Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Coffey Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 18th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)]

I am obliged. Assisted dying feels quite pacific in comparison with the debate we have just had. This is my amendment, which I do not intend to press. It is the product of discussions with the BMA. It was tabled in Committee in my name and in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff. It was withdrawn in Committee because the Isle of Man Government, who have passed a Bill to deal with assisted dying, said they did not want it to be tabled before there had been discussions with them. There have now been discussions between the BMA and the Isle of Man Government and they are content for it to be tabled.

This amendment seeks to provide protections for doctors with patients who live in the Isle of Man or Jersey, where assisted dying Bills have been passed but have not yet received Royal Assent. It is common, for example, for some people resident in the Isle of Man to have doctors in the north-west of England. Those doctors may well give a diagnosis or a prognosis in writing, which might then be used in an assisted dying process in accordance with the laws in those two other jurisdictions. Amendment 426A says that if a doctor does such a thing and they are participating in a process which is strictly in accordance with the law

“in Scotland or the Crown Dependencies”,

And, obviously, Scotland voted against assisted dying yesterday, but the principle is that they will not be breaking the law in this country—

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)]

Can I finish my explanation, then hear from the Minister and then take it from there? I have had a very useful discussion with the Minister, who said that the Government took the view that the amendment was premature before Royal Assent in relation to the two jurisdictions, and I accept that. She said that once Royal Assent was given, the Government would consult with Jersey and the Isle of Man Governments and other relevant parties about what the Government would then do. She gave no commitment as to what the Government would do, but I am content with that approach. There will obviously be some degree of urgency, depending on how long it will take for the other jurisdictions to introduce assisted dying, but if the Minister were to confirm that that was the position, and that is what she explained to me, I would be content with that explanation.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

I did not quite hear at the start. Can I just confirm that this amendment was not tabled at the request of the Isle of Man Government?

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)]

That is correct. It was tabled after discussions between the BMA, the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, and me, and it was withdrawn because the Isle of Man Government wanted more consultation.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Baroness Coffey Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 13th March 2026 Lords Chamber

Amendment 921ZA, also in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, would require that a legal panel member could be a person who holds or has held judicial office in England, but the explanatory statement accompanying the amendment notes that the intention is to clarify that the legal panel member could be a person who holds or has held judicial office in both England and Wales. It is therefore unclear to the Government what the amendment is trying to achieve. If it is trying to restrict legal panel members to current or past judicial officeholders in England, that is not possible, given that judges of the senior courts are appointed in the unified jurisdiction of England and Wales.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

The Minister will know that I will discuss later why I do not think that the legislation should apply to Wales, and that the Welsh Senedd should make the decision. I tabled the amendment because, at the moment, the judge does not have to be a judge from this country. As far as I can tell from the Bill, it could be a judge from anywhere in the world who has served under the common-law process.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I am sure that the House will welcome that clarification from the noble Baroness, but it may be that there is a drafting issue, because the amendment refers to England rather than England and Wales, and there is no such creature as a member of the senior judiciary from England only.

Finally in this group, the Government have concerns that Amendment 929B, also in the name of the noble Baroness, may have an impact on the operability of an assisted dying service by placing apparently arbitrary limits on the resourcing of the panel when the demands of that service are, as yet, unknown.

I turn now to groups of amendments dealing with assisted dying review panel proceedings and powers. Amendment 463, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Murray, would require the commissioner to assess the procedure adopted by every individual assisted dying review panel. That would remove any flexibility for the panel to deviate from procedure, should it seem appropriate to do so for either inquisitive or compassionate reasons associated with the case.

Amendment 464, also in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Murray, would give the panel the same powers, privileges and authority as the High Court. The powers of a High Court judge are significant and wide-ranging. They are set out across statute, court rules and the inherent jurisdiction of the court. The Government think that some of them, such as the power to imprison for contempt, are not the sorts of powers that your Lordships may feel are appropriate for such a panel. Without more clarity and detail, it is impossible to assess whether this kind of extension would be appropriate, and it would be extremely difficult to apply in practice. In the view of the Government, the amendment ought to set out which powers, privileges and authorities it is intended to capture.

Regarding Amendments 495B and 941A, both in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Maclean of Redditch, your Lordships may wish to note that requiring the panel to identify and provide a report on unmet social or palliative care needs is not within its remit, nor would the panel necessarily have the knowledge of local service provision or the expertise to make personalised recommendations on social and palliative care. Such a report therefore risks containing inaccurate or incomplete advice.

I turn to panel referrals and capacity. Amendment 445, also in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Maclean of Redditch, seeks to ensure that the panel is independently satisfied that the person seeking assistance has continuously had capacity from the point of their first declaration. Your Lordships may wish to note that the amendment is likely to cause major workability concerns. It would be extremely difficult for the panel to determine whether the person had capacity throughout this period, rather than just at the point at which the capacity assessment is made. Moreover, it might result in people being excluded because of temporary, brief periods of incapacity. For example, a person would not have had continuous capacity if they had had an operation under general anaesthetic during this period.

On panel decisions, Amendment 496, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, would mean that a person cannot apply for their case to be reconsidered on the basis that the decision was irrational. That would be unusual, as the elements of the existing test under Clause 18 reflect the three primary grounds applicable in judicial review proceedings and are part of a recognised set of legal principles applicable to decision-making. If a person wished to challenge a first panel’s decision for being irrational, which is a term of art in legal proceedings, they would still be able to do so via judicial review. That would create an inconsistency in forum that would need to be justified.

Amendment 496A, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Weir, would add failure adequately to consider evidence relating to disability-related vulnerabilities to the grounds under which, where a panel declines to grant a certificate of eligibility, the commissioner could refer a person’s case to a second panel. Your Lordships may wish to note that failure properly to consider relevant information would already be captured by the irrationality ground for reconsideration set down in Clause 18(2)(b). Similarly, a decision that was inconsistent with equality legislation already engages the first ground of challenge in Clause 18(2)(a), because it would contain an error of law.

I have taken rather longer over this than I had intended. Noble Lords will be delighted to know that I am nearly there. The final part is on drafting considerations and Amendment 490. If your Lordships support any of these amendments, the Government may need to revisit the drafting to ensure clarity and coherence with the statute book. To give one example, Amendment 490, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, contains some ambiguous terms that might need tightening up. In the interests of time, I will not go into more detail, but I am happy to discuss further with the noble Baroness in due course. Having taken rather longer than I had hoped, that is it from the Government on this group.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

Actually, I have further questions of clarity from the Government’s response. In the amendment that I tabled about His Majesty’s Counsel, the Minister mentioned workability concerns about there not being enough people. I would like to understand whether the government proposal suggested that amendment to the Bill’s sponsor. Do the Government have any consideration about alternatives I proposed during debate, where, instead of King’s Counsel, we could have people such as deputy court judges or other sorts of judges? In the two weeks since we last discussed this matter, have the Government considered that?

