Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Baroness Cass Excerpts

Friday 21st November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Cass (CB)]

My Lords—

[Noble Lords]

Shinkwin!

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

The noble Lord is on completely the other side of the argument, and I respect his views on that. This Bill has been scrutinised for over 100 hours in the other place. Evidence was taken from over 500 people. This is not just a piece of paper sent up here for us to determine.

[Baroness Cass (CB)]

Regardless of the amount of scrutiny, there are absolute conflicts between intent and delivery. The reason there cannot be trust in how we deliver this in real life is the very point made by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, and the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin: on the one hand, we are discussing the importance of coercion and of recognising it, yet it has been voted that you cannot ask the person why they want to die. I do not know how you can then possibly assess coercion. Unless you can hear from the person in their own words why they want an assisted death, you cannot even advise on symptom control, let alone on whether they have been coerced. There is the conflict between the intent on page one and what is expected in the delivery. If the Bill has arrived here with that level of conflict between what is on the first page and how it is expected to be delivered, then we change that; otherwise, it is not fit to pass through this House.

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

I respectfully accept that position. The problem is that the more I speak, the more I will be intervened on, which is the opposite of what I am trying to do; I am trying to speed the process up.

All I am trying to say is that we all want the best Bill possible. I get that. If that cannot be managed, something else will have to happen. I was only trying to bring in the evidence of three former Directors of Public Prosecutions. One of them, because people had said, “We’ve had no real-life experience”, actually advanced to us, “I’ve got Parkinson’s disease and I’m going to die. I have a terminal illness”. He actually said that to the committee, and added that if the Bill passed he hoped to avail himself of it. That is just one little anecdote from probably the only person who gave evidence who actually has a condition, which he confirmed to us freely. He was not asked to do that.

All I am trying to do is balance the evidence, because a lot of people are quoting evidence. I want to try to redress that a bit and to gently move this on a bit quicker. I have completely failed, because I have been standing up for nine minutes. I apologise to the Committee for taking up too much time.