Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Meg Hillier Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 11th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Lauren Edwards]

I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier).

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend talks about who makes our laws, and she has talked in articles that she has written about the primacy of this place. If the Bill goes forward, is she willing to accept amendments? She has brought forward a Bill that is exactly the same as the previous Bill, despite its sponsor in the House of Lords himself saying that there needed to be 77 amendments to make it safer.

[Lauren Edwards]

It is not quite the exact same Bill; it incorporates two amendments that were agreed without a vote in the House of Lords last time. We have had our conversation in this Chamber about this Bill in 2025, and we have had an interrupted conversation as a nation. I am asking Members of this House to send the Bill back to the House of Lords so that they can continue their important work of amending and scrutinising legislation.

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[Mims Davies (East Grinstead and Uckfield) (Con)]

There is no issue of conscience more capable of dividing constituents, families or, indeed, this House, than that of assisted dying. We can all agree that no one wants to suffer unnecessarily at the end of their life, and that no one wants to witness their loved ones suffering. We are all here in this place doing what we believe is best to achieve that end.

This debate means that the subject of death as a process is again out of the shadows, where we as a society have thrust it over many years. We have been unwilling to confront our own mortality, avoiding difficult discussions even with our own families until reality finally hits us, as it does—we just do not know how. It is a truth that the death of a loved one, and our own inevitable decline, can sometimes arrive with real fear, real pain and, sadly, too much unnecessary and unsupported suffering, but it does come to us all. It would be wiser for us to be ready to face it, to prepare for it and to be able to live with it as individuals, as families and as a society.



For those of us here today as lawmakers, the reality is that a change can happen in all our lives—whether a bolt from the blue, an accident, an incident, a tragedy, a violent attack, a diagnosis or simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time—that can mean life changes in an instant. Who you are, what you are capable of and what your life is now and onwards comes into focus.

My dad’s life and that of my family changed in an instant. He was attacked at work. Punches were thrown and he fell and hit his head on the kerb. He was saved by a passing man on his lunch break with first aid training. I was 11. Dad did not recognise us for several months. The financial impact was that we eventually lost our home, our family business and the surety that his hard work had given us.

Disablement can begin at birth, it can be acquired or it can come with a health condition—all determining what happens next. Yet we are legislating potentially to fundamentally change every person’s relationship with the state, their doctor and the NHS, depending on their health, their preparedness for what is next and the support they may or may not have.

Over the past two years, I have listened carefully to my colleagues from all parts of the House who have made personal arguments for and against. I have read the many briefings sent to me by charities, organisations, groups and representatives from right across our society. I have heard, too, from 1,000 or so of my constituents, who I thank deeply for sharing their own stories and thoughts. I have reflected back on my own experience, and that of my father, friends and loved ones, as one does when one witnesses an accident or incident, a health condition or, eventually, the death of a loved one. We know that many people are fighting for—and come to this place to fight for—better lives, better treatment, updated drugs, better knowledge and empathy. They often live longer, and push to live longer, than the initial prognosis they have been given.

My father lived a longer life than my mum, who became his main carer. She had previously worked with disabled young adults, helping them into work and helping them to thrive. As someone who previously had the honour of being the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, I roundly appreciate that some of our most vulnerable often feel under-acknowledged, undervalued, unheard and screened out of life and work in wider society. In that role, I had to learn not base policymaking on my own thoughts and my own family experiences, but to put good lawmaking at the heart of what I did. People must not feel pressured, worthless or subject to coercion, defined solely by what they cannot do.

My dad too often felt worthless. Long term, he felt less of a man, no longer a provider or a business owner. He went back to his farming roots, but a head and neck injury meant that that was not sustainable. An unseen disability saw him succumb to early onset dementia, with trauma-induced epilepsy and diabetes. He far too often felt he was worth more to us dead than alive. That was long before social media and the additional pressure that that entails.