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

As a general point, the Government merely point out workability concerns and do not suggest ways in which they might be remedied. That would be a matter for the Member who tabled the amendment to discuss with the sponsor of the Bill. So no, we have not come up with any proposals because—I am sure that the noble Baroness is sick of me saying this—we are neutral on this. We just point out where we can see difficulties with the amendment as drafted.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

Did the Government propose, on workability grounds, the suggestion in Schedule 2 that King’s Counsel should be included? It may be that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, can answer that, but a constant theme has been trying to understand what the Government have suggested in their private workings with the sponsor of the Bill, which they will not share with the House. Did they suggest this as a way to make it workable? That is what I am trying to get to the bottom of.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I am going to have to write to the noble Baroness about this, because I do not think I can answer it. My noble friend the sponsor will deal with the question of panels. If this question is actually about the assistance given by the Government, I refer to my previous answers, but I will write to the noble Baroness on her specific point.

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Amendment 483C, another amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, proposes that where the co-ordinating doctor is ill and the panel is satisfied with his evidence, it should be able to deal with deal with it without hearing from him—I did not put that clearly. Currently the position is that if the co-ordinating doctor is ill—that is, there is a medical reason why he cannot appear—it is open to the panel to decide exceptionally that it does not need to hear from him because it must normally hear from him. In my view, there should be that exception because there will be occasions when the panel is completely satisfied with, for example, a report from the co-ordinating doctor that is corroborated by an independent doctor from whom they have heard. If the panel is completely satisfied, should the patient have to wait until there can be a personal hearing with the co-ordinating doctor? In my view, no. I am not in favour of that amendment.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)]

Can I just finish so that questions can be asked at the end? The noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, tabled Amendment 921ZB about King’s Counsel. The choice of who should be within the legal grouping is for the sponsors, not the Government. My noble friend Lady Levitt is right when she says that it is a question for me, not the Government. The Government are not saying that it is unworkable. They are saying that it is for the sponsor to decide. The choice of King’s Counsel and specified judges or former judges is to provide a wide enough pool from which to draw legal advisers.

As far as King’s Counsel are concerned, we think that by becoming King’s Counsel they have proved that they have sufficient quality to be the chair of such a panel. It is intended to mean King’s Counsel from England and Wales. I do not think it allows for people from other jurisdictions, but I will check, and if it does allow for other jurisdictions, I will restrict it to England and Wales because that is the intention.

In her Amendment 932A the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, suggests that it should not necessarily be the lawyer who chairs the panel. The reason why the lawyer is put in the driving seat as the chair is because the panel has to comply with the duties imposed on it by the statute. Lawyers are certainly not necessarily the best chairs, but putting a lawyer in the chair will make sure that the panel focuses on its legal requirements. Those are my limited comments on the whole thing. The noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, had a question for me.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

One of my questions has been answered by the noble and learned Lord in his comments, but I want to briefly go back to Amendment 483C. The amendment is about pre-recorded audio or video material for the purposes of subsection (4). The noble and learned Lord has said that if a co-ordinating doctor is off ill, there are other provisions through medical exceptions. There is also provision in the Bill for the co-ordinating doctor to delegate any of their functions, but I am going back to the concept. For someone who is near the end of their life, why is it that any other doctor, witness or proxy should be allowed to have pre-recorded audio or video material? I want to get an understanding of that.

Separately, I think there was a slip of the tongue earlier by the noble and learned Lord. He said that the default was that the panel would be expected to sit in private but that there was then allowability for it to sit in public. I know he did not mean that, and he later said that the default was to sit in public. I want to clarify something about Amendment 933A. My amendment suggests that the only bit in private should be the interaction with the applicant. Could he explain why, if somebody has requested for that to be in private, all the other interaction should not continue to be in public?

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)]

On the noble Baroness’s first question, Clause 17(5) says that:

“Where the panel considers it appropriate for medical reasons, it may make provision for the use of pre-recorded audio or video material for the purposes of subsection (4).”


Subsection (4) relates to all of the material that the panel is dealing with. Subsection (5) is saying that the panel can use pre-recorded audio material if it thinks it is appropriate. I think it should be given that direction—I cannot see any reason why the panel should be restricted in relation to that.

Turning to the privacy point, paragraph 6 of Schedule 2 says that:

“Panels are to determine referrals in public”—


so the default is that it is in public, not private—but that

“this is subject to sub-paragraph (2)”,

which says that a panel can sit in private if that is what the person wants. The question from the noble Baroness was, basically, why should everything then be in private. It is because everything is about the patient. The whole thing is about the patient. If I want the circumstances of my illness and why I want an assisted death to be private, I should have that option. It is unrealistic to say that we can chop this up into the bits that are about the patient and the bits that are not.

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[Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friends Lord Jackson and Lady Monckton—whose speech was quite spectacular—for raising the example of DNRs. It is very good example when we are talking about who can raise assisted dying in preliminary discussions.

I want to give a very brief illustration. When my father was in hospital, five different medical professionals came into his room and took us, his family, aside, to get him signed up to a DNR. He did not really want that. It might have philosophically been the right medical thing to do, but he was not in the right place. He did not want to be asked, and certainly not five times by five different medical professionals. It left a rather bitter taste in our mouths, because when we were able quietly, as a family, to have that discussion with him, he did have a DNR. We were fortunate to have that time, rather than him having something put at the end of his bed with the Sainsbury’s bag.

This group of amendments is really important. They are all similar, saying that we need some guidance on who can raise the discussion and under what circumstances. If we really believe that patient autonomy is important, then something should come from this group of amendments and be in the Bill.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, briefly, Clause 6 standing part has been opposed by my noble friend Lord Moylan because of other aspects of amendments he has tabled. I very much support Clause 6 staying in the Bill: it was the one amendment on Report in the Commons where there was a significant majority in favour. In particular, I found it astonishing that anyone could even consider raising this with a child: it disappointed me that the sponsor of the Bill in the Commons voted against that amendment, but I am relieved it got through. It is also worth pointing out to the Committee that there is slightly different wording between Clause 6 and Clause 5(1), which my noble friend Lord Moylan’s Amendment 152 addresses by making sure “other health professional” is included, not just “medical practitioner”.

