Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 19th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it was a day much like any other when I was diagnosed. A busy day at the office was followed by a hospital appointment to find out why, within months, my face had, in effect, shut down on the left side. Nothing prepared me for what came next: an MRI scan showed that a succession of mini-strokes was killing me, and I had six months left to live. The only hope was neurosurgery.

I asked the neurosurgeon my odds on making a full recovery. Her reply was direct. She said, “I can’t give you odds on survival”. What she did not say was, “I can help you to die”. This Bill would fundamentally alter the conversation that a patient has with the doctor whom they trust to do no harm, as the noble Lord, Lord Truscott, and others have highlighted.

Notwithstanding an excruciating and painful long recovery, the surgery was a success, although I have to speak slowly to be understood, and I am grateful for noble Lords’ patience and understanding. Ironically, my shock then and my shock subsequently at becoming, 20 years later, a Member of your Lordships’ House have something in common: they were both unforeseen.

That brings me to some wise words from Hansard on 12 March 2007:

“Our role in scrutiny is vital … we are a legislative Chamber … There will no doubt be … unforeseen consequences, but they would all need to be considered”.—[Official Report, 12/3/07; cols. 451-56.]


I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, as the words are his. It is indeed our duty to scrutinise the Bill and consider all its unforeseen consequences, for they are legion.

I wonder whether we have any idea of the Pandora’s box that the Bill will prise open. Many noble Lords have referred to jurisdictions where assisted dying has already been introduced. The precedents that those jurisdictions provide clearly show the chain of events that the Bill would set off, not just for disabled people but for older people, young people with mental health issues, and young women with eating disorders. It is the stuff of nightmares.

My noble friend Lady May of Maidenhead told us how her friend referred to the Bill as a “licence to kill Bill”. She is right: it gives the state a licence to kill the wrong type of people. I am the wrong type. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, pointed out in his speech, there are savings to be made should assisted dying be introduced. This Bill effectively puts a price on my head. Indeed, should it become law and precedents set elsewhere apply in the UK over time, I face the realistic possibility, as a severely disabled person, of being killed as a result of legislation passed by this House. As my noble friend Lord Harper reminded us, no organisation of or for disabled people supports the Bill.

I close with a plea that we do not allow anything to deter us from doing our duty and subjecting this Bill, with all its unforeseen and irreversible consequences, to the scrutiny it not only deserves but so desperately needs. I support the Motion in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Berger.