Live Debate: Commons Chamber

Commons Chamber

Friday 11th September 2026

(began 1 hour, 52 minutes ago)

09:35

None

All. All. Before All. Before we All. Before we begin. All. Before we begin. As All. Before we begin. As Mr All. Before we begin. As Mr Speaker said in his statement yesterday, today marks the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the United States. It's also the subject of today's adjournment debate. I, too have seen the site of the attacks and it is a harrowing reminder. Remember the 2977 innocent lives lost, including 67 British citizens? That also impacted family members in my constituency in Sussex Weald, we pay tribute to the extraordinary bravery of everyone that and who risked their lives and their own safety and ran towards the danger in order to save others.

I am sure that colleagues from across the House will wish to remember the victims of those terrible events

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and their loved ones. Point of order. Madam Speaker.

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Point of order. Madam Speaker. Point of order. Kit Malthouse. I beg to move this house to sit in private.

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in private. The question is that this house sit in private. As many as that sit in private. As many as that opinion, say I. Of the contrary. Of opinion, say I. Of the contrary. Of the contrary? No. The noes have it.

09:36

Private Members' Bills: Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill: Second Reading

09:39

Lauren Edwards MP (Rochester and Strood, Labour)

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10:05

Rt Hon Dame Karen Bradley MP (Staffordshire Moorlands, Conservative)

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Yeah. >> Very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. This is a very difficult day. No one could fail to be moved by the grief of campaigners, by deeply personal stories, whether born of their own experience or of the experience of those they have lost. And those voices deserve to be heard. And it is important in this place that we respect all views, whether we agree or disagree. But as we deliberate today, I go back to the words of the hon. Member for Bradford, who spoke in the previous time we debated this and she asked us to remember the quiet ones, those who may be less organised or not as powerful, but who are nonetheless equally, if not more important, the voiceless.

Now, those words resonated particularly strongly with me because I had the privilege of serving ten years ago as the Minister for Preventing Abuse, Exploitation and Crime. The first time that that safeguarding brief had been brought under one Minister, it was so often the quiet voices that needed to be heard. It was the time I spent with victims that persuaded me that modern slavery was something we needed to legislate for. It was the time I spent with the victims of domestic violence, some of whom didn't even want to admit that they were victims.

That persuaded me we needed to do more. We needed to legislate in this area. And when I took the coercive control offence through Parliament, it was incredibly important, a very difficult offence. Coercive control is not easy to prove. It's not easy to find the evidence for. But it was so important that we did this. And I remember speaking at events not long after the legislation had gone through, and I explained that coercive control offence and what we were trying to do in Parliament, and afterwards a woman came up to me privately and she was in tears.

She told me that what I described had been her life some 30 years earlier. She had recognised eventually that she was a victim. And so often victims don't recognise they are. But she did recognise she was a victim. She'd gone to the police, but because the the offences weren't violent, they weren't physical. The police said there was nothing they could do. They even said, lock the door and hope that he beats the door down because then we could arrest him on criminal.

A criminal violence that was. That was all they had. There was nothing they could do to help this woman. And that encounter stayed with me. And it reminds me time and again that abuse is not always a single act. It can be the gradual erosion of somebody's confidence, independence, and sense of what choices are really theirs, and coercion to end one's life may not come as an explicit threat. It may be the repeated suggestion that someone is becoming a burden.

It may be I will. I will not be giving away much because I Madam Deputy

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Speaker, but I will give way to the hon. Lady. I thank her very much for giving way and for sharing that really difficult story. But would she not agree with me that the current system has absolutely no safeguards

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system has absolutely no safeguards at all against coercion? And that's exactly why we need this bill. Yeah.

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Yeah. So so coercion is something that we absolutely need to tackle and we need to understand as a society. I don't think this bill has the safeguards that are needed, because I will give way that and then I'll

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give way to the previous sponsor and then I will. Can I thank the honourable for giving way? And I quote the story giving way? And I quote the story of of one of my constituents and a man d sufferer. He said if he had the option to two years ago for the option to two years ago for this, he probably would have taken it. But instead his words I would have missed out in the most fulfilling two years of my life and fulfilling two years of my life and the knowledge that I can have more moments like this ahead of me.