I have also seen multiple times what my noble friend Lady Fraser has just referred to. It is very irritating, especially when somebody is being taken home to die, if, against their wishes, DNR had been put in place by medical practitioners and then had to be rescinded. It is somewhat frustrating in that regard.

My noble friend Lord Goodman was succinct; I think that is partly the training of a journalist, or it might have been two years of quiet contemplation when he considered his vocation in an abbey on the Isle of Wight.

I want to briefly raise one point: the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, referred to the BMA. I am conscious that it is a trade union for doctors and does a lot of work on their behalf, but it is not a clinical body. However, the BMA pointed out its concerns that, without it, there would be uncertainty and legal risks for doctors. The BMA went into more detail on that in its evidence. In contrast, the Medical Defence Union’s written evidence to the Commons Select Committee—by the way, the MDU is an organisation that specialises in providing indemnity and other legal issues regarding doctors—came up with a different thing. It said:

“The MDU is concerned that the legislation, as … drafted … leaves doctors who do raise it at greater risk of a complaint”,


and then subsequent legal things.

So, as has also been pointed out, at what point would this ever be raised? I support more generally the approach and understand that, if a doctor is asked about this, of course that should be open to a response, unless they do not wish to do so, and part of Clause 5 covers that. But, overall, that initiation should not be in the hands of the medical practitioner, and we will come on later in further clauses to debate the recording of such discussions.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I shall focus my remarks on two points. One is that I thought the speech of my noble friend Lady Monckton of Dallington Forest was very powerful. I strongly support what she said about proper safeguards for people with learning disabilities and she has an amendment which deals with that. But I really want to test the thinking here, because there is a view, and this is where I settled, on whether medical professionals should be able to raise things proactively.

What I was thinking through—I would be interested in what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, thinks—is that the Bill is obviously about, first, legalising assistance to help someone take their own life, but it is also about putting a process in place, and those are two separate things. I was also thinking about the thing that is currently lawful, which is that someone is able to take their own life if they do not require assistance. I do not know whether it is just me but, if you were diagnosed with a terminal illness and suggested to a medical practitioner that you were thinking of taking your own life if the Bill were not in force, as far as I understand it—there are many in this House who can correct me—the medical practitioner has a duty under various existing suicide prevention strategies to take steps to try to prevent you taking your own life. They are absolutely not supposed to help you; they are supposed to try to stop you, up to and including using provisions in the Mental Health Act.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Baroness Coffey Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 27th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevens of Birmingham (CB)]

My Lords, contrary to Amendment 129, I think that the Bill gets it right in requiring, at Clause 4(3), that the voluntary assisted dying commissioner must hold or have held office as a judge of the High Court, the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court. This is quite clearly not a medical role. Its principal functions are to ensure that the statutory processes and safeguards that Parliament would have established are being adhered to.

However, we have to accept that a postholder having been a judge does not automatically mean that they will not come with personal views about the scope of the law that Parliament has passed. Therefore, the debate that the Committee has just had on how to make sure that there is transparency about the views that such an individual might hold before their appointment is ratified has merit.

For example, I was very struck by an important interview that the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale of Richmond, the former President of the Supreme Court, gave in Prospect magazine in December 2024. She recorded that, in the case, for example, of Tony Nicklinson back in 2014, who wanted it to be declared that it was lawful for people to assist him to take his own life because he had a disabling illness but was not terminally ill, two Justices of the Supreme Court

“would have been prepared to make a declaration that the current law on assisting suicide was incompatible with the Human Rights Convention”.

She went on to say:

“There were nine of us on the court. Of that, five of us took the view that when the time was right, the court might make such a declaration of incompatibility. But three of those five thought the time was not yet right”.


I infer from that that—at that particular point in time, anyway—five Justices of the Supreme Court would have taken the view that the Bill before us, if passed by Parliament, would fall foul of their reading of the European convention.

It is helpful to think about the mechanisms by which Parliament could know the views of such judges, were they to be put forward for appointment as the voluntary assisted dying commissioner. The thrust of Amendment 127 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Beith, therefore has merit. It would require, for example, pre-appointment hearings by one or more Select Committees in the House of Commons, which would give us an opportunity to probe these questions and make sure that a nominee was going to stick to the faithful implementation of the legislation that Parliament, after such careful deliberation, would have produced, rather than, for example, interpreting the role of the voluntary assisted dying commissioner as in some way akin to that of the Children’s Commissioner, which is clearly an advocacy role for the rights of children.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, this is a really important clause and a really important schedule. This is the one time when a judge, whether they are current or retired, will be involved in any of this process after the Commons chose to strip judges away from the original proposal. I have tabled stand part notices opposing Clause 1 and Schedule 4 because I would prefer a judge-led process; I have a lot of sympathy with what the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, articulated several weeks ago.

Let me say at the start that I disagree completely with the idea from the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, that this role should start to become like that of the Children’s Commissioner, the Victims’ Commissioner or similar. That is simply not the case, and not only because the legal powers in the Bill—in Clause 18, in particular— are where they must make judgments on whether there have been errors of law in the panellists’ determination. I am very keen, which is why I have tabled Amendment 913ZD, for us to get this back in focus, particularly in terms of the commissioner’s role, and to think about this person being a judge, not the Secretary of State.

I agree that it should be the Lord Chancellor so, to some extent, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Beith, that Select Committees of Parliament should be able to go through this process as well; it should be the Ministry of Justice and the relevant committee in the Commons. There is precedent here. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Tyrie, who managed to get a determination role for the Treasury Committee so that it had, in law, a power of veto on the appointment of the chair of a body; I think it was the CMA, but I cannot quite recall it right now. So there is a precedent in this regard.

I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, just said. The Bill is right, in that it should be a retired judge. There are a lot of views and a variety of opinions on this. So far, only one retired judge, as far as I have been able to ascertain, has come out publicly against the Bill. Those who have expressed views are, as has just been articulated, very much in favour of the Bill; in fact, they think it should go a lot further. So some sensitivity will be required by whoever gets to make the decision on who the commissioner should be.

My noble and learned friend Lord Garnier would like this role to be done by His Majesty. There is a certain irony there. It is good to see so many Lords Spiritual here. I did try to see whether I could table an amendment to strip out, at the very beginning of the Bill,

“with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal”,

but the Lords Spiritual have already been very clear that they do not, and will not, consent to the Bill. Why, then, should we put the onus to make this appointment on the Supreme Governor of the Church of England? I appreciate that there have been some difficulties with the current Prime Minister and his appointments recently, but I would be surprised if anything quite so careless happened again with future appointments concerning this or other approaches. More broadly, I support their proposals to get this into the public appointments process.