I therefore believe, sadly, that this process is completely wrong. It is wrong to use the vehicle of this Bill to bring forward such societal consequence and change—changing the relationship between patient and doctor, and individual and state, and changing significantly the connection we all have with the NHS.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

Is the hon. Lady not, like me, puzzled that the promoter brought back the same Bill, despite there being many amendments that the sponsor in the Lords agreed needed to be made and the promoter today acknowledged needed to be included?

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[Alison McGovern]

I have said that I am not going to take any interventions. I am sorry to be discourteous to the hon. Member, but I am going to stick to that.

I want to make a few comments on the matter of social care and palliative care, having recently taken over responsibility for these most important issues. In my opinion, social care has been ignored for far too long—both the 1.5 million people, mainly women, who work in it and the families who need it. We have heard that across the House today. The Prime Minister has made social care a personal priority, and I am working with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to deliver changes now, alongside the work being done by the Casey commission, which we have expedited by a year.

Building a national care service will mean that people know where to turn when they need help and that care workers are given the status and the respect they deserve. We are pushing ahead with workforce changes, including career progression, training and job security, and we have made £4.6 billion of additional funding available for adult social care by the end of this Parliament, including £500 million for the first fair pay agreement for care workers. We will strengthen social care now—we are not just waiting for the Casey commission—and provide greater choice and independence as we do so.

Turning to palliative care—

[Dame Meg Hillier]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker, I have huge respect for the Minister, but she has said that she will not take any interventions. She is a very good Minister, and I trust that she will answer in detail the points that have been raised in the House today; having discussions with her and the Government after the debate is too late for today’s vote. I know she is a thorough and assiduous Minister and I am sure she will do her best to do that, but it is important to make that point to the House.

G7 Summit

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his question. We have sanctioned the entirety of the IRGC. Since coming into office, we have imposed 240 sanctions on Iran, and we will bring forward legislation to implement full and further sanctions and sectorial measures, including targeting finance, energy, software and other industries that are advancing Iranian nuclear escalation.

The right hon. Gentleman has stood in my shoes on the steps of Downing Street. There are moments where the country is watching, and people want to be able to hear Prime Ministers of the day speak, so I recognise his point.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am glad that the Deputy Prime Minister reiterated support for Ukraine, but for that we need the defence investment plan. Could he explain what conversations the Prime Minister had at the G7 about defence investment, particularly through the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank and the multilateral defence mechanism? Both could be important to Britain. Can the Deputy Prime Minister tell us what is happening?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend will be reassured that defence, and increased defence spending across the G7, was a topic of discussion. We support attempts by the European Union and by our Canadian friends to ensure that the funds and different mechanisms are available to increase that defence spending. As I have said, we will set out how we will do that before the NATO summit.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Sackman]

I thank the hon. Member for his question and his tireless advocacy, which is a way of honouring Sara, who was brutally murdered at the hands of the very people who should have been protecting her. Of course, it is essential for justice that all court users understand what is happening in hearings. We believe that Sara Sharif’s birth mother was entitled to an interpreter, but she did not request one. However, we need to look into what should have been done to guarantee that she had an interpreter. We make over 200,000 interpreter bookings every year to ensure that people can understand proceedings, but I look forward to working with him to see what more we can do to implement that review.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

T7.   I have a number of constituents who have had serious delays to their immigration appeals as a result of His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service. One particularly tragic case involves someone who has no recourse to public funds and serious mental health problems. They applied in September 2024, and have just got a date for July 2026. That delay is typical, rather than atypical. What is the Minister doing to ensure that we speed up the immigration tribunal service?

[Sarah Sackman]

We are maximising the number of judicial sitting days in the immigration and asylum chamber. We are recruiting more judges in this area, as well as working with the Home Office to develop proposals for a new independent appeals body that would handle appeal types currently heard in the immigration tribunal, all of which I hope will benefit my hon. Friend’s constituents.

