Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Wolfson of Tredegar Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 19th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, and take part in this important debate. We have had two days of discussion, with many fine speeches. The ones we have heard today are still ringing in our ears, but let me take a moment to remind the House of a few of last week’s contributions.

I will never forget the exchange between my noble friend Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and his late father. I will never forget the tragic story of the parents-in-law of the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell. I remember the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Birmingham, with all his experience—that without the proper provision of palliative care, you do not really have freedom of choice. At the same time, I recall the warning from the noble Lord, Lord Baker of Dorking, that proper government funding for palliative care might always remain elusive. I know that the whole House shares my admiration for the brave, moving and extremely personal speech made by my noble and learned friend Lady Prentis of Banbury, and will join me in wishing her well in the months ahead.

Although I am winding up for the Official Opposition, we do not have an official position. These Benches have a free vote, so I speak for myself and my conscience. Two points flow from that. First, we all bring to this debate our background; our education; our professional or other knowledge; our faith, or lack of it; and our personal experiences of the fact of death and the experiences of the dying. I suggest that it is as wrong to discount an opinion because it is informed by religious faith as it is to ignore an opinion grounded in a sincere belief in the irrelevance of faith, because both the supporters and the opponents of this Bill sincerely believe in the validity of their arguments. There is no doubt that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, places the Bill before us in perfectly good faith, but I repeat a point made by my noble friend Lord Polak in the name of the former Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks; on a personal note, I miss him especially on days like this. He said that

“purity of motive has never ensured rightness of outcomes”.

Secondly, we do not sit here as moral philosophers or, with the evident exception of the Lords spiritual, as theologians. Over the past few weeks, I have looked deeply into the learning of my own tradition. I have read the letter from the current Chief Rabbi and essays by Orthodox thinkers. I have considered articles from modern Reform Rabbis, such as Rabbi Romain, who was mentioned earlier today. I have studied responsa from a rich written legal tradition extending over 3,000 years.

Yet, I confess to your Lordships that I vacillate on the underlying moral question. As a lawyer, I spend my life dealing not with black and white but shades of grey. I feel like I ought to have clarity on the underlying moral and philosophical questions. If I may borrow respectfully from another biblical tradition on this issue, I see through a glass, darkly. But—and this is the key point—we sit here as legislators. It is as a legislator and a lawyer that I look at the Bill. The ultimate question before us will be whether the Bill should become law. My answer to that question is no, and certainly not in the state the Bill is now in.

By contrast, my answer to the question, should anybody put it, of whether the Bill should get a Second Reading, would be, “Of course it should”. I say that for two reasons: first, because this is a serious, if also seriously flawed, Bill which merits this House’s careful consideration in Committee; and secondly, because the other House passed the Bill and handed it over to us. But that, I suggest, is the limit of the force of the point—that the House of Commons passed the Bill.

Some have suggested that, because the House of Commons passed the Bill, we should not reject it. For my part, I reject that contention. I accept that this House should not, except in the most exceptional of circumstances, unceremoniously dispose of a Bill passed by the House of Commons. So the fact that the House of Commons passed the Bill means that we need to take it seriously, and we are taking it seriously, but it does not mean that we have to pass the Bill as it is or even as it might be following amendment. That is right as a matter of constitutional principle, but it is especially right in the case of this Bill. A number of Members of the other place passed the Bill only on the basis that it would be the subject of detailed scrutiny here. In those circumstances, the idea that we should uncritically defer to the House of Commons seems to be the parliamentary equivalent of “heads I win, tails you lose”.

Let me make four short substantive points about the Bill. A number of us have repeatedly made the argument that because some people in this country have the option of paying to go to Switzerland and Dignitas, the Bill is needed for those who cannot afford that option. That superficially attractive point suffers from two defects. First, there is a conceptual problem. The fact that Switzerland offers assisted suicide and offers it to non-Swiss residents does not mean that we have to follow because of that. Otherwise, the fact that any country in the world adopted the Swiss model would mean that we should also pass such legislation. That is not a sound basis on which to legislate.

The second defect is a practical problem. The Bill would not cover many, if not most, of those who travel to Switzerland, because if you have a degenerative disease but have more than six months to live, you can go to Switzerland but you are outside the scope of the Bill. That also means that relatives who are anguished by the idea of what might happen to them if they assist their relative in going to Switzerland would still be in that predicament, even if the Bill were to pass.