On Amendment 134, I support my noble friend Lord Moylan completely in trying to prevent mission creep. That is a risk, which is why I have tabled Amendments 913ZA to 913ZD and 914A to 914C as probing amendments. Schedule 1 to the Bill says that, basically, the Secretary of State will hand over as much money as they see fit. They will decide on pay and pension arrangements and will give people offices—all the things one might expect of a sole corporation. As far as I can tell, none of the employees will be civil servants, unless they are seconded civil servants.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

The noble and learned Lord did not speak at all to his Amendment 480 in this group. Is he planning to address it later in group 3? I am conscious that he did not particularly address my amendments, but I assume it is because he disagrees with them, which I understand. However, Amendment 480 has not been talked about at all. It is okay if he wants to address it in group 3.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)]

I apologise. I will talk about it in group 3.

--- Later in debate ---

I turn to Amendment 459. I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, will forgive me for responding to one of her amendments before she has had a chance to introduce it, but it will enable her perhaps to rebut what I say. But I had to say that straight away because the idea that this all has to be done in such a public way, without any acknowledgement of what the person who is dying is going through, is extraordinary.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

It is Committee; the noble Baroness can come in later.

As I say, the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, will be able to speak to Amendment 459 afterwards. One consideration has to be that the person has informed their children of their decision for an assisted death. I cannot be the only person who knows people for whom there is completely no relationship between parent and child. The child could be aged 60 and have been living abroad for years. They might not know their parent is ill and may not have been in touch with them for 40 years. But somehow we are going to have to try to track down children. Also, the ill person may not want their child to know that they are ill. We are all old enough now; we have had lots of friends go through this. I had a friend who did not want his daughter to know he was terminally ill because she was facing her own health issues at that time. But this would somehow lay down that despite the desire of a father, in that case, nevertheless that child has to be found and told that their parent not only wants an assisted death but that their parent is dying and wants an assisted death.

I really wonder about this denial of agency. If that person does not want to tell their child, according to Amendment 459, they have to make

“adequate arrangements for another person to inform the children”—

who might live abroad, or whatever—

“of the assisted death and provide bereavement support”.

I just wonder what world we are living in where, when someone is reaching the end of their life, some agency of the state demands that they tell them whether they have any children, whether they know that those children are still alive and where they are, and has to tell that child that their parent is ill and that—in a way, a smaller matter—they want to bring forward that death a little bit so that it is not too bad at the end.

Some of these ideas seem to me to exclude from our consideration the patient concerned. They seem to put everyone else in a position of taking decisions. The noble Baroness, Lady Cass, spoke earlier about the amendment that wants more and more specialist advisers brought in. Can we just sometimes revert to remembering that we are talking about seriously, terminally ill people who surely have some agency over their life? If they are refused this, they can still commit suicide but they will probably do it, as a friend’s father did, by going into the garage, blocking the bottom of the door so that no air can get through, turning the engine on and killing themselves that way. I wonder sometimes whether we are remembering that people are facing a terrible end and we just ought to have a little respect for them.

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[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I have tabled a handful of amendments, a couple to Clause 17 and then some more to Schedule 2. It is perfectly acceptable for the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, to be appalled by some of these amendments. That is okay: that is her perception; that is her reality. It may not be what my noble friend intended, but we are dealing with a serious situation.

Noble Lords have talked about finding somebody dead. Of course, it would be devastating if the family around them had not known that somebody was thinking that the only way life could get better was if they did not have a life at all. That is the reason for some of the aspects about bereavement services and connection to next of kin, so that there is that contact to see whether somebody who is in a very dark place is terminally ill or doctors have suggested that they have less than six months to live. An interesting area that we are discussing is about the tipping point for somebody to choose to accelerate that, to take that poison, and for the state to help them do it without being in touch with the next of kin. I know there are other groups where we get into that in more detail, but this is why it has become so sensitive.

I held my mother’s hand as she died. She had less than a month to live, and we looked after her. My dad died while I was on a plane, and I found out when I landed at Heathrow Airport. That is why I cannot watch the end of “Love Actually” because it is everybody meeting their families. It is the most I have ever cried in my life, and I have to switch off the film before the end. These are very significant moments.

I am conscious of what noble Lords have said about whether this should be in public. I think on balance it should be in public because we are having this effectively quasi-judicial process, which is at the end of a line, to some extent, making sure that somebody is doing this of their own volition and is not being coerced. That is why all the different safeguards are suggested.

I have tabled Amendment 480A—I appreciate that the noble and learned Lord will, perhaps next time, speak to his Amendment 480—which refers to how the panel will operate. I believe that an audio link is not enough in terms of discussions with the co-ordinating doctor, the person doing it and, indeed, the person’s proxy. In person or by live video would be good. I have tabled Amendment 483C to amend subsection (5), which currently provides:

“Where the panel considers it appropriate for medical reasons, it may make provision for the use of pre-recorded audio or video material for the purposes of subsection (4)”.


I can completely understand that, but I can understand it only for the person applying. I do not understand why the co-ordinating doctor would not be available to go in person or on a videolink in order to have that interaction with the panel. I have chosen to put that amendment in at that point.

The panel is an important part and that is why it is vital to get to the bottom of Schedule 2. Another noble friend asked me to ask the sponsoring Member whether there would be immunity from suit for the panel members, but I want to get into a few amendments that I have tabled. I am trying to work out how this is all going to work. I see this panel very rarely meeting in person, and I can see it evolving quite quickly. It will all be done by Zoom or Teams, and that concerns me. If the intention is that this is going to be available effectively probably 365 days a year, I am trying to get a sense of how this is going to work.

I appreciate that the Government will not want to answer that; they say they have not done the thinking, but somebody has done the thinking, because this is what the legislation is about. We now have, in parts of Schedule 2, panel members even starting to ask whether they can have pension contributions. Who is going to be doing these roles? Is it going to become a full-time job? It is one of the reasons I put a suggestion—it is just a number—of a maximum of 25 years for panels. I do not know if that is a panel per day, whether multiple people will be in a panel, or whether it is a one-off panel. I think the Law Society, in its written evidence to the Commons, suggested that it should take a day per panel, per application. The Government have costed in an estimate, in their equality impact assessment, of two hours. I am trying to get a sense of who is going to be doing this.