Prisoner Releases in Error

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Gentleman raises issues that are, in a sense, beyond the prison system. He is right about the delivery mechanism of prisoners from court to prisons. He knows, because it has come up in oral questions in the House, that we inherited backlogs from the Conservative party. He also knows that we are demanding that our police arrest more and bear down on crime. The criminal justice system is phenomenally hot. All this will affect the prison system. That is why we have asked Brian Leveson to look at issues of efficiency, in particular, in relation to the courts backlog. Part of that is the relationship between security and the movement of people from our courts to our prison system.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

When I chaired and served on the Public Accounts Committee, on which I served for more than 10 years, we looked at and, with the help of the National Audit Office, uncovered failures in the Probation Service—a policy area that yo-yoed between Ministers as they changed—as well as the failure to build and maintain prisons, failures with the courts IT system and failures with identifying information that needed to be shared. Is my right hon. Friend aware of the Magee review, which was commissioned at the tail end of the previous Labour Government, and can he speculate as to why the review was never implemented over the 14 years of the Conservative Government?

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. and learned Friend is right to commend court staff and to highlight the significant issues in the courts system. In my time on the Public Accounts Committee, we uncovered problems with the buildings, the IT systems and the Probation Service—the whole system was in real difficulty. How long does she think it will take this Government to clear up the mess that the last Government left?

[Sarah Sackman]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we have a mountain to climb, and we cannot fix the foundations overnight. This Government are committed to restoring the public’s confidence in the justice system. That is why, through the spending review, we have committed an additional £450 million to the courts system. That means, as I said, investing in our buildings and in our people to restore the public’s confidence in our system.

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[Mr Lammy]

I said last week that I was keen to meet with the family, and I will meet with them when they meet with the Prisons Minister, I hope, in the coming weeks.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

We have seen a lack of maintenance of prisons, a stop-start prison building programme and all the challenges in our courts—is it any surprise that we are looking at non-custodial sentences for lower-level offenders? Does the Secretary of State agree that those on the Opposition Front Bench have some cheek to come to this House and question that when the failures in the system are down to 14 years failure?

[Mr Lammy]

My hon. Friend did a valiant job as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, constantly revisiting these issues. She will have noticed how successive Justice Secretaries under the last Government have said that they cut the numbers, they failed to invest, violence was up, and now we have junior staff making very important decisions.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Meg Hillier Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 29th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

In my brief remarks today, I want to touch on principle, policy and practice. We have to be very clear that we are having a debate not just on the principle, but on the Bill. The principle at stake is that we would cross a Rubicon whereby someone who is terminally ill, according to the definition in the Bill, is assisted by the state to die. That is a fundamental change in the relationship between the state and the citizen, and the patient and their doctor. If we have a scintilla of doubt about allowing the state that power, we should vote against the Bill today.

Like most of us, I came into politics partly to stand up for the vulnerable, and we have heard heartbreaking stories today about those vulnerable at the point of death. We have also heard—and I concur completely with my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott)—about those who are vulnerable for other reasons and who could be coerced or persuaded down this route.

I have had the privilege of being around the hospice movement for nearly 50 years, as my father established one of the first national health service hospices in this country. I saw what he did as a doctor in a world where death was not talked about, where surgeons would say, “We’ll whip this bit out and you’ll be fine.” He would be one of the first to have to tell the patient that they were actually going to die. The work that he did, on the back of giants such as Dame Cicely Saunders, is something we should be proud of. We were the first country in the world to recognise palliative care as a separate profession, and some of the tragedies we have heard about today arose from a failure in that system. A failure in palliative care and support is not a reason to continue.

I have personal experience of this. Many hon. Members will remember when my daughter was very ill a few years ago. I had not intended to speak about this today, but she was admitted to hospital as a teenager with acute pancreatitis. The Bill would not have covered her, but I did not know for five days—in fact, many months—whether she would live or die. For those first five days she did not sleep and she did not eat, and she was crying out in pain. I saw what good medicine can do. It palliated that pain and got her to a place where, although she was unable to eat for two and a half months, she was saved and her pain was managed. Our best friends were the pain nurses and the anaesthetists. I have other examples of another family member, but I do not have time to go into them today.

