Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Murray of Blidworth Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 13th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, I thank everyone who has spoken on this adjourned group. I propose to adopt the enviable style of my noble friend Lord Effingham and not refer to everybody’s speeches. I would, however, pick up just one point from our discussion on 27 February, which was in the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, when she criticised my comment in opening the group that this was not a life and death decision that the panel was making. I answer that by simply pointing to the contents of Clause 17(2), which sets out the checklist on which the panel must be satisfied. The most pertinent of those are:

“that the person is terminally ill … that the person has a clear, settled and informed wish to end their own life”

and

“that the person made the … declaration voluntarily and was not coerced or pressured by any other person into making that declaration”.

In my submission, it is plainly a decision—a question—of life and death that the panel is making.

I propose to respond to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, and the Minister thematically, adopting their own approach. There are three key themes in my amendments. They are the appointment process, whether there should be guidance to the panels and what powers the panels should have. I am very glad that the noble and learned Lord agreed with me that there needed to be an appointment process, but I am afraid I do not share his laissez-faire approach that it can all be left to the person of the assisted dying commissioner.

It seems to me appropriate for such a significant post to be considered by a formal body. I do not accept the account given by the Government that it is all a bit too administratively difficult for the JAC to consider this. The JAC is a body set up under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 and it is governed by a statutory instrument of 2013. Those are all capable of amendment and, with resourcing, it is entirely capable of managing the task that I envisage in my amendments.

I turn to the question of guidance. There is no provision that there must be guidance to the panels. It seems to me that unless you have guidance, there is a real risk that panels will be of differing quality and adopt different local practices. This could cause terrible errors, with very significant and ultimately irreversible consequences. There must be guidance, and there must be guidance made by the commissioner to the panels, and it must be informed by consultation with relevant bodies. That is what my amendments achieve. I am afraid I do not share what we might call the “good chap” theory of assisted death that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, appears to suggest by having an option to create guidance to the panels.

Finally, as to powers, criticism was made of me by the Minister and the noble and learned Lord that I had asked too much in my amendment, by asking for the powers of the High Court to be imposed upon the panels. As I made clear in my speech, and as indeed is clear in the Member’s explanatory statement, if noble Lords look at the Marshalled List, this was always a probing amendment. The Minister said that I had not specified which powers. Well, if she had looked at the Member’s explanatory statement, she would have seen them. They are targeted at the powers to require evidence because, as I said at Second Reading, at the moment these panels have fewer powers than the parking adjudicator of Greater London. In a matter where they are looking at whether somebody is being coerced into volunteering to die, the panel cannot even ask to see their will. These powers are an essential addition to the Bill if it is to proceed and with that, I beg to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 142 withdrawn.

Victims and Courts Bill

Lord Murray of Blidworth Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 10th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, noble Lords will remember an amendment in these terms from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, who moved it in Committee. He is the lead tabler of this amendment on Report but cannot be here today, so he has asked me and its other co-signatory, the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Blidworth, to present the case for it.

The amendment seeks a review of the issue of compensation for victims of economic crimes such as fraud, bribery and money laundering without the need for civil proceedings. Noble Lords will no doubt remember the frustration that the noble and learned Lord expressed in Committee that, after all his years campaigning on this issue and for all the warm words of support he has received from successive Governments, he has not made progress in getting acceptable provisions enacted. The arguments in favour of this amendment are extensive and were extensively canvassed in Committee, so I hope that I will be forgiven for setting them out in reasonably staccato form, without the academic support they received in Committee.

First, the present arrangements for the victims of economic crime are unsatisfactory, and in the vast majority of cases of serious fraud, bribery, money-laundering and other economic crime, very few victims receive compensation. This is particularly true of overseas victims.

Secondly, resort to civil proceedings is difficult and expensive; the costs are often prohibitive. Potential claimants inevitably have difficulties in finding and calling evidence on economic crimes, for a host of reasons—again, which is particularly true of overseas claimants. Successful claimants, even after winning cases, face serious difficulties with enforcement of judgments against fraudsters and other economic criminals—again, particularly overseas victims. Then, fines which are levied as a result of prosecutions in the UK go to government, and a derisorily small amount is awarded to victims in the form of compensation. That is also true in the case of deferred prosecution agreements and arrangements made pursuant to them, which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, was active in introducing when he was Solicitor-General.

It was agreed around the Committee—this is the reason for the form of this amendment, both then and now—that it is not yet clear what the best arrangements for providing adequate compensation for criminal cases involving economic crime might be. That is the reason why a review is essential and why the amendment calls for a review. Then, it may be that a new scheme to enable compensation to be awarded in cases involving overseas victims might just involve arrangements to award compensation not only to the direct losers who might qualify as claimants in civil proceedings, but also, or alternatively, to some Governments abroad, some NGOs, or some other organisations which may not be claimants in civil proceedings or even entitled to be so, but may well nevertheless be substantial actual and identifiable losers and victims of such crimes.

It is certainly the case that, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, said, successive Governments have reacted to the call for sensible and fair compensation arrangements for victims of economic crime with warm words but no action at all. So, the need for a review of what should be done to fill this gap is urgent. This is why the amendment has a tight timetable for public consultation, for undertaking the review itself and for a report to Parliament.

Finally, a set of sensible and respected arrangements for providing such compensation would enhance the reputation of this country as a financial centre. We are already leaders in many fields: in insurance, in legal services—including arbitration—the quality of our courts and judiciary, and banking, to name to just a few. Arrangements for proper compensation for economic crime could raise our international standing even further.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to say that I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Marks—not something I perhaps say terribly frequently in this Chamber.

There is one material distinction between the proposed new clause the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, brought forward in Committee and the proposed new clause before the House today. That is in proposed new subsection (3), which requires that

“The Secretary of State must conduct a public consultation on the review, … which must be published no later than 1 June 2026, and which must open on that date and close on 1 September 2026”.


Members of the House might ask why that is so specific. The reason is a simple one: I know that the noble and learned Lord met the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Hanson, to discuss this issue, and was told a review was going to be conducted, but that it would not report until 2028.

Given that this campaign has been going on for some time, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, had a justifiable point in trying to bring forward that date through this amendment. As he rightly said in his Second Reading speech and in Committee, it is important that the United Kingdom Government make it possible for victims of fraud, bribery and money-laundering offences, both here and overseas, to recover compensation from the offending person or company, rather than the fines simply going into the system here in the UK.

There is one final point from the noble and learned Lord’s Second Reading speech that warrants repetition here:

“The African Union estimated in 2015 that 25% of the continent’s gross domestic product was lost to corruption. Every company convicted of overseas corruption in this jurisdiction should be ordered to compensate the communities it has harmed”.—[Official Report, 16/12/25; col. 689.]


Can any of us disagree with that?

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Murray of Blidworth Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 27th February 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Murray of Blidworth]

142: Clause 4, page 2, line 39, at end insert—
“(f) providing guidance regarding the practice and procedure of Assisted Dying Review Panels (see Schedule 2).”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment and two others in the name of Lord Murray of Blidworth addresses an issue raised by Select Committee witnesses namely that the Commissioner is not under an obligation to give guidance to the panel on procedure, which could mean it is entirely at each panel’s discretion how they work. These amendments make the provision of guidance mandatory, following consultation.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, it is a long time since I last spoke on this Bill, at about 3.20 pm on Friday 12 September, the first day of Second Reading. In that speech I outlined my concerns about the panels proposed in Clause 17. It gives me great pleasure to introduce the group of amendments to those panels. I will come to my amendments in a moment.

The concerns in my Second Reading speech, which were reflected by a number of others, were also seen in the evidence provided to the Bill Committees in the other place and here. Of course, the addition of the panels happened organically during the passage of the Bill through the Commons and, as a result, there have been adverse comments, particularly, as we will see, by legal stakeholders concerned about how the proposed system works and about the lack of detail on the panels in the Bill.

It is perhaps of note that the Justice Minister, Sarah Sackman, when asked by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland, about the lack of policy definition regarding the process and the fitness of those adjudicating, said that

“the commissioner, in establishing the office of the commissioner, will be responsible for producing the procedural rules governing the panel’s activity and, potentially, guidance that will govern how they go about their work”.

She then said that the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland,

“is absolutely right that what it does then is give the commissioner the powers to go away and develop the governing practices of the panel”.

The Minister suggested that that was not unusual in the establishment of bodies of similar nature, but many do not share the somewhat laissez-faire approach that she adopted there.

The Law Society raised specific concerns about how the panels would operate. Kirsty Stuart noted in her evidence:

“What is unclear at the moment is where the panels will be held and how people would know about them”,


and whether they would be public or private. In the Law Society’s written evidence, it was said that Parliament should

“clarify how Assisted Dying Review Panels would deal with and decide cases”,

and that the Bill

“leaves substantial details about how the scheme would operate to be dealt with in secondary legislation and guidance”.