I have not tabled an amendment about this, but will there be a register about who is there? I do not want this to become a thing for, dare I say, vigilantes to try to intimidate people, but there is a question about how we do some of the vetting—I will not repeat what my noble friend said earlier. I am also genuinely concerned that we are going to give this an international element. I do not mean the person applying, necessarily—we covered that some time ago—but the people on the panel. That is why I have put things like a judge in England and Wales. You can be a King’s Counsel and be in Canada or Australia, where there are all these other things, and in law at the moment that does not stop it being the case. People might think I am overimagining things, but I am trying to be precise about what the law allows and trying to understand how it might work. If I am wrong, fine: I am happy for it to be said in Committee that that is not going to apply, but I want it to be said in Committee, so that if anything does evolve like that, we can start the judicial reviews to stop that practice.

I have suggested in Amendment 921ZB that it should not be King’s Counsel. That was inspired by the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson of Tredegar, in his Second Reading speech. It made me think a little more. I am not trying to do this so that hardly anyone can do this role. What I am trying to ask is why we talk about high judicial office being needed. A pretty high-level judge or a KC, without being too rude to KCs, is not exactly the same comparison. There are plenty of other judges—deputy court judges or district judges—who are all regularly used to having this arbitration or tribunal approach, so I do not understand why we have limited it to being that or a KC.

As for Amendment 932A, I do not see why the lawyer is the person who has to chair it. This happens quite a lot in decision-making bodies in government: things just evolve. The reason why the local resilience forum in Buckinghamshire is actually across Bucks, Oxon and Berks, it so happens, is by default, not in law but in practice. The chief constable is always Gold Command—it is always the police that run it—therefore, what has happened over time and practice is that the LRF is across those three counties automatically. These sorts of things start to become habits; they start to become the way it is done and it cannot be changed, so I just want to be clear. I do not in any way understand why the lawyer should be making the decision as the chair of the panel. I do not understand why it should be the legal person who gets to determine whether the sitting should be in private. I think that is an unnecessary addition.

I would prefer the panel to be in public, but I completely understand the sensitivity, so the impact of my Amendment 933A is designed to be that they can sit in private but only for the part that directly involves the applicant. The reason for that is sensitivity to people at a very difficult time in their lives, but I do not understand why that should also apply to all the other people who have been involved at some point. Why should their interactions with the panel need to be in private? When people go behind closed doors, we start to get a lack of understanding of what is being said and of patterns. That is why, later in the Bill, I will mention other protections that I want to see. I am conscious or concerned about being a panel member effectively becoming a full-time job. That would be a bad step in this regard.

There are many other amendments that I would love to talk to, but I am conscious of the time. This is a really important moment in considering how this final safeguard will work in practice. Is it what we were expecting when the Bill arrived in this House?

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, the Clerk of the Parliaments has confirmed to me that the clerks have recorded the names of every noble Lord who was here at the start of this debate. They will be circulated to the Chief Whips, including me, and the Convenor of the Cross Benches next week.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Baroness Coffey Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 9th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, made a very powerful case, if I may say so, for judicial control to provide the independent scrutiny that we all agree is required in some form to ensure that the criteria of the Bill are satisfied in individual cases. However, I offer a contrasting view. Although I have the greatest of admiration for His Majesty’s judges—some of my best friends are judges—I do not think that they are the only people, or indeed the best people, to decide alone the grave issues that we all agree are raised by this Bill.

I say in response to the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, that the Committee should bear in mind what the Bill actually provides for in Schedule 2: before anyone is able to take advantage of its provisions, they must satisfy the panel that the criteria in the Bill are met. Who is on the panel? It is not simply a judge; it is a panel of three people who have a range of expertise that is, in my view, highly desirable in this sensitive context.

First, you need a legal member. It is right that there should be a legal member, because some of the issues are very much legal issues and judges have particular expertise. The legal member must either hold or have held high judicial office as a judge of the Supreme Court or the Court of Appeal; as a judge or deputy judge of the High Court; or as one of His Majesty’s counsel. They may also have been requested to act as a judge of the Court of Appeal or the High Court. So you need a legal member.

However, you also have on the panel a psychiatrist member; that is highly desirable in this sensitive context. You have a registered medical practitioner who is a practising psychiatrist, registered in one of the psychiatrist specialisms in the specialist register, sitting alongside the legal member. Then you have someone who is registered as a social worker to add their perspective on the difficult issues—these are difficult issues—raised by eligibility under this Bill. So you have three people and a range of expertise—

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

I am interested in the noble Lord’s view of the panel. I appreciate that he is discussing Schedule 2, but there are parts of this Bill where a unanimous decision of that panel is not needed, so it is quite possible that the medical person could be overruled by the others.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

With great respect, that is not my understanding. The next point I was going to make is that paragraph 5(3) of Schedule 2 answers the very point just made by the noble Baroness. It states:

“The panel is to be treated as having decided to refuse to grant a certificate of eligibility if any member … votes against a decision to grant such a certificate, or … abstains from voting on such a decision”.


The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, will say if I am wrong, but my understanding is that, with great respect, the noble Baroness is wrong. The unanimous view of all three members of this panel is needed before the provisions of this Bill are operative.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

May I probe the noble Lord a little further? In the evidence given by witnesses to the Select Committee, it was said that somebody should not be allowed simply to abstain; and that, if these people are being appointed as professionals to these panels, they should express a view. At the moment, expressing no view is deemed to mean being in favour.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lord, this is an enormous group of 80 amendments and 16 clause stand part notices, some of which I have tabled. I recognise that the majority of the amendments are about establishing a judge and court-led process, about which I have added various amendments. Separately, there are important issues. I am particularly impressed by Amendment 116, about deleting Clause 3 and not using the Mental Capacity Act 2005 but replacing it with the new proposals. My noble friend Lady Berridge has already asked some questions on that, but the reason I bring it up at this point is that I want to speak particularly to Amendment 426, which would introduce court proceedings.

I was particularly struck by proposed subsection (6), which refers to it being

“beyond reasonable doubt that … the applicant has capacity”.

It does not directly refer to the new amendment, but I am considering some of the debates that we have had, which I do not want to repeat. The key point that is that the Mental Capacity Act is used every day by health professionals, but on balance of probabilities not on beyond reasonable doubt. This is why I support the approach of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, in bringing forward—reintroducing, in effect—the process that was in the Bill when it started in the Commons where more than half of MPs voted for it. When the judge role was removed when it came to Third Reading, fewer than half of MPs voted for it. There was a substantial reduction in support. Although I accept that there was still a majority, it was down to 23.

I am conscious that what is not in the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, is whether the court proceedings should be held in public. I tabled Amendment 426A because it is my understanding that it is not the usual practice of the family court at whatever level to sit in public. I think this is an important element that needs to be considered. Indeed, it is what is proposed for the panels that are considered elsewhere. I have gone further in my Amendments 426B, in particular, which is more of a probing amendment, and 426C. One thing that the late Sir James Munby said about why he did not think this should be done by High Court judges is that it was not clear whether this was just rubber-stamping or whether the judge was being used to make a determination, a decision, about some of the things.

