Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Markham Excerpts

Friday 24th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, will be taking part remotely, and it has been agreed that she will be called as the third speaker in the debate on the amendment.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

My Lords, I begin on a personal note. As I have mentioned in previous debates, my mother was a Marie Curie nurse who supported terminally ill people through their final days. In 2007, she was diagnosed with late-stage womb cancer. When she was in pain at the end of her life, she was helped by hospice staff—in my words—to take an earlier train home.

That experience changed how I see the debate. I consider myself broadly in favour of assisted dying, because I believe in choice and in personal autonomy, but what I witnessed, and what I have learned since, is that what happened to my mother happens quietly all the time across the country, informally and inconsistently, with no upfront oversight and no safeguards. The current ban does not prevent assisted dying; it simply makes it unregulated, unequal and unsafe. It forces some people to travel to Dignitas, often alone, dying earlier than they need to because the law has given them no other way. It leaves their relatives looking over their shoulders, concerned that they might face prosecution for helping their loved ones have their dying wish. It forces others to take their own lives, frightened and alone, or perhaps with assistance but with no way to protect against abuse. We heard evidence in the Select Committee that 650 terminally ill people commit suicide every year with no controls, no safeguards and no protections under the current legislation. Others, without the ability or resources to take control, risk dying terribly or without dignity, in pain and with suffering.

So I came to this Bill believing in the principle of assisted dying to allow choice and autonomy, but believing that it needed the skills of your Lordships’ House to make assisted dying the best and safest process in the world. I was in favour of setting up the special committee to take evidence; I even sat on it. I was in favour of giving the Bill extra time to allow additional scrutiny. It was fitting that we had a similar number of sittings on this Bill as on the current Crime and Policing Bill.

However, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, set out, this Bill has had plenty of time compared with other Bills; we have just not chosen to use that time wisely. It has taken 20 times longer—20 times more per page of legislation—than other Bills, such as the Crime and Policing Bill, such as welfare, health and security Bills, or the levelling-up Bill, so I believe that it has had plenty of time for scrutiny. As I say, we have just not chosen to use that time wisely. I believe that the whole Bill, and the reputation of the Lords, is the poorer for it. I know that many Lords will state that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, has not been responsive to suggested amendments. He has pointed to the many examples where he has been.

For me, our failure to get to the end of this process and discuss all clauses has made us all the poorer. Let me give an example. On an earlier clause, the noble Baroness, Lady Monckton of Dallington Forest, spoke eloquently and movingly about the dangers of people with learning disabilities being inadvertently coerced into assisted dying through their wanting to crowd please. The whole Committee was moved and educated that day by the noble Baroness, and the noble and learned Lord immediately agreed to make the necessary amendments to safeguard against this. This was the Lords at its best—into the detail, understanding the full consequences and then acting to protect. To me, the real missed opportunity here is that, by spending so much time on the early clauses and not getting through the Bill, we did not have the benefit of this House’s wisdom, experience and expertise to go through, make the points and understand them in the very clear way that the noble Baroness did that day, and the way that the noble and learned Lord reacted.

That is my true regret in this, and that we let down the 70% of the British population who support assisted dying, saw the House of Commons pass the Bill and do not understand how the Lords can block it without even a vote. Most of all, I am sorry to those people who are currently terminally ill, for whom the Bill held out a safe, humane and pain-free death of their own choosing.

I finish by remembering some of those people who passed away during the passage of the Bill, for whom we are too late. Antony Shackleton, aged 59, was diagnosed with motor neurone disease. He battled for six years and travelled, in the end, to Dignitas in December 2024. He said to his wife Louise, “Look at my options. I could go there and die peacefully, with grace, without pain, or be laid in a bed, not even able to look at anything unless you move my head”. He spent his final four days laughing and, in his wife’s words,

“ at total peace with his decision”.

For accompanying her husband so that he could die with dignity, Louise spent 10 months under police investigation. What he wanted, as she put it, was

“nothing more than a good death”.