Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Bishop of Hereford Excerpts

Friday 30th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, I will add only a very short sentence to my noble friend’s excellent speech, and it is what AI says about AI. It says: “AI is technically capable of providing advice or information relating to suicide, but it is critically dangerous to rely on it for this purpose”. Enough said.

[The Lord Bishop of Hereford]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, for raising a very important issue in this amendment. However, I am concerned that, as it stands, as the noble Baroness said, this amendment is too blunt an instrument. It is important that we distinguish between AI tools and the more dangerous artificial general intelligence, or superintelligence. The use of AI in medical diagnostics in patient care is already commonplace. AI tools are currently used to read scans and X-rays and will frequently perform as well as, if not better than, clinicians. To exclude the use of AI altogether might deprive patients who are considering assisted dying of valuable diagnostic assistance and care at a very vulnerable time.