His words is please don't do this. Life

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words is please don't do this. Life is worth living. Does she agree? Thank you. The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. I now

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give way to the previous sponsor. Thank you for. Giving way. Would she agree with me? And she's making a very me? And she's making a very important point. And I consider this at length, obviously during the last two years. And that's why so many amendments were made to the so many amendments were made to the bill around coercive control, to ensure that all professionals involved have to have training. There are multiple checks for coercion throughout, which don't coercion throughout, which don't exist now.

We now check for coercion when someone is dead.

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coercion when someone is dead. But I accept what the hon. Lady says, and I know she speaks with great sincerity. But but this is still the case that under this bill, somebody could be seen remotely without a face to face appointment, without them being alone where the the coercive perpetrator may be forcing them. And yes, final, final intervention.

10:09

Claire Hazelgrove MP (Filton and Bradley Stoke, Labour)

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I thank the hon. Lady what she >> I thank the hon. Lady what she is describing. Suicide currently outstrips homicide of women in our outstrips homicide of women in our country as the reason for the deaths of. In cases of domestic abuse and coercive control that she is talking about. So what she outlines is currently happening today. So arguing for the status quo is not something that I feel comfortable with, and I feel considerably stronger about the safeguards which I worked with my hon.

Friend to make sure we're in

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the bill. I have enormous respect for the previous Minister and I, and we previous Minister and I, and we have worked closely together. But the point she's making around suicide of women who are victims of domestic abuse, etc. is a separate matter. We need to tackle that. Absolutely. And we need to make Absolutely. And we need to make sure that those women in particular, who feel that they have nowhere else to go other than to commit suicide, I mean, that is just the most outrageous and horrendous situation.

And we absolutely have to tackle it and we have to work on this. But this bill is not the solution to that problem. And as I referenced her, I better had I.

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Thank the hon. Member for giving way. She's been very generous with her time as a as a survivor of her time as a as a survivor of domestic violence, as a survivor of an attempted suicide many years ago whilst campaigning about domestic violence, would she agree with me that coercion is not always that coercion is not always external? Coercion can always also be internal? AM I a burden on my be internal? AM I a burden on my family? Can they afford to look after me? Coercion that coercion isn't picked up in training because it comes from deep inside.

When you are vulnerable and at your at your

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worst end. Yeah. The hon. Lady makes the case so powerfully and I'm going to disappoint. Now. There won't be any further interventions for some time because my fear, as hers is, is not because my fear, as hers is, is not principally for those who are confident, articulate and able to insist upon what they want. It's for that person who doesn't want to for that person who doesn't want to make a fuss, the person accustomed to putting everybody else's needs before their own, the person who before their own, the person who internalises that coercion, the person who feels guilty about the care they require or have simply been deprived of it.

And recognising abuse is a really difficult thing. I'm struck there's those who have the misfortune of watching daytime TV making notice that there are currently adverts

10:27

Rt Hon Sir Edward Leigh MP (Gainsborough, Conservative)

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10:32

Dr Zubir Ahmed MP (Glasgow South West, Labour)

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10:46

Rt Hon Kit Malthouse MP (North West Hampshire, Conservative)

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and I'm pleased that this debate has stimulated a strong debate about palliative care. The Health and Social Care Committee of the and Social Care Committee of the House of Lords found that in territories that have assisted dying, palliative care generally improves because people become less afraid of talking about death. But we must be careful. We must be we must be careful. We must be careful not to say that perfection is something is a precondition for is something is a precondition for those who are dying.

Perfection has to be an objective for those of us who will carry on living. We can't delay and indulge them the dying in their agony, because we're not satisfied with the state of palliative care. We have to deal with the choice that those people are facing at the point of their death, and give them the choice that so many of them are seeking. The second is, is about coercion. And as the Father of the House said about love, one of the most affecting people I've met over the last 11 years of campaigning on this.

This issue was Warwick Jackson, who came to our party conference a couple of years ago. Warwick's wife, Ann, was diagnosed with a terminal peritoneal cancer. She knew basically she was going to die. The slow, suffocating death at the end. And as he watched her dying, he heard her begging her palliative nurse to end it all for her. He contemplated smothering her with a pillow, and the only thing that stopped him was because he didn't want her dying thought to be her loving husband, having brought her life to an end.