Going back to Amendment 120, the structure that the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, has put together is about inserting a requirement for reports to be provided that would help the judge to make that decision. It is important that we do not end up, as happens, in effect, with a lot of tribunals around the country, making decisions on the papers. This is a life-or-death decision. I appreciate what the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, said about when, but it is actually about how somebody dies, about a medical professional not just withdrawing treatment, as we mentioned on some other issues, including the Bland case, and which happens regularly now, but supplying lethal drugs to help somebody take their own life. It is different in that regard, which is why I am attracted to the proposals that were originally in the Bill, which would be reintroduced by the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile.

I am conscious that not everybody may be fit to attend physically, but I think that that connection between the person who is asked to make the determination about whether somebody has capacity and whether there has not been coercion of whatever kind is important, and that is why I have put forward these probing amendments for us to consider. Ultimately, we are trying to work out how we make this element safer. What was said on Report in the Commons is that the general approach is now safer than a judge-led process. I am not convinced by that. I do not need to repeat the arguments that others have made, but I respect the role of judges in making these decisions, particularly in the family court.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I ask the noble Baroness to draw her comments to a close. The time indicator is flashing.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

Yes, I will. I am just saying that it is really important that we get statistics, and that this becomes the premise of the Lord Chancellor. This will be critical to making sure that we have confidence going forward and I will have to work out a way to reassess these amendments in future groups.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, I am indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for bringing to a head one of the critical issues in this legislation. As one of the diminishing number of people in this House who is not a lawyer, I say that we have to find our way through this labyrinthine structure where we have chambers and all sorts of things. Without legal experience, it is difficult even as a legislator to navigate through this.

The point I want to make at the outset is that this significant piece of legislation started off in the other place with the legal process as a fundamental part of the architecture. That was subsequently changed more than half way through its process in the other place, and now we are trying to re-inject it into the system. I would ask the sponsor and indeed the Minister to respond to this. There are so many issues that have been raised already this morning about the consequences of making this change, for which we have absolutely no information whatever.

I remind colleagues that, on our last Friday, there were five separate issues—I repeat, five—to which no response or answer was provided. They were: the issue between England and Wales, the issue between England and Scotland, the issue of pregnant women, the issue of homeless people, and the issue of prisoners. There is no clarity on any of that.

The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and his co-signatories are attempting in these amendments to at least make the legislation, as the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, said, less unsafe. The stage we are at in this legislation is probably 75% or 80% of the way through the process and, as with a Meccano set, we are still bolting bits on and taking bits off.

All of this could have been avoided if we had had the proper process of a Royal Commission and a government Bill. This is Heath Robinson-type legislation on such a serious issue. I have to say to the sponsors that, instead of battling this out for the next few months, they would be far better to go to the Government and ask them to appoint a commission and get on with it. Then we would not have to fight our way through this morass.

Not being a legal person myself, I ask the noble Lord, Lord Carlile—given the pressures that we understand are applied to the courts and the Family Division—whether there is a case for the creation of a special chamber for people who are dedicated to this, with the training that would be required. Or, with the pressures that the family court is under, could it be that comparatively junior people end up being designated to hear these cases? Because you are talking about a huge gap in knowledge and experience on a life and death issue.

Maybe these questions cannot be answered now—maybe we will get answers when we come to Report—but the fact is that we are having to ask all these questions and we have no information, no numbers and nothing in front of us. I do not believe that that is a coherent and sensible way to go forward.

The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, made a very valid point about the general public’s confidence in who makes such decisions. While I can see the merits, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, pointed out, of having a panel with different disciplines, the fact of the matter is that persons who are on that panel have to be appointed by somebody. Is there confidence in the people who appoint them? The court system, however, has a level of public confidence miles above any alternative.

All of these things need to be sorted out. They should have been sorted out before we had this debate today and they have not been. That is where we are. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, is attempting to put a foundation under this legislation. Leaving issues of principle out of it for the moment—we are legislators and sometimes we have to do things that we do not want to do personally—we are obliged to undertake this process. I assume that he is trying to put a foundation underneath this legislation that would command confidence among the general public, or at least a higher level of confidence than, I suspect, the panel process has. The fact that we have had this change and this flip-flop is very concerning.

I conclude by asking the noble Lord, and indeed, necessarily, the Minister: if these amendments were to be accepted by the sponsor, what would be the Government’s response? The noble Lords, Lord Harper and Lord Gove, have raised this, as have others. I understand that Ministers are in a difficult position. They are technically dealing with a Private Member’s Bill, whatever some of us think about that. Without having knowledge of what the state is going to do, we are legislating for the state to intervene to allow a person to end their life, which is against other legislation that we have already passed. So it is important that the Government should let us know what their responses will be in these various scenarios and I do hope that, when we come to the wind-up of this debate, we will get some clarity.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Coffey Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Banner (Con)]

My Lords, I too support these amendments. I declare an interest of sorts in that I have a young daughter who is fast approaching her teenage years. The idea that she might one day be the subject of the kind of despicable abuse that my noble friend Lady Owen and others have outlined is utterly terrifying, so I am determined to do my part to secure its eradication.

My noble friend Lady Owen outlined the case for her amendments with all the skill and more of any King’s Counsel, so I do not need to say very much, but I want to highlight, in particular, her call for Parliament to be agile on this subject. The speed of proliferation of the kinds of abuse she has talked about risks Parliament looking lead-footed and out of touch if we do not take the further steps that she advocates through her amendments. There is no place for wait-and-see incrementalism in this area.

Any concerns about freedom of expression under the Human Rights Act, which from time to time we hear whispers of, are in my view entirely misplaced. The right to freedom of expression is qualified; it is not absolute. It is plainly not a licence to abuse. I ask rhetorically, and genuinely seeking an answer from the Minister: why not do it?

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I have signed Amendment 334 on spiking, but I want to congratulate my noble friend Lady Owen of Alderley Edge as she yet again leads the way on the important issues in her other amendments.

Clause 101, on spiking, is certainly welcome. The measure appeared in the previous version of the Bill in the previous Parliament, and I give credit to Richard Graham, the former MP for Gloucester, who brought this to the attention of Parliament. More broadly, I have a little question for the Minister. I am always very nervous when civil servants recommend that we remove things from existing legislation. I notice that the clause will remove Section 22 and Section 23 at the beginning and then there is the broader new Section 24. What has driven that? Too often things disappear and end up with some kind of defect or loophole. That is exactly what concerned my friend Joe Robertson MP, who tabled an amendment like my noble friend’s Amendment 334 on Report in the Commons, having tabled something similar in Committee. His concern was that there is a loophole and that spiking by a reckless act should also be an offence.

