Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Martin Wrigley and Josh Fenton-Glynn

2nd reading
Friday 11th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Josh Fenton-Glynn]

I will not give way just now. If you have moral certainty on this question, I honestly envy you.

On the state of palliative care, we are told that this Bill is about giving our constituents more options—a choice between good palliative care or an assisted death. But in a world where there are such gaping holes in our health, social care and palliative care system, that is simply not the case.

[Martin Wrigley]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Josh Fenton-Glynn]

Not just now. Our Committee asked our independent expert panel to look into the quality and availability of palliative care, and the results should give everyone in this room pause for thought, because we do not have a universal offer of palliative care in this country. The report points to a postcode lottery of provision. Hospices are largely funded through charitable donations, which means that in better-off areas there is better care. The Committee hears constantly about the social determinants of health. Let us not have one of them be that those in wealthy areas have the choice of a comfortable death, while the poor must choose an early one.

Furthermore, there is a workforce crisis in palliative care. There are 700 palliative care doctor posts, but 70 vacancies. Add to that 130 doctors expected to leave the profession in the next five years while, to make matters worse, training bottlenecks mean that there will not be specialist doctors trained to replace them. All that is in a landscape where we expect demand for palliative care to increase by 55% in the current decade.

I want a safe Bill that takes all those things into account. A safe Bill would give some discretion to the Health Secretary on when they implement it. This Bill does not.