Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Baroness Grey-Thompson and Earl Howe

Friday 30th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

I would like to provide a brief clarification on the back of what the noble Lord, Lord Harper, said about the points raised by Ms Leadbeater’s comments about feeling uncomfortable. It came from a report on ITVX on 6 March 2025. An assessment was taking place with Dr Jess Kaan. I believe family members were there, and then she asked the patient’s family to leave the room so that she could privately ask the patient whether it was a settled wish. The patient said yes, it was. I quote directly from the ITV website:

“For Kim Leadbeater, the virtual consultations did not make for comfortable viewing—she says it has made her think about adding an amendment to make clear that consultations with doctors cannot be done via video call and that they should be done in person”.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, in the interests of time I do not propose to summarise the many points and questions that have been raised in this debate. However, I wish to speak briefly to Amendment 320A in the name of my noble friend Lord Wolfson. The amendment seeks to set the presumption that the first assessment by the co-ordinating doctor

“must be undertaken in person, except in circumstances where this is not reasonably practicable”.

It is plain from everything that we have heard in the debate that the first assessment is a pivotal moment in the process set out in the Bill. It is the point at which a co-ordinating doctor must satisfy themselves not only of the diagnosis and prognosis but of the patient’s capacity and will and, crucially, the absence of coercion or pressure, as set out in Clause 10. These are human judgments that depend not simply on what a patient says but on the way that they say it, on physical cues and on the broader context in which the conversation takes place.

I listened carefully to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, in particular, as I did to other noble Lords, and an in-person assessment undoubtedly allows a clinician to observe matters that may not be apparent on a screen—for example, who else is present in the room, whether the individual appears comfortable speaking freely or whether there are signs, however subtle, of hesitation or external influence. At the same time, I suggest that we need to be patient-focused as well as doctor-focused, which is why my noble friend’s amendment seeks to recognise practical realities. There will surely, from time to time, be circumstances, perhaps in late-stage illness when a person may be in acute distress, where an in-person assessment is genuinely not possible. The reasons for that could be several, but in those cases we need to ask ourselves whether a live video and audio link would be preferable to a delay, or even a complete exclusion from the process.

I emphasise that the amendment is a probing one. If we decide that provision should be made for certain cases then that would surely be a classic area for guidance or codes of practice, but the key test in every instance would be what is reasonable in the circumstances. My noble friend wants to be clear that this amendment is about setting the right default for arguably the most consequential clinical judgment in the entire scheme of the Bill, while preserving professional discretion in response to the needs of the patient where circumstances require flexibility.

I have deliberately spoken in general terms when talking about what might not be reasonably practicable. The question is really the one posed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman: how rigid do we wish the Bill to be in prescribing how the system should work? I hope the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, could set out his vision of how this mechanism will work in practice and how he will ensure that the safeguards that we all want to see can still be maintained if an in-person assessment is not possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, this is a really interesting group of amendments, and it has probably raised more questions for me than it has answered. When we talk about injury, I immediately think about people who have had a spinal cord injury and who have become a quadriplegic or a paraplegic.

By the very nature of my former career, I know a lot of wheelchair users who have been through various compensation cases. Luckily, these days the survival rate for someone with paraplegia or tetraplegia is very high. We also have to take that into account. I had not thought before about the impact on anyone who has been in the military. I know quite a few people who are injured through the military. Generally, the public are very supportive of the military and what they have gone through, and we would not want any unintended consequences for them.

When I was looking at conditions such as asbestosis, and others that have been debated on this group, it became very clear that in many cases these conditions present quite late and treatment is then very difficult, and many patients die before the compensation claim has gone through. We have talked before about coercion, and I know that Ms Leadbeater has said in various debates and comments that she is concerned about people being coerced not to end their life.

This is a situation where I could see this happening. If you go online and google asbestosis compensation or spinal cord injury compensation, a plethora of websites come up straightaway with calculators, so that you can have an indication of how much you could possibly gain. I had a look; it goes from a couple of thousand pounds for a back injury—which obviously would not account for this—up to £493,000 for someone with quadriplegia. The figures given as a range for asbestosis were £50,000 to £1 million. That is a life-changing amount of money for many families in this country, and it will colour the decisions they make.

It is slightly strange, because we talk about someone being a burden, but people will make a different decision because they are thinking of their children and grandchildren and protecting them for the rest of their lives. So a lot of clarity is needed to make sure that coercion does not go either way. I would be very interested in understanding what the noble and learned Lord intends to do to offer greater clarification for this group of amendments.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, as we have heard, my noble friend Lord Harper’s Amendments 70 and 78 seek to expand the definition of terminal illness beyond illness or disease to include terminal injuries. If this amendment were accepted, it would enable those who have suffered terminal injuries through military service or industrial accidents, for example, to access assistance under the Bill.