I do not need to persuade your Lordships that spiking is a hideous, heinous activity which can destroy people’s physical and mental health. The evidence given by Colin Mackie from Spike Aware UK at Committee stage in the Commons was compelling, especially as it was driven by his personal experience of his 18 year-old son Greg dying through suspected spiking of the kind now known as prank spiking.

At the moment, Clause 101 provides that there has to be an intent to injure, aggrieve or similar. I know that Ministers in the other place felt that the Bill covers recklessness, but I think it is pretty clear that the legislation does not particularly seem to cover prank spiking.

Recklessness is a well-trodden principle in criminal law, dating back a couple of hundred years. It is definitively an alternative to intent so, if the prosecution fails to establish that someone meant to do something, it can also establish that their actions were so reckless that they should be convicted. Indeed, this is what manslaughter is—somebody gets convicted of killing but without having the intent to commit murder. The other example, perhaps not quite so dramatic, is actual bodily harm. The prosecution must establish the harm but can do so on the basis that what was done was reckless so that harm was bound to follow rather than simply that someone intended for harm to happen.

I hope the Government will reconsider their conclusion that what we have before us in Clause 101 is sufficient. I understand that it may be that one MP has got particularly focused on this campaign, but it took Richard Graham to get focused on the issue of spiking for it to make any progress into legislation in the other place. I am grateful to this Administration for picking that up. I look forward to hearing from the Minister and hope again that there may be room for some consensus, not just compromise, on how we can make sure there are no loopholes in this law.

[Baroness Shawcross-Wolfson (Con)]

My Lords, I also support the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lady Owen and will try to keep my remarks as brief as possible. As we have heard today, technology continues to provide new avenues for abuse, in particular for the abuse of women. Abusers use technology in ever more inventive ways to harm, harass and try to humiliate their victims. Thanks to the work of my noble friend Lady Owen and others in this House, the law has made huge strides in recent years; however, more needs to be done.

Broadly, these amendments fall into two categories: those that seek to update the law to ensure that it addresses new and growing forms of tech-enabled abuse, and those that seek to provide more effective support to the victims of non-consensual intimate image abuse. We need action on both fronts. I will not go into detail here, as it has already been covered, but I will just reiterate that some of the gaps that need to be closed are: updating our definition of what constitutes taking an image; including audio recordings in the framework for tackling non-consensual intimate images; ensuring that images which may have been innocuous when they were taken but are then transformed into something sexual or degrading are also captured by the law; and, finally, recognising the practice of doxing as an aggregating factor.

Unfortunately, we know that, however the law changes, abuse will not be eliminated any time soon, so we must also ensure that the law supports victims in the aftermath of their abuse. As it stands, there is no proper framework to ensure that intimate images that the courts have found to be taken or shared illegally are then removed and destroyed. Instead, survivors see their images being repeatedly uploaded, posted on to pornography sites, shared in anonymous chat forums and even allowed to remain untouched on their abusers’ devices or cloud accounts. It cannot be right; the law must change. Between them, Amendments 295BA, 295BB, 295BC and 295BD would create a proper mechanism for victims to ensure that images are promptly removed from online platforms, deleted and then hashed to prevent them from resurfacing elsewhere.

Making progress on this issue is crucial. We know the trauma caused to victims who have to live with their images remaining online or live with the knowledge that they could be re-uploaded at any point. As one survivor told the Women and Equalities Committee:

“I am terrified of applying for jobs for fear that the prospective employer will google my name and see. I am terrified when meeting new people that they will google my name and see. I am terrified that every person I meet has seen”.


We cannot allow this situation to continue. The amendments from my noble friend Lady Owen would make the law more effective, more enforceable and more protective to victims, and I hope that we will be able to make progress on them in this House.

Secure 16 to 19 Academies Bill

Baroness Coffey Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 17th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

I am conscious that this is a small Bill, but it is an important one. It recognises the need to make sure that the legislation is up to date and does not limit the opportunities for secure academies to proceed. I have two prisons in my constituency, and during my time as an MP one of them has been a young offenders institution. Warren Hill is now a category C prison, but when I visited it as a YOI, I saw how important it was to have that educational ethos. I am conscious that young people who are housed in YOIs have often performed pretty horrific crimes, but I think there is an opportunity with this Bill to expand the focus on education while maintaining aspects of the relevant categories.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson) on taking on what is perhaps a less attractive area of legislation, but one in which important things need to be done. I know that her Bill, if it flies through the Lords as it has through the Commons, will be a really good legacy for her and for thinking about the future of young children.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

I call the Opposition spokesperson.

Draft Justification Decision (Scientific Age Imaging) Regulations 2023

Baroness Coffey Excerpts

Monday 20th November 2023 General Committees

[Jon Trickett]

I will try to be reasonably brief, although I need to repeat some of the points that have been made. First, we are not dealing with a huge number of people—over six years, from 2016 to 2022, there were only 700 people a year who were said to be under the age they were claiming to be. Seven hundred a year—that is perhaps two a day. Most of those people have already been identified using other techniques. It is therefore hard to see what the Minister thinks will be added by doing this very unethical and slightly dangerous procedure. Will he tell us how many people he thinks are escaping scrutiny at present?

Secondly, Professor Andrew Rowland, the officer for child protection at the Royal College of Paediatrics, says that the evidence shows that using X-rays to determine age is “widely inaccurate”, and that the “practice is ultimately unethical”. He goes on to say that we will be exposing children to radiation.

There is, surprisingly—perhaps not surprisingly, given the nature of the British establishment—the Age Estimation Science Advisory Committee, presumably to provide advice to the Government. It talks about informed consent, which is my third point. How on earth can we explain to people, many of whom will be below the age of majority, and who may be frightened and may not have English as their mother tongue, in a way they can understand, the risks of radiation exposure engaged in the procedure—x-raying a single tooth—that they are about to undergo? It raises the question in my mind that informed consent, which is a basic requirement imposed on medics generally and on the health service, will be lacking in significant numbers of cases. That is why I am not convinced by the Minister’s arguments, and why I could not possibly vote for this measure, given the arguments he has made.

What are the Government doing? They are effectively taking the power to bully these people by saying, “If you don’t have this X-ray, there will be a presumption that somehow you are not under the age of consent.”

