Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Harper Excerpts

Friday 9th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, the flaw in that argument is that not all of the questions for the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, and the Minister have been asked. If they answered some of them now and more were then asked, we would need to hear from them again. That would not help the Committee make progress. It is better that the noble and learned Lord and the Minister hear all of the questions then respond to them.

I listened carefully to the procedural debate yesterday. There was a great deal of concern that one of the reasons for the slow progress of the debate was the fact that many of the questions asked in the debate have not been answered by the Bill’s sponsor; indeed, the sponsor himself recognised that he needed to do better. That is welcome, and we look forward to hearing that later.

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[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Lemos) (Lab)]

I do not want to interrupt the noble Lord but I am sure that it will be useful for him to know that the Minister will respond on the question of resources when the time comes.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

That is very good. I am glad that the noble Lord has confirmed that the Minister will respond; I look forward to her doing so.

My final point concerns whether the Bill’s sponsors have carried out the modelling and costings that their proposals will require. Have those been put before this House so that we can make the appropriate decisions?

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)]

I am sure that the noble Lord will have read the impact assessment; it is based on the current Bill, which includes the panel, and contains detailed costings for the panel.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

I am aware of that. I want to know whether it will contain detailed costings for the court process. Obviously, I do not know what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, is going to say, but one of the things discussed yesterday was whether he will accept any of the amendments that have been tabled. The point I am making is that, if he were minded to accept the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, which obviously have a cost implication, there is a role for the Government in assessing those costs as well as a role for the sponsors. I am simply asking whether, if the noble and learned Lord were to accept them—he may not, of course—he would also provide the costs to the Committee. At that point, I draw my remarks to a conclusion.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I will not detain the Committee for very long; the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, can be reassured that I am not in the business of making a long speech.

I have in the past expressed my concerns to the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, as to whether judges are the best people to make these decisions and whether they can do so against the advice of the contracting doctor. The problem is that the doctor will be absolutely adamant that he is right in his case; I do not see why a judge should be able to overrule that, and I am not at all certain that a panel makes it much better. We should concentrate very much on the question of the contracting doctor; my forthcoming amendments will, I hope, address that point.

The problem is that doctors are sometimes malevolent. I accept that the doctors in this House are dedicated to looking after their patients and the public good, but that is not always the case. There are occasions—the noble Lord, Lord McCrea, referred to them—when doctors get it completely wrong.

I am very pleased that although Esther Rantzen was given six months to live, that was two and a half years ago. She wrote an article in the newspaper saying how much she has enjoyed the extra time that she has been given, although she is an advocate of this Bill. We must accept that doctors get these things wrong, and I think we should be concentrating on the contracting doctor rather than on the process of review.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Baroness Levitt) (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall respond to the amendments in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson and Lady Coffey. Some of your Lordships may be aware that I know the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, very well. Indeed, the convention of this House is that I refer to him as “my noble kinsman”. This has given rise to a number of jokes outside this Chamber, but there is a serious point to be made here. I reassure your Lordships that this has no effect on the Government’s neutral analysis of the workability of the amendments in question, and although I have the advantage of having advance notice of my noble kinsman’s position, I have engaged with him as to the Government’s response in no different a way from the way I would with any of your Lordships.

As this is the first time a Minister from the Ministry of Justice has spoken in this debate, I reiterate what has been said on many occasions by my noble friend Lady Merron: the Government’s position is that it is a matter for Parliament to decide the policy which underpins this Bill. It follows that I will not be providing a government view on the merits of any of the amendments, nor will I make any observations in a personal capacity.

I will, however, deal with the question asked by a number of your Lordships as to whether the Government would deliver this, were the will of Parliament to be that the general principle contained in the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, were to be adopted. The answer is that, given our current workload, it would of course be challenging; I say this because I am in fact the Family Justice Minister, as well as the Lords Minister. But if it is the will of Parliament, then we will work with the judiciary to make sure that we have the resources in place to deliver what Parliament has decided.

This is a large group of amendments, and it is the Government’s view that—

[Lord Harper (Con)]

On that point, briefly, the Minister made the point about making available the resources to deliver what would be in the Bill. The question I asked her, which the Whip on the Front Bench confirmed she would answer, is: would that have an impact on other users of the court system, or would the Government make available extra resources to deliver what is in the Bill, but without disadvantaging other users of the court system? He did say she would answer.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

He did not intend to say that he would go further than I have just gone. That is confirmed. I would be surprised if he had intended to go further than I intended to go.

With respect to the noble Lord, we are not here to debate what is going on in the family justice system. We are here to debate these amendments, and I am going to stick to that. I am also anxious not to take too many interventions because this is a large group, and there are things the Government want to say about workability. I need to get through them in the time allotted to me.

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[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I am sure the Committee entirely endorses what the noble Baroness said in relation to the importance of those who are hearing impaired. I think that, in these circumstances, this is not a matter for the Government; it is a matter for the proposer of the amendment and for the sponsor of the Bill should it be passed. However, the point remains an important one.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

Before the Minister concludes, she has obviously inadvertently omitted to answer the important question that both my noble friend Lord Gove and I asked. This is a resources question and the Whip, of course, confirmed that she would answer it. The Bill, as introduced, had a court system in it. It was reported that the sponsor of the Bill was advised by the Government and the judiciary that it was not possible to deliver that for capacity reasons. Did the Government provide that advice, and if they did, will the Minister publish it?

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I am going to repeat the words that were used by my honourable friend the Minister for Courts in the other place. The decision as to the introduction of the panel was made by the sponsor.

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[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I just want to make one point—

[Noble Lords]

No!

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[Lord Harper (Con)]

No, I am sorry, there is no requirement in the Companion that you can speak in a debate only if you have tabled an amendment. If we want to finish at 3 o’clock, we can either go slightly past 3 o’clock or we can stop at 3 o’clock and resume this group next week. I wish to make one point that has not yet been made and which I think is pertinent to the debate, and I believe I am perfectly in order doing so.

The point is this. Two Members have raised the valuable contribution made in yesterday’s procedural debate by the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Birmingham—a man who knows what he is talking about on the NHS, as he ran it for a number of years—about the timetable for the Government to publish their modern framework for palliative medicine. He said that, at the moment, that framework is likely to be published after Parliament has considered the Bill, and he felt that that was the wrong way around. The reason that matters is that the Government have published a 10-year plan for the NHS, and nothing in that plan will significantly change the provision of palliative care in England.

We know that only about half the people who require specialist palliative care are able to get it, and that the Bill’s sponsor, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, believes—or believed and still believes—that good palliative care is a prerequisite for there to be assisted suicide, so I think it very important that the Minister answers the question and confirms that the Government will at least think about publishing the modern framework for palliative care before we get to Report on the Bill, so that this House can make a properly informed decision about the amendments before it on palliative care.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, this is a self-regulating House, and that does not mean that a Government Whip can regulate who can speak and who cannot. I echo the point made by my noble friend. If the only way one can speak in these debates is to sign amendments, I know what to do in future.

I spoke for five minutes on the Friday before Christmas and said not a peep in the debate earlier today because it was not my speciality. I have been waiting here for two hours to make a speech on palliative care, and we seem to have been refused the right to do so because the Government Whip wants us not to say anything so that we can finish at 3 o’clock. I agree that we can finish at 3 o’clock—it is a simple matter for the House to adjourn and come back to polish off this matter next Friday morning—but it would be absolutely outrageous for noble Lords who have not had a chance to speak at all on palliative care to be refused the right to do so because the Government have imposed an arbitrary timetable on us.