Professor Charles Foster also criticised the lack of statutory requirements for the panel’s procedure. He noted:

“There is no requirement for the panel to ask anybody, including the applicant, anything at all, or to test the evidence in any way. Cases can be dealt with in private. There is no obligation to publish the reasons”.


Professor Ruck Keene—I declare an interest that he and I are in chambers together—noted that the panel’s design suffered from being developed “on the fly” and that it was “neither fish nor fowl” regarding its powers. He noted that the policy had not been formed and said that the panel had

“too few powers to deal with more difficult cases”.

With my amendments I hope to address some of the problems that have been highlighted. My Amendment 925A concerns the power to appoint the members of the panel. At the moment, the position is that the panel members would be self-selecting. By setting various criteria for the appointment of panel members, this amendment would reduce that risk. It says:

“A person may only be appointed to the list following … an independent appointments process involving tests, interviews and role-play … professional vetting”—


that is perhaps topical—

“and … in the case of a legal member, a recommendation from the Judicial Appointments Commission”.

My next set of amendments deal with the question of panel procedure. Amendment 142 would require that the commissioner, when providing guidance to the panels, has an obligation to produce that guidance. In the way the Bill is structured at the moment, there is no requirement to provide guidance; this measure would introduce that requirement. Amendment 937 would make that mandatory. Amendment 938 would require that the guidance must be produced following consultation with various relevant bodies: the Tribunal Procedure Committee; experts in domestic abuse, old-age psychiatry and neurodivergence; and disability groups. Amendment 463 is intended to address how the procedure is to work.

Finally, my Amendment 464 deals with powers of evidence gathering. As I noted at Second Reading, at the moment the panel has fewer coercive powers than a parking adjudicator. This body is going to be determining matters of life and death, and ultimately it needs to know whether there is coercion and whether the wishes of all involved have been taken into account. Amendment 464 is drafted in such a way that the panel shall have the powers and privileges of the High Court. I appreciate that it is far from perfect. It is a probing amendment so that I can hear what proposals the noble and learned Lord may have to improve the powers of the panel and to rectify the obvious deficits that exist in the current system proposed in the Bill. I beg to move.

Victims and Courts Bill

Lord Murray of Blidworth Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 9th February 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Murray of Blidworth]

16: Clause 3, page 6, line 20, after “justice” insert “or that it would not be in the child’s best interests”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would enable the Crown Court to take into account the best interests of the relevant child as well as the interests of justice when deciding whether to make an order.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, my Amendments 16, 25 28 and 33 arise from the recommendations of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which I am a member. The Joint Committee has written to the Ministry of Justice on a number of occasions regarding these issues and has so far not met with a satisfactory response. I shall listen very carefully to what the Minister says on these points.

As the Bill stands, the Crown Court must make a prohibited steps order after sentencing. It is right that an offender should not be able to exercise parental responsibility, but there should be safeguards in the Bill to ensure that children do not suffer as a result, especially if the effect of the order is that there is no one who can exercise parental responsibility.

On Amendments 16 and 28 in my name, unlike the family court, the Crown Court would have limited discretion about how best to protect the interests of affected children, as we heard identified by the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, in the previous group. Under the Bill, the Crown Court’s main discretion is that it must not make an order if

“it appears to the Crown Court that it would not be in the interests of justice to do so”—

a well-hallowed phrase in legislation that noble Lords will find in Clause 3(4)(c).

In this context, it is unclear what is meant by the phrase—in particular, whether it would allow the court to consider the interests of the affected children or just of the offender. The Joint Committee wrote to the Minister asking for clarification as to whether the effect of the Human Rights Act would be that the Court would be able to consider the interests of the child when making the order. The Minister replied that the court would have to act compatibly with the ECHR. In fact, she said:

“Under our existing measure, the Crown Court will be able to consider all of the information available to it, as part of the criminal proceedings, when deciding whether to exercise the interests of justice test (and in doing so, will be bound to act compatibly with the Convention Rights given section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998)”.


As noble Lords can see, that is an answer that, I fear, lacks clarity.

Amendments 16 and 28 would provide clarity on this point. They would ensure that the Crown Court was able to get information about the children’s circumstances and itself consider the implications for the children before making an order. They would simply append, after

“in the interests of justice”,

the words

“or that it would not be in the child’s best interests”

to make the prohibited steps order.