The second point is in response to an important speech by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, who will know that I listen to anything he says with particular care. He made two points. First, the law already rejects the absolute sanctity of life and recognises the right to suicide. Secondly, citing the decision in the Bland case, he drew an analogy between the right to refuse life-saving treatment—which is our right under English law, and which I support—and the right to demand an assisted death.

As to the first point, it is not correct to say that the law recognises a right to suicide. Suicide is no longer unlawful, but that does not mean that there is a right to commit suicide. Indeed, that point was emphasised by Lord Bingham, the former Master of the Rolls, in the earlier case of Pretty. As to the second point made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, I accept that the law rejects the absolute sanctity of life, but that is a straw man. In practice, all religious and philosophical traditions, if sometimes sotto voce, reject the absolute sanctity of life. Nobody would suggest that we should tax everybody in the country out of half their wealth to give one person another three months of life. Absolute sanctity of life is a straw man.

However, the law does respect the sanctity of life. The sanctity of life is a religious and philosophical principle. That means that, in our law, all human life is regarded as being intrinsically valuable and that we do not deliberately terminate a life even if the patient so consents. Indeed, that is at the heart of the decision in the Bland case, to which the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, referred. The House will be happy to hear that the detail will await Committee, but Lord Goff of Chieveley began his speech in that case by referring to

“the applicable principles of law”,

of which the first was

“the fundamental principle … of the sanctity of life”.

He drew a clear—his word was “crucial”—distinction between the withdrawal of life-supporting treatment and actively causing death. The key point is that withdrawal of treatment by doctors does not cause death; it is the underlying disease that causes death. The doctors do not have any intention to kill; they want to discontinue something that is of no benefit to the patient.

It is on that basis that most religious traditions, including my own, support the withdrawal of treatment in those circumstances. For example, there is the authoritative responsa of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein in his monumental Igrot Moshe, where—le’havdil—he draws the same distinction as Lord Goff does in Bland between removing impediments to death on the one hand and hastening death or assisted suicide on the other. Therefore, my answer to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Pannick—why, if you can refuse treatment, can you not demand to be provided barbiturates?—is that this is contrary to the basic principle that human life is inviolate, even if the person in question has consented to its violation.

Thirdly, I have carefully read the human rights memorandum that accompanies the Bill, but I have not seen in it any response to the question of why the line is drawn at six months. The legal challenge is going to go along the following lines. First, “My personal status for the purposes of Article 14 discrimination is how long I have to live”. Secondly, “I cannot access assisted suicide at more than six months, even though my suffering may thus be longer than somebody who only has six months to live”. Thirdly, “There is no obvious reason why six months has been chosen”. Perhaps that is a lawyer’s way of putting the slippery slope argument. However, in my professional experience, legal slopes are exceptionally slippery. It seems that, once we are on this slope, we will slide inexorably to the point where anyone with a terminal illness shall be permitted to avail themselves of the provisions in the Bill.

I am afraid that we have an inherent contradiction regarding the supporters of the Bill. My noble friend Lord Johnson of Marylebone accepted that the logical outcome was that anyone with a terminal illness should be permitted to avail themselves, but at the same time we are told that the six-month limit is a fundamental protection. Both points cannot be right at the same time.

Finally, let me say a word about an absent friend: the High Court judge who, we were told when the Bill was introduced, would stand as guardian to make sure everything worked as it should. But our judges have their work cut out making sure that we can live in peace, and they did not like the idea of having to make sure that we die in peace as well. So the High Court judge has gone, to be replaced by what is now rather euphemistically called an “expanded panel”. Well, it has been expanded in that there are more people on it, but it has been diminished because one member does not have to be a judge: a King’s Counsel is sufficient.

I am the last person to denigrate the ancient and honourable status of one of His Majesty’s Counsel, learned in the law. But the fact is that there is now no minimum period of practice before you can apply to take silk, and it is also not immediately apparent to me why a barrister of, say, 12 years’ call who took silk last week can be on the panel but the senior partner of an international firm of solicitors cannot.

The truth, I suggest, is that this judicial panel falls between two stools. It is too complex for the normal, straightforward case, while it is not equipped with anything like sufficient powers for the more difficult cases. I am not sure what the answer is, or even if there is an answer, but I am afraid that the current proposal is neither fish nor fowl; it is something of a statutory red herring.

To repeat, although I have spoken from the Dispatch Box, I have spoken only for myself. I look forward to the forthcoming stages, so that, if and when this House has to decide whether the Bill should pass into law, it is by then in the best possible state. But, as matters stand today, the Bill is not fit for the statute book.