I hope my daughter forgives me for raising her personal situation in the House today—

[Lola McEvoy]

Will my hon. Friend give way? I pay tribute to her for the strength that she is showing. Indeed, I pay tribute to all Members on both sides of the House who are dealing with this very difficult issue. Does she agree that we already have assisted dying in this country? Legislation already allows for choice, proving that people would be able to die at home with carefully administered, practitioner-led pain management. Does she agree that the inconsistency of this application of good pain management at the end of life, causing compassionate legislators to feel that the only option is to vote for the Bill, is a failure of our existing national health system, and does she—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. Interventions will have to be short in this debate because many Members wish to speak, so perhaps that is enough.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. She is absolutely right. When we see the system working, it is great, but some of what we have heard today has referred to a failure of the system. That cannot be a reason for us to accept the Bill today. For more than 30 years I have been scrutinising the policies and actions of public bodies and seeing the mistakes that they make, both in the care sector when I was in local government and more recently as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee.

[Mr Adnan Hussain (Blackburn) (Ind)]

The time for us to make this decision is wrong, frankly. At a time when 44,000 terminally ill pensioners are set to lose their winter fuel allowance—indeed, many of them have lost it—we are discussing whether we will pass a Bill, a state-sanctioned Bill, dealing with a taboo that many of us are reluctant to talk about.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

Where I do agree with the hon. Gentleman is that the time is not right. We have not had the proper discussions about palliative care. Some of us have been trying to talk about it for many years, and we need to ensure that this debate does not stop today, but the Bill must stop today. It is not developed to deliver the palliative care resource that we need. I do want to touch on the policy, but let me first return to the point that I was making before the hon. Gentleman’s intervention.

We have seen many failures in the system, including contaminated blood, and whistleblowing in the NHS repeatedly shows such failures. There is great trust among those who support the Bill that these safeguards will deliver. I will not go into the details, because others have already done so, and I am sure that many more will, but we made coercive control illegal in 2015, and although the Bill refers to safeguards, I fear that that will not pick up coercive control. When we ruled it to be illegal, we thought that was a moment of progress in the House.

Given the time, I will now move on to some of the practical challenges. My constituents are struggling to see doctors face to face, and seeing the same doctor twice seems like a miracle in today’s Britain. My right hon. Friend the Health Secretary is trying to sort it out, but it will take a long time. We need to sort out our battling health service, we need to support palliative care, and we need to discuss what a good death is. Cicely Saunders campaigned and triumphed to ensure that we had one of the best hospice movements in the world.

If Members have any doubt in their minds about the impact of the Bill on people who do not have the same capacity as those who are talking about this in the television and radio studios, they should think of those in my constituency who have poor English, or the woman who came to see me a month ago with terrible pain in her gall bladder. Removing it would have been a simple daytime operation, but she did not understand what the doctor had told her, and she was not going to have her gall bladder taken out because she did not know what it meant to be without a gall bladder. Let me say this to those Members: if someone who was English, a bright woman in her 60s, was unable to challenge what was said to her and to have that conversation with a doctor, just think what passing the Bill today would mean for many more vulnerable people.

I thank the House for its indulgence.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Laura Farris)]

I congratulate Torbay Council and Councillor Tranter on their excellent work to keep women safe in Torbay. Spiking is a disgusting crime that carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison depending on the harm that results. We are changing the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 to define the offence of spiking specifically and comprehensively in law, with a view to encouraging more people to come forward. However, the biggest barrier to conviction remains the fact that toxicology tests are often conducted after the substance has left a woman’s body. That is why we are investing in research for rapid drinks testing kits so that spiking will be easier to prove and we get more of the offenders behind bars.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

My constituent was the victim of a violent attack, but because the perpetrator got a sentence of less than 12 months, she was not told when he was released from prison. The police say that it is impossible for them to go through the records of everybody who is released in order to advise her, so there is a gap in victim support. Will the Secretary of State commit to resolving that?

[Alex Chalk]

The hon. Lady raises an important point. I take that extremely seriously. Certainly, under the victims code, the rights of victims to be kept informed are far tighter than ever they used to be. If we need to go further, that seems to be a sensible conversation and I would be happy to have it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 16th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

I am so grateful to my hon. Friend for highlighting the brilliant work of Tracey Hanson and the Josh Hanson Trust, which supports those who have lost loved ones to violent crime. Josh’s death was an appalling tragedy. Improving victims’ experience of the criminal justice system is a core mission of this Government. Our Victims and Prisoners Bill, which had its Second Reading just yesterday, will ensure that the public and victims are better protected and can have greater confidence in the system, placing the principles of the victims code on to the face of the Bill, which will make sure what victims can and should expect from the criminal justice system.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

As the Secretary of State just said, the additional police officers will lead to more court cases, but as we heard from the previous exchange, there is a huge backlog, which the Public Accounts Committee has looked at. When our Committee challenged his Department’s officials on this issue, we were not convinced that there has been proper planning for how those additional cases will be managed on top of the existing court backlog. Can he give us any up-to-date reassurance?

[Alex Chalk]

I thank the hon. Lady for the important work she does. These are relevant questions. It is important to understand that 90% of all criminal cases take place in the magistrates court, and because of the enormously good work that they did, any meaningful backlogs had been eroded by the end of 2020. She is right in respect of the Crown court—there are pressures—but as has been indicated, we are keeping 24 Nightingale courts open, increasing the amount of judicial recruitment and ensuring that victims are supported through the process. We now have 700 independent sexual violence advisers, which did not exist as little as 13 years ago, to ensure that as people wait for trials to begin, they are properly supported through the system.

Justice

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2023 Ministerial Corrections

The following is an extract from Justice questions on 10 January 2023.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Like the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous), I have seen extraordinary situations with cases of serious sexual assault where the court case has been listed three years after the attack, in one case, with the victim saying, “I just want to give up and get on with my life.” This is a real challenge. Will the Minister outline what he is doing to get more judges in place, which is one of the brakes on this? When the Public Accounts Committee looked at this, we concluded on the evidence that, even with the interventions he has outlined, the Ministry will only be back on target from where it was with the backlog before covid by about 2024-25.

[Mike Freer]

The hon. Lady raises an important point. There are a variety of reasons why cases can be delayed. It is not just about the availability of the judiciary; sometimes it is the availability of defence and prosecution. There is a particular focus on trying to improve the number of cases that do not come forward because they are incomplete and not ready, and there is a massive campaign to improve the number of available sitting days and courts, but the most important thing is the massive recruitment of 1,000 judges for our criminal justice system.

[Official Report, 10 January 2023, Vol. 725, c. 407.]

Letter of correction from the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer):

An error has been identified in the response given to the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier).

The correct response should have been:

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I pay tribute to her for all the work we did together on these issues, and what a stalwart, doughty supporter she has been. The Victims Bill will place the victims code into law. It will increase oversight of how the criminal justice agencies work, both at the police and crime commissioner level and in the national inspections. I mentioned the increase in funding for victims. The increase in the victim surcharge will mean that we have more restorative justice, with offenders paying for the wrongs they have done and victims getting extra compensation.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I find myself in agreement with the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), whose Government, of course, have been in power for 12 years. The court delays are a real problem for victims. One of my constituents was violently attacked and given a court date three years later. Her seven-year-old witnessed the attack, and the perpetrator keeps pestering her, breaking non-molestation orders, leaving the police pretty powerless, because he knows there is no traction. The Public Accounts Committee has looked into this. The backlog is not going down and will not be lower than pre-pandemic—it is not about covid. What is the Secretary of State doing to get a grip on his Department and make sure the courts deliver justice for victims?

[Dominic Raab]

I say to the hon. Lady that the Crown court backlog reduced from more than 60,000 cases in June 2021 to under 58,000 cases at the end of March 2022—[Interruption.] Hold on. The increase and the reversal of that trajectory were the result of the Criminal Bar Association’s strike action, which was unwarranted—[Interruption.] I am looking at Opposition Front Benchers. When we announced our proposals on the legal aid review, they agreed with every single one. Yet again, when it comes to the justice system, as with many other things, they are on the side not of the public, but of those who take disruptive industrial action.