice and the desire to relieve suffering is even stronger in a Canada-type Bill than it is in this one, and therefore there will be inevitable pressure. This morning, as I was sitting at the bus stop waiting to get on, a lady asked me what I was doing and I told her that I was coming to do this. She immediately said to me, “But what about those people who are suffering from incurable conditions and have years to live?” It is safer not to go down this road at all.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Harries of Pentregarth Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 12th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)]

The noble Lord puts it accurately. Some countries have taken one view and other countries have taken another. It is clear from the choice that I am supporting that we take the view that pregnancy should not be a bar to it, though inevitably, as the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, said, there should be questions in relation to appropriate people, whether they are pregnant or not, which may have an effect on the result. On the more detailed questions, based on what I am saying, they would not arise in the Bill.

Going on to the third category, homeless people, again with six months to live or less, will very frequently, as my noble friend Lady Gray said, have complex needs and complex lives. I am very strongly against that right to an assisted death being taken away from them, but the safeguards will apply, to be sure that it is their clear and settled view and not the product of coercion.

Finally, the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, raised the education, health and care plan. The range of people with an EHCP is very wide, as everybody knows. I am again very against excluding everybody from the significant provisions of the Bill, because the protections are there. They can go up to the age of 25 and, as I indicated last Friday, for people aged 25 and under we should think of whether there should be enhanced protection. That would include everybody up to the age of 25, including those under an education, health and care plan. In the light of those indications, I hope—

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)]

My Lords, I spoke at Second Reading but have not yet intervened in Committee. I have the greatest respect for the noble and learned Lord. However, would he not agree that there is a special vulnerability about all the categories that we have been discussing this afternoon? Are there any provisions that he can build into the Bill to address this? If you took a homeless person who only had six months to live and said, “Come and live in a five-star hotel and have good palliative care”, would they then still choose an assisted death? If you took somebody out of prison who had only six months to live and said, “We’re giving you early release, you can live in a five-star hotel with good palliative care”, would they still choose an assisted death? There is a particular vulnerability about these people. It is no good simply talking about their rights. They do have their rights, but they are vulnerable. I hope that the noble and learned Lord might be able to build something into the Bill to protect these categories of people.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)]

I completely accept that there are vulnerabilities in these groups. The question is whether we should exclude everybody within those groups from this right. Should we exclude every single homeless person or prisoner? We can disagree on this, but I am saying that I do not think that is right because the protections are sufficient.

Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Haslemere, asked how we deliver our Article 2 duty to protect people from death when they are in prison and we are offering them an assisted death. We are protecting them through the detailed safeguards there are before the individual prisoner is entitled to have an assisted death. In my view, that will be an adequate protection and give adequate effect to Article 2. In light of my remarks, I hope the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.