It seems to me that these amendments are helpful in at least two ways. First, they raise the question of how we should define a terminal illness or disease. If a person has been injured and has a prognosis of six months, should that person be described as terminally ill for the purposes of the Bill? I suggest that this is not just a question for the noble and learned Lord; it is also one of relevance to Ministers. As we have said on previous occasions, it will be state-run services that deliver assistance, and Ministers will need to be clear on what constitutes terminal illness.

Put another way, if, as the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, rightly said, an injury is legally distinct from an illness, why should people with six months to live for reasons other than an illness or disease be excluded from the scope of the Bill? My noble friend Lord Blencathra argued that adding injury to illness would be a slippery slope. I need to reflect on that. I was not wholly convinced by what he said, because there is a moral case around an injured terminally ill person that we need to resolve. By the same token, if the question remains open, are we happy that it will be left to the courts to expand the definition of illness, if that is what the court decides? One could envisage that happening.

The second way in which the amendments are helpful is the issue raised by my noble friend Lord Sandhurst’s Amendment 829, which seeks to address a specific problem caused by the interaction between this Bill and the Fatal Accidents Act 1976. Having listened to both my noble friends, I share their concern. As Amendment 829 rightly implies, it may not be possible to resolve this through a simple amendment to this Bill. It would be helpful if the Minister could explain whether the Government accept my noble friend’s argument that if the rights afforded to bereaved relatives under the 1976 Act are to be preserved within the terms of this Bill—as surely is equitable—it will depend on the Government to identify ways in which that can be achieved in a legally and politically acceptable way.

Perhaps Ministers and officials could look at this between Committee and Report, and advise the noble and learned Lord, the Bill’s sponsor, so that we can resolve the problem before the Bill gets any further.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Baroness Grey-Thompson and Earl Howe

Committee stage
Friday 9th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

Oh, absolutely: I think pressure is something incredibly important that we have to assess. Certainly, from the huge number of disabled people I have spoken to, pressure comes in many different ways, and it is very difficult to detect. If we do not take that seriously, I think people will be coerced into thinking that this is their only option, rather than that they have a range of options. That is picked up in some of my other amendments, but I thank the noble Baroness for her intervention.

We talked about the equality impact assessment. We need to look at the impacts on the Crown Court, on health and education committees and on children with SEND, and I think we probably need another version of the equality impact assessment to enable us to make the best decision on the way forward for the Bill. I am minded to support my noble friend Lord Carlile, because I think that what he proposes is much better than the panel currently in the Bill.

Mindful of time, I will leave my last comment to the Medical Defence Union, the leading indemnifiers of UK doctors, which gave evidence to the Commons Bill Committee:

“The involvement of the judiciary is essential. Its absence leaves doctors unduly exposed. Media reports suggest that an alternative safeguard is being mooted”—


noble Lords should understand that this was the context when the evidence was given—

“No ‘independent panel’, however so constituted, can replace the legal authority of a course of action sealed and ratified by a judge. Doctors deserve that certainty when relying upon this Bill to provide the very best for their patients at the most delicate moment of their duty of care”.


This is one group we have not really heard a lot from, and we should be minded of its role in the system as well.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, as sizeable as this group of amendments is, the key proposals embodied within it can be described in relatively brief terms. The Committee therefore owes its gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for having given exactly that kind of helpful summary in his opening speech, which set our debate going on a good track. In thanking him for that, what has emerged most clearly to me in this debate is the far-reaching nature of the change to the architecture of the Bill represented by his proposals. In addition, were his proposals to be adopted in their totality, they would, as I read them, have the effect of simplifying very considerably the procedures required to bring about an assisted death.

In combination, those two consequences inevitably open up a range of questions, as we have heard, about how these proposals would work, not just in theory but most particularly in practice. We have, for example, heard questions about the capacity of the family court, about its funding and about the extent of the opportunity costs which the family court would need to sustain. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier gave us considerable reassurance on some of those issues, as did the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, himself. However, the questions that have been asked are of fundamental significance and I think the Committee should hear from the Minister how the Government view the practical effect of the proposals and their workability.

On the principle of the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, we have heard some powerful points in their favour: for example, the established powers vested in the court; the analogous decisions which courts already have to make; the ability of the court to arrive at a reasoned judgment and to be a court of record; the fact that the court-based appeal system is well understood; and indeed the level of public confidence which the court already enjoys.

I would venture to add another, which is that the role for the court envisaged by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, would be a substantive judicial role, in contrast to the role originally envisaged in the first iteration of the Bill. That came over to me, at least, as more of a tick-box exercise than an exercise of judicial judgment.

However, what I look forward to hearing from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, are his views on the strand of this debate brought out most ably by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, my noble friend Lady Berridge and my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier: how he has assessed the merits of the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, in comparison to the proposals set out in the Bill. He is on record, some years ago, as having favoured a court-based approach in this area of the law. If his view is that, on balance, he now favours the panel process, as set out in the Bill, what considerations have led him to that conclusion?