And that is the conflict of love that we pose to people by perpetuating this appalling status quo. We've heard time and time again that the situation millions, thousands of our constituents live with every single day is so horrific, so appalling, that even the best palliative care cannot alleviate their pain. And so I urge you, colleagues, to consider what your vote may mean today, because, as we said at Second Reading, a vote against this bill is not a passive act.

It's not something neutral. It is a vote for a status quo that is status quo of misery and degradation and cruelty for so many. We know that the British people support this measure. We know that there are lots of territories around the world that we respect and admire, who have assisted dying and have operated it for many years successfully. It's not beyond us to get our democracy operating as it should do, and to design something that will work for the British people.

We can't give dying people more time, but we can give them mercy and love. Urge you to vote for the bill today.

10:49

Ashley Dalton MP (West Lancashire, Labour)

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Ashley Dalton. And the last time this. second. >> Reading, I was keeping a secret.

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Reading, I was keeping a secret. Whilst Honourable and right hon. Members were debating the issue, I was grappling with my own terminal diagnosis. I was told I have stage four incurable metastatic breast cancer. I was overwhelmed with grief, fear and anxiety. I was scared of what was to come and I was fearful of how it would impact my family and my loved ones. I was scared that I was going to get really poorly and thinking, how will I cope? How will my family cope? How will I be cared for? How will I afford it? How badly will it hurt? How long will it last? When you hear those words depression, anxiety, grief, fear, shame and guilt come in bounds.

Suicide risk is highest immediately after diagnosis, and it usually falls quickly. Within 3 to 6 months. I would be lying if I said that when thinking about all that was to come, I didn't consider that it might just be fairer and easier on everyone if I just got the dying over with as soon as possible. Having treatable depression, however, will not exclude anyone from an assisted death within this bill, and depression is common among people with terminal illness, but it is often treatable.

Clinicians are trained to prevent suicide in people suffering from depression. But where would the line be drawn? This bill makes no provision to support this difficult transition or to create safeguards around it. A person can also be suicidal and have unmet mental health needs prior to developing a terminal illness, and then ask the state to kill them without any assessment of their psychological health, just their mental capacity. Because mental capacity and mental health are not the same thing.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists recommends a holistic, multidisciplinary assessment of every applicant. The three person panel at the end of the assessment process in this bill is not what most NHS clinicians recognise as a multidisciplinary team. It certainly does not allow for meaningful, multidisciplinary decision making. The assessment needs to happen at the beginning of the process, not the end, and each team member should be independently assessing the patient in person. This is not what has been included in this bill.

Now, I don't know how long I will live. I will be on treatment for life, however long or short that may be. I at the moment, live between scans in 9 to 12 week blocks of time. The last scan may show the disease is stable, but the next scan might show that it is growing again. If the disease is stable, the drugs working and we can carry on. Eventually the drug will stop working, the cancer will grow and we'll have to try another drug and see if that works.

At some point, we'll either run out of drugs to try or I'll be too poorly to tolerate them. Then I die. It could be months. It could be years. No one really knows. Prognosis is notoriously difficult to predict. Palliative care professionals and oncologists tell me that whilst they can more or less give me an indication of when I'll die, when I'm a few days or weeks off, anything beyond that is the flip of a coin. The six month prognosis in this bill is something no one can ever be really sure of, but what the palliative care professionals have told me is that palliative care can help me when I die.

But in the campaign around this bill, it seems to me that it's being implied that without that, a person with a terminal illness will have a dreadful, painful death unless they have access to assisted dying. And it's simply not true. Palliative care in the UK is excellent. Far too many people do not have access to palliative care that they need, but the idea that it is not possible to alleviate pain and discomfort is false. People. I have been terrorised with tales of people vomiting up their own faeces, as though this is commonplace during death.

It is vanishingly rare and, you know, bowel obstructions are more common, but they are treatable. I know I've had one. It's nothing short of irresponsible to scaremonger people like me into believing our deaths will be horrific, when all the

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