Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Baroness Monckton of Dallington Forest Excerpts

Friday 12th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Monckton of Dallington Forest (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as chair of Team Domenica and patron of the Acorns Children’s Hospice.

In 2018, along with two other mothers of young adults with learning disabilities, I took a test case to the High Court to challenge the way in which the Mental Capacity Act was being interpreted for this cohort. Essentially, it meant that authorities had no obligation to consult us as parents on so-called “best interests” decisions for our children, because they were chronologically adults and therefore, in the eyes of the law, deemed to have capacity. The High Court judgment, although sympathetic to our case, did not radically change anything, and it is still extremely difficulty for parents to become welfare deputies of their own children.

I recall this to draw your Lordships’ attention to a particularly disturbing aspect of this Bill. Someone such as my daughter, who has Down’s syndrome, could be advised by a doctor whom she may never have met that she should consider that it would be best to have her life ended because she was deemed to have a terminal condition. Not only that, but the Bill specifically excludes any obligation to discuss this with us, her parents, or other family members. I can only imagine the fear and terror that would go through my daughter, and a total lack of comprehension. Yes, she is capable of making decisions on what to wear, what to eat and what to watch on Netflix, but when it comes to something more abstract she is, at best, extremely confused. Also, like many with Down’s syndrome, she is highly suggestible; she is anxious to please those whom she perceives to be in authority. I can clearly see where the danger lies.

It is regrettable that the other place did not find the time to discuss the amendment tabled by my right honourable friend Damian Hinds, which would have excluded any person with a learning disability from initial discussions about being given a fatal dose unless they themselves had raised it. I do not mean to cast aspersions on the medical profession—we have wonderful examples of it in this House—but there is a tendency within it to regard those living with learning disabilities as suffering. We saw that clearly in Covid with the “Do not resuscitate” notices at the end of their hospital beds. People with Down’s syndrome, for example, do not suffer; they do not have a disease.

Nor do I question the good intentions or compassion of those who have promoted this legislation, but I was startled to see in a pamphlet circulated to all Members of this House by the campaigning organisation My Death, My Decision a paragraph urging us not to contemplate any amendment that would “encourage interference from family members”. What a strange view that is to have of the very nature of what a family is. I shall certainly be putting down such an amendment.

I urge the House to consider, when voting on this Bill, the most vulnerable among us. A coalition of more than 350 disability organisations have expressed their opposition to this Bill. For parents who have spent lifetimes fighting for their children to have now to worry about them being disposed of by lethal potions is inhuman and devastatingly cruel.