On Amendments 25 and 33, there would be particular concerns if the effect of such an order was that no one was able to exercise parental responsibility for a child. In Jade’s law, as we heard in the previous group, there is an attempt to address this by requiring the relevant local authority to apply to the family court immediately after the Crown Court has made its order. We can see that in new Section 10B(2) of the Children Act 1989 in Section 18 of the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024.

Amendments 25 and 33 are carefully modelled on that provision in the 2024 Act. They would impose the same requirement on the local authority if an order under the new provisions had the effect that there was no one who could exercise parental responsibility for the child. In correspondence with the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the Minister said that such a provision was appropriate in the case of Jade’s law, where one parent had killed the other, because in those cases there would almost always be no one with parental responsibility. But in the cases covered by the Bill, in contrast, there might or there might not be. The Minister said that the local authority would be aware if the child might be left in this position and would be able to take appropriate action.

That is a very unsatisfactory answer. There can be no confidence that the local authority will simply be aware of this scenario and there would be no detriment to making it clear in the Bill. Relying entirely on a local authority’s discretion invites the risk that a child is left without someone with parental responsibility and falls between the gaps.

These amendments would mean that the local authority would be under a duty to apply to the family court in such cases in exactly the same form as it would under Jade’s law. The Minister said in correspondence that local authorities would always know the circumstances of a particular case, so the Government should agree, and have already agreed in principle, that it would be workable for the Bill to impose a duty on them. There is no good reason for these amendments not to be accepted. I beg to move.

[Lord Meston (CB)]

My Lords, I begin by commenting on two parts of the noble Lord’s amendments. I find it difficult to understand how his Amendment 16 would work in practice. These orders have to be made at the point of sentencing; they cannot come later on as an afterthought or at a later hearing. More importantly, I question how the Crown Court would be in a position to assess what is or is not in the interests of the child, and, certainly, how the Crown Court could do it without a report that typically, in the family court, might be available from Cafcass or a local authority.

Moreover, what would the Crown Court do if the suggestion of not making the order to remove or restrict parental responsibility is strongly opposed by the other parent, as would quite likely be? That other parent, certainly in the Crown Court, would not have party status and would probably not have legal representation.

On the face of it, the Crown Court might face the prospect of a contested hearing on the question of whether to restrict parental responsibility. Clearly, that is much better dealt with by the family court in the appropriate way. Having said that, I of course understand the force of the noble Lord’s Amendment 33, which seems to present a sensible solution to a potentially difficult problem.

I move briefly to my amendments in this group. They are procedural and evidential amendments. Amendment 23 would provide for the Crown Court that is required to make the prohibited steps order to be supplied with all necessary information to make the order, enabling it to make the order in appropriate terms, covering all the children to whom it might apply and enabling it to be provided to the other parent and others holding parental responsibility. As it appears from the very length of Amendment 23, parental responsibility can be acquired by a number of different people in a considerable range of situations. It almost goes without saying that the convicted offender may not be a reliable source of information about the children for whom he has parental responsibility, or the basis on which he might hold it. The Crown Court therefore cannot be expected simply to make a blanket, generic order referring to all or any children for whom the defendant holds or might hold parental responsibility. That would be of little use to anyone. The court therefore has to be in a position at the point of sentencing to make an order that should refer to specified children. For that, accurate and reliable information should be provided. As the amendment suggests, that would be best done by the Probation Service as part of the pre-sentence report.

Once that order has been made, it is also important that those who are affected by the order are notified of it. Hence, Amendment 17 would provide for notification by the Crown Court to the relevant local authority and the provision of a copy of the order, with a duty on the local authority to convey that information by onward notification to all persons who hold parental responsibility for the child or children concerned. Clearly, they need to know what has been ordered and to understand the effect of it. The local authority is best placed to provide that information.

Finally, Amendment 29 would ensure that in rape cases the victim is promptly and properly informed that the order has been made, with an obligation on the court to notify the relevant local authority within seven days of the order being made and an obligation on that local authority within 14 days thereafter to notify the victim of rape. Without this, there is a risk that the other parent or holder of parental responsibility for the child or children concerned, and the victim of the rape, are not made aware of the order or of its implications. They may be aware if they attend a sentencing hearing, but that is not certain. In any event, a local authority, particularly one involved with the family, would be best able to explain the effect of the prohibited steps order, its duration and other implications.

--- Later in debate ---

I understand the aim of the amendments and the importance of ensuring that families are informed throughout this process but, for the reasons I have just given, legislation is not the appropriate route for achieving these aims, and I invite the noble Lords not to press their amendments.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords who have spoken in the debate. I am particularly grateful for the comments about Amendments 16 and 28 from the noble Lord, Lord Meston, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton.

