Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Bishop of Norwich Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 12th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 17, particularly in relation to the Scottish Ambulance Service, which my noble friend Lady Fraser of Craigmaddie mentioned briefly in her speech. I do so as someone who can remember just about all my journeys in ambulances—some in agony after a fracture, some with the blue light flashing, others more sedate. What marked them all was a sense that, however much pain I was in, I was none the less safe. The ambulance crew were in control of the situation, caring, competent and consistently professional. That is my abiding memory based on first-hand experience.

I am concerned, as I understand the Scottish Ambulance Service is, that there is currently no guidance on this specific issue even though its absence has significant practical implications. Simply put, from a frequent ambulance traveller’s perspective, without this amendment ambulance crews and other healthcare professionals might well not feel fully in control of the situation. That is just not where you want to be as a potential patient needing urgent emergency care.

Surely, emergency services operating across the Scotland-England boundary not only need but deserve clear guidance. For example, what exactly is a paramedic meant to do if they are called out because an assisted death has gone badly wrong, leaving the individual seriously injured but very much alive, which of course can happen and indeed has happened on occasion in other jurisdictions where such legislation has been implemented? It does happen, yet the Bill, as far as I can see, is silent on this point, which is not much use to a paramedic desperately wanting to provide care when an emergency response is requested due to complications such as choking or vomiting.

I am not aware of this having been covered in the impact assessment, or of John Grady having received an answer when he raised this very issue on Report in the other place. So, I would be very grateful if the Minister could share with the House in her closing remarks what work has been done by the Government to evaluate and address such an important cross-border issue.

[The Lord Bishop of Norwich]

My Lords, I support Amendments 17 and 309A, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Beith, and so ably explained by the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser. I declare an interest, in that my wife is a GP and a medical examiner—so the Bill has had much discussion at home.

Having spent 10 years living in Northumberland, and having friends who live along the Scottish border, I know that many of those living sufficiently close to the border have chosen very deliberately to be registered with a Scottish GP because they then receive free prescriptions. This raises a number of questions for the noble and learned Lord.

Let us say that you live on the English side of the border, at Cornhill-on-Tweed, and your GP is in Coldstream. The sense of continuity of care that GPs give to their patients is vital to that GP-patient relationship. Indeed, this House was reminded of that yesterday in the excellent maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Gerada:

“That continuity, seeing lives unfold across time, gives general practice its unique moral and social power. It allows us to see people as whole human beings, not as isolated organs or diagnoses”.—[Official Report, 11/12/25; col. 370.]


In supporting this probing amendment, I am interested to discover more about how that continuity of care that is so essential in primary health care can be continued.

Support for Infants and Parents etc (Information) Bill [HL]

Lord Bishop of Norwich Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 6th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Norwich]

My Lords, I apologise to noble Lords for speaking in the gap. I did not expect to contribute today, but listening to the contributions so far, I was struck by the crossover with work underway by the Church and the Mothers’ Union, particularly when the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, mentioned the role of churches and faith communities.

I welcome the Bill and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, and the right honourable Dame Andrea Leadsom on their work on this issue. Churches across the country offer support to new families and parents, providing spaces for parents to meet, share experiences and be directed to support, if needed. They provide child development services through toddler and children groups, which are essential for the formation of children before they start nursery or reception classes in school. Through Messy Church and these toddler groups, hundreds of churches are already implementing many of The Best Start for Life recommendations. Churches are delivering perhaps more than 18 of the 24 recommendations and are often partnering with local authorities to develop joint working on issues that affect all our communities.

I have seen work such as the project “Who Let the Dads Out?”. The noble Lord, Lord Hannan, mentioned his attendance at antenatal classes, which brought back many memories for me, although I imagine that my wife would say that they were not much use. How we support dads to be good dads is an important area for a national conversation. We must enable good role models, where being a good dad is about love, support, patience and commitment, all aspects that are very important in fatherhood. That was identified in the Archbishops’ Commission on Families and Households report Love Matters and the recommendations it raises. A copy of that report is in the Library. It recognised that we must value families in all their diversity, that we need to support relationships throughout life, that we need to honