Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Naz Shah Excerpts

Friday 20th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

I start by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater), all the Members who served on the Committee and, indeed, the whole House for the approach that everyone has taken to this Bill.

I want to make it clear that I came to this Bill with an open mind. Like many, I supported it in principle at first glance, but this debate is no longer about the principle of assisted death—that is not the decision before us today; it is not the issue on which we will walk through the Lobby when we decide to vote for or against this Bill. Our responsibility in this place is to make sure that the Bill is safe, workable and effective. That is the test that will lead us to vote for or against the Bill today. As the Bill stands, it presents a public safety issue.

[Jim Shannon]

I spoke to the hon. Lady beforehand, and I understand her concerns. They are the same concerns I have, on behalf of those who have anorexia, those with mental health conditions, troubled people—those who would be vulnerable when this idea was presented to them. Does she think, like I do, that this Bill does not in any way address the issue of those who are vulnerable, when it comes to assisted dying?

[Naz Shah]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. I think he might have read some of my speech, which I will carry on with.

I will set out why the Bill is not safe, and speak about the two amendments that I tabled: amendment 14, which we have nodded through today, and amendment 38, which we will not get the chance to vote on. Amendment 14 dealt with the issue of voluntarily stopping eating and drinking, or VSED, which has been used as a “bridge” to assisted death in other jurisdictions. I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley accepted that amendment, but let me be very clear: this does not close the anorexia loophole—that was the subject of another amendment. Voluntarily stopping eating and drinking is not what happens to people with anorexia. People with anorexia stop eating and drinking because they have a psychiatric illness. Those are two categorically different issues. I must make it absolutely clear that even though amendment 14 has passed today, it does not address concerns about anorexia or close that loophole.

Members in the other place are already raising the concern that, because this is a private Member’s Bill, they do not believe that they can provide all the necessary safeguards if we give a Third Reading today to a Bill that is not safe to be delivered to the public. At least 60 women with anorexia in multiple countries have died by assisted death when they needed treatment, not help to die. Every one of them was assessed to have capacity by two doctors.

[Kim Leadbeater]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Naz Shah]

I will make some progress.

Hundreds of eating disorder experts, doctors, lawyers, charities, family members and people with lived experience urged Parliament to close this loophole and support amendment 38. As a Committee, we failed to heed their warning. We have now learned that the one remaining amendment that could protect people with eating disorders will not even be voted on.

Our responsibility is to make the Bill safe. We know what happens when politicians think they know better than the experts. Let us make it clear: the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Pathologists, palliative care doctors, the British Geriatrics Society, almost every eating disorder charity and almost every disabled people’s group do not support this Bill. That is not because they do not believe in the principle; they are warning us about the dangers of this Bill, and of getting this wrong.

Our job is not to be activists—to fight until our last breath for the principle, whatever shape or form it is delivered in. Of course we believe in causes—that is why each and every one of us is in Parliament—but we legislators must listen to the experts, heed the evidence, scrutinise and debate the ideas that are before us, and deliver for our constituents laws that are safe, workable and effective. We have a proud history; the likes of Florence Nightingale—the lady with the lamp—broke every barrier possible to heal the wounded, provide care for the vulnerable and reduce the chance of death. Those are the principles that our great NHS was founded on. We must ask ourselves whether those fundamental principles will still be intact if the Bill passes. Will they be there to protect those who face a postcode lottery in healthcare and palliative care, the most vulnerable, and those who have faced the greatest hardships in life and feel like a burden? Will those principles be there to protect those who feel like giving up, but whom we could help back up and push towards a better life? Instead, we will be giving them a way to give up, even if they could have survived.

This is the question for all Members: what is the margin of error that we are willing to risk today when it comes to something as serious as death? I urge Members to vote against this Bill.