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

It is the Age Estimation Scientific Advisory Committee which recommended the use of MRI and X-ray methods. The hon. Gentleman refers to this procedure being a potential risk to somebody’s life—would he suggest to that same person that they never have an X-ray, ever? It feels as if we are stretching the argument that he is trying to put across.

[Jon Trickett]

I am complaining about the fact that this procedure will be done to children, who are not capable of giving informed consent, which is a basic principle of medical practice. That is my point. Here is the thing: there is no evidence whatsoever that these X-rays will demonstrate the age of the person—the victim. The scientists are not saying that to the Minister. If he can say otherwise, let him say so, but the people who are responsible for this and the advisory committee do not think the procedure produces sufficient evidence.

I will just make one further point. Where are the practitioners doing these x-rays coming from? According to the Royal College of Radiologists, there is a massive under- supply of clinical radiologists in our country. In fact, by 2027, we are going to need an additional 3,365 clinical radiologists. We are already massively under capacity. I can only imagine that this will mean diverting people from looking after the health of ourselves, our friends, our neighbours and our citizens in order to carry out a practice that is unethical, impractical and unscientific. Where will these radiologists come from, and how long will it take to examine each individual?

I will refer to the report that the Minister has referred to, which says:

“Biological age assessment involving ionising radiation is limited to radiography of the third molar”

and/or of the wrist. This is hardly a great operation, is it? The final sentence on page 6 says that the authority notes all this, and says that the applicant—that is, the Government—should

“cease using X-rays when alternative methods are validated.”

If the justifying authority has major reservations about the use of X-rays in this unethical and unscientific way, what are the Government doing to look into alternative examinations, which the JA is clearly proposing we should do?

Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Baroness Coffey Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Commons Chamber

The privilege was later extended to other churches, not just parish churches, and indeed to other religions, but only to those places of worship registered under the Places of Worship Registration Act 1855. Before it is argued that that excludes the basis of the new clause, let me point out that there are two exceptions: from the start, Jews and the Quakers have been allowed to continue to marry according to their own rites. The new clause is in keeping with that approach of designating exceptions, in this instance for humanists. It introduces a third exception, but one that is very much on all fours with the exceptions made for those two other groups.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Kate Green]

Of course I will.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

What about me?

[Dr Coffey]

Does the hon. Lady not recognise that the principle in England and Wales is that the premises are registered, and that if she pursues her agenda, she will be in danger of unpicking the quadruple lock that has been successfully negotiated?

[Kate Green]

The hon. Lady is right to highlight the general importance of the premises in English law in relation to most faiths, but I think she should bear in mind that in the Church of England the clergy are registered, that registrars are registered in our civil system and that, as I have said, Jews and Quakers already operate in a different legislative framework from that governing religions as a whole.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Coffey Excerpts

Thursday 18th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I am sure that the hon. Lady will be pleased to know that I recently met many of those who are looking at the issue, which, like her, I take seriously. I want women not to have a false choice between having a family and staying in employment; they need to be able to do both. That is why by changing the culture in our workplaces so that businesses look at how they can accommodate women—not just in respect of their statutory duties, but more fully than that—we can make sure that women can not only have their family responsibilities, but continue in their jobs.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

3. What steps she is taking to increase the number of women in senior positions in business.

[The Minister for Women and Equalities (Maria Miller)]

The Government are supporting Lord Davies’s voluntary, business-led approach to improve the number of women on boards, which has resulted in an unprecedented increase to date. On top of that, our “Think, Act, Report” initiative encourages companies to take action and report on gender equality in the workplace, promoting greater transparency. More than 80 leading companies are signed up so far, representing more than 1.3 million employees.

[Dr Coffey]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer about an issue that we both believe to be important. A number of Government Members have undertaken an inquiry. Will my right hon. Friend be kind enough to meet us to discuss some of things that we have raised—such as unconscious bias training, which leading companies are giving as a matter of course to help more women get up the pipeline?

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that such work can make all the difference in changing that culture in the workplace. I am aware of the Conservative Women’s Forum’s work in the area, and I applaud it. I would be delighted to meet her.

Human Rights Act 1998 (Repeal and Substitution) Bill

Baroness Coffey Excerpts

Friday 1st March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I have brought the Bill to the House today because human rights are important. Human rights matter, but they are in crisis today, with a substantial majority of the British people regarding human rights as a charter for criminals and the undeserving. A new settlement is needed to restore trust and confidence in human rights—a settlement that works for Britain.

Before 1998, the United Kingdom had a home-grown human rights settlement that worked well. It had been built up over centuries, and it was accepted and even respected by the British people. In 1998, the Human Rights Act brought the European convention on human rights directly into British law, along with the European Court of Human Rights’ body of case law. That change has, without doubt, transformed human rights in the UK in ways that are wholeheartedly rejected by the British people.

It is not difficult to see why there is so much public concern. We see many cases reported in our newspapers day after day, week after week, that give us a sense that a great injustice has happened and that the balance is not right. I will give the House some examples. An alleged Rwandan war criminal, suspected of committing crimes in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, could not be deported because he could not get a fair trial in Rwanda to answer for his crimes. Today, he is to be found driving a taxi around Essex. I do not think that that strikes the right balance, and I think that most people would agree with me.

A Honduran man could not be deported to answer charges of murder because of the family life that he had established in the UK since he arrived here after escaping from custody in Honduras. He killed someone, then came here and established a family, and was able to use that family as a shield against facing justice for the crimes that he is alleged to have committed.

A failed asylum seeker could not be removed from the UK even though he had committed a string of criminal offences, including a hit-and-run incident in which he killed 12-year-old Amy Houston, because of the family life that he had established in this country illegally. I am sure that it strikes us all as odd, if not thoroughly wrong, that someone can deny family life to another yet have their own family life protected.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

I strongly agree with my hon. Friend. What would he say to people who are very concerned about supposed family life being used as an excuse? If a family is together, does it matter where in the world they live? Perhaps the wife or husband and children should move back to their own country. That view is often put forward; what would my hon. Friend say about that?

[Charlie Elphicke]

That is a fair point. I think we need to look at the individuals asserting a right. They might say “I have established a family; I have a right to family life” and we say, “Yes, family life is important and it does matter”. In view of the fact that someone else’s family life has been taken away, however, how could anyone stand on that right? How can that be right? A key part of my Bill is that anyone who asserts a right cannot just stand on that right and say “That’s my right”. The courts need to look at the wider circumstances of the case, including at the person’s conduct, to establish whether they come to justice, as it were, with clean hands themselves. Their own conduct should be examined and taken into account. We need to assess whether it is in the interests of justice in the round for those people to be able to assert that right.