Of course, I hear the criticisms of the amendments that were levelled by the JCHR and indeed the Minister; they are points with great merit, and I cannot say that that is not the case. However, there are two points that go some way to addressing the criticism. The first is that of course the court will have some reports on the offender, and it is conceivable, in the very rare cases where it may be necessary to consider the best interests of the child, that reports may be provided. The second is that, according to the answer provided by Minister’s colleague in the Commons in her letter to the JCHR, it is already rolled into the interests of justice test, which is a slightly different complexion put on the point to that given to us this evening by the Minister at the Dispatch Box—and, frankly, the answer just given by the Minister was rather more credible and coherent.

For those reasons, I have much to think about in relation to my amendments. I am grateful to everyone who contributed. In relation to the other amendments in the group, this has been a useful tour of the technicalities of Clause 3. The Minister kindly indicated that she would meet me to discuss it, perhaps with other noble Lords who are interested. I therefore beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 16 withdrawn,

Prisons: Early Release

Lord Murray of Blidworth Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Murray of Blidworth]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the long-term impact of schemes for early release from prison on public confidence in the justice system.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Timpson) (Lab)]

The previous Government introduced the end of custody supervised licence scheme, which released over 13,000 prisoners without any impact assessment. It is clear that this Government inherited a prison system on the verge of collapse. We introduced SDS40, which was safely implemented thanks to our hard-working staff. A full impact assessment was published for our measure. We are now embarking on long-term sentencing reforms to place prisons on a sustainable footing so that we can protect the public and maintain public confidence in the justice system.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I thank the Minister for that Answer. Rather than ending automatic early release of prisoners, many of whom now serve only 40% of their sentence in prison, would it not make more sense to shift to a system of earned early release, whereby prisoners can earn the opportunity to be released early based on good behaviour and completion of training, education, work and rehabilitation programmes? Does the Minister not agree that such an alternative approach would go further in restoring public confidence in the justice system?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The noble Lord has obviously been studying the plans that we have been looking at, especially the Texas model, which I think he refers to. There are two ways of looking at how we can incentivise prisoners to behave when they are in prison and engage with purposeful activities and education. One is the Texas model, which I describe as going down the hill: for every week they are well behaved, they get time off their sentence. The other is going up the hill: if they behave badly, they can get extra days. The model we prefer is the latter. It is clear that if prisoners assault officers they should, via adjudication, receive extra days. I am a big believer in incentives and in looking at other examples internationally. The Texas model is one where I think we all recognise that there has been a dramatic reduction in reoffending of those released from prison.

Home Detention Curfew and Requisite and Minimum Custodial Periods (Amendment) Order 2024

Lord Murray of Blidworth Excerpts

Tuesday 10th December 2024 Lords Chamber

We should be working towards achieving a civilised and civilising prison estate. We are a long way short of that now. On these Benches, we fully recognise that the Government are on the back foot and we know that Ministers are doing their best to relieve a very difficult situation. We will support them in their efforts to change that, but there is much work to be done.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, we too welcome this order. I understand the reasons set out by the Minister. Under the previous policy, the automatic release point for the sentences for offences being added to the order was 40%. Under this order, in some circumstances, this will change back to 50%. Furthermore, the maximum length of a home detention curfew period will be extended from 180 days to 365 days.

While we welcome this order, I have a question to ask the Minister, further to the points made by my noble friend Lady Newlove. While the order would allow the Government to keep prisoners under home detention or in custody for longer, can the Minister outline the estimated impact on prisoner capacity in the near future of this decision, and how it is proposed to utilise this new power? Is it the intention in the medium term to return the home detention curfew power to 180 days? I also look forward to hearing responses to the cogent questions posed by the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, I briefly intervene, if I may. In doing so, declare my interest: until about 1 pm this afternoon, I was a trustee of the Prison Reform Trust. I largely agree with my noble friend on the Front Bench and the noble Lord, Lord Marks. I agree with them because I have made that very same speech probably about 20 times in the last 10 years—nobody listens, it does not matter. The short point I want to make is this: who monitors the monitors? One of the problems that we have noticed over the last several years, when looking at the use of tags, is that far too often the monitoring organisation falls down. One expects ingenious people on tags to try to get out of the restrictions imposed by them, but one does not expect the monitor to fall down in its duties. Can the Minister please assure us that rigid steps are being taken to make sure that the monitors are monitored, and that if they fail, there is some form of contractual sanction?