Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Martin Wrigley and Karen Bradley

2nd reading
Friday 11th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dame Karen Bradley]

I really cannot; I am so sorry to my hon. Friend.

We could have dealt with this over the summer; we had time to work on it. We could have included, for example, a clause that would have given an equal right to palliative care or a simple assessment of unmet need—something, anything, to allow there to be a genuine choice. But that opportunity is now gone.

Let me be absolutely clear about what today’s vote is and what it is not. It is not another vote on the principle of assisted dying as on an ordinary Second Reading debate, and the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood said that herself. It is not a vote to allow this House to improve the Bill. It is not even a vote to allow the other place to improve it, because that is not in this House’s hands. If this Bill is sent to the other place and falls for whatever reason—even if that is because Parliament prorogues early and it receives not a single further hour of debate—it could be forced into law as it is. The Hansard Society put it plainly in saying

“bills proceeding under the Parliament Act have been subject to only minimal amendment.”

The House needs to understand that the proposed approach requires

“preserving an unchanged bill with…defects”.

That is a very different decision.

I know that there will be Members in the House saying to themselves, “Nothing has changed since I voted for this before—why should I change my vote now?” My answer is simple. A great deal has changed, though not, unfortunately, in the Bill itself. We know more now than we did then, and changing one’s conclusion when the evidence changes is what Parliament is supposed to do.

We now have revised estimates from the Government showing that many more people may seek an assisted death than Members previously understood: up to 4,610 may apply in the first year, and up to 10,428 in year 10. That is more than 1,000 times the number going to Dignitas each year. That is not a slow run-up during which we can watch the system develop, identify mistakes and quietly correct them.

[Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)]

Will the right hon. Member give way?

[Dame Karen Bradley]

I am sorry; I really must make progress.

We could have thousands of people entering the system immediately. If the safeguards are not right on day one, vulnerable people will be exposed on day one.

We also have the updated equality impact assessment, to which the hon. Member for Bradford West referred, and its conclusions should give every Member pause. It recognises that

“disabled people may feel subtle pressure due to attitudinal barriers or a lack of alternative appropriate services and support…This could also include structural pressures such as neglect, poverty and difficult living conditions”.

It also recognises that we may see

“disproportionate numbers of ethnic minority people choosing to have an assisted death to avoid financial hardship or escape abuse.”

I believe that the Bill is not finished, but we are effectively voting today for a completed and finished Bill. That worries me enormously. Much has been said previously in the debate—I will not repeat the point—but we are giving powers to a future Government to implement this Bill. We are not giving those powers to the Ministers sitting on the Front Bench today, and we are not necessarily giving them to those on the Opposition Front Bench; we are giving them to a future Government of any political persuasion. When I was a Government Minister, I remember always asking myself, “Would I be happy if another Government took this forward—if they had the power to do this?”

I ask Members to apply a test that we too rarely apply when legislating: do not ask whether you trust the people who will administer these powers today; ask whether you would be content with the political party you trust least possessing them tomorrow. There is simply not enough detail in the Bill to constrain how many of these decisions would be made. The National Down Syndrome Policy Group put it best: this Bill hopes for the best rather than prepares for the worst.