Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Taylor of Holbeach Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 19th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. We often debate and we do not necessarily agree; we do not on this occasion. I wish I were participating in the Second Reading of a government Bill, but we are where we are. Most of us will have found ourselves examining our prejudices and experiences of the issues underlying the Bill. I say at the outset that my views are conditioned by my convictions and experiences. At the bottom lies a belief that life is a precious gift from God. I think these views are widely shared, and not just on the episcopal Bench: we have heard them from my noble friends Lady May, Lord Deben and Lady Verma.

On my direct experience, a number of noble Lords will know that, for 18 years before coming here, I was chairman of Holbeach and East Elloe Hospital Trust, a community charity. In 1988, I headed up a group of concerned individuals from my hometown who were shaken by the health authority’s decision to close Holbeach Hospital, leaving us with a district general hospital 14 miles away, with no direct bus route between the people of Holbeach and East Elloe, the rural district in which it was situated.

With the support of the local community, we formed a charitable trust and bought and took over the hospital as a community hospital, providing many facilities, including nursing care, with 30 beds, including six doctors’ beds. With further local support, we now have 47 beds. Increasingly, the need for palliative and end-of-life care has become more acute, and it is very much valued by the local community. Some 25 years ago, my own father died there, and I was able to be with him and knew the care that he had been given. It was a hugely emotional experience, as many people have had and described while giving their views on the Bill.

Listening to the contributions to the debate, I conclude that the principal concern is the unavailability and lack of NHS funding for end-of-life care. The role and funding of palliative care cannot be overestimated, as the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and many other noble Lords have explained. It is self-evident that it is a key element that the NHS has not been able to fund properly. As the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Birmingham, indicated, thank God for the hospice movement. We should listen to it and recognise that it is not supportive of the Bill.

The noble Baroness, Lady Watkins, described how getting old can be a messy business. As it stands, we do not have enough information, and the Bill runs the risk of too much legal controversy, too little medicine and a total absence of a funding commitment from the Government for what is needed to implement the Bill. That is why it should have been a government Bill: the Bill needs commitment from the Government for it to be safely passed.

We need time to build a greater consensus not just in this House but in the other place. I will support the noble Baroness, Lady Berger, in her proposal to set up a Select Committee to report back to this House, so that it can examine the Bill thoroughly before we set out to amend it. We need time to make it fit for purpose in the ways that almost every speaker has suggested, and we will use parliamentary processes to do so.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Taylor of Holbeach Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 9th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

My Lords, I think that part of the difficulty is that we are trying to find a pragmatic method of discussing this complicated Bill. There are some 80 amendments in this particular group and it is impossible for the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, to give justice to all of them in 20 minutes. He has talked in general principles, but he must be aware that one of the difficulties, which connects with yesterday afternoon’s debate—I was not here for it, but I saw it on television—is that he is not satisfying the need of explanation for those who are articulating points of view. Taking just a little bit longer may well be a shortcut to getting the Bill done. I feel that part of the difficulty, having listened to a lot of the debate on the Bill, is that the noble and learned Lord is desperately keen to keep moving. I understand that, but there are points at which he can stop and explain, perhaps with a bit more sympathy to the points that have been made by other Members of the House.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)]

Can I answer what the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, whom I greatly respect, has said? I have answered in some degree of detail the main substantive points and I believe that I have dealt with them in a way that is appropriate for Committee. One of the things that one has to do in Committee is focus on the things that really matter and avoid the other things—that is what I have done. I am open to anybody coming to see me. I started this process by writing to individual Peers to say, “Come and see me to raise anything you’ve got.” If there is anything that they want to talk about, I am more than willing to talk about it. However, I very much believe that I have answered in detail the substantive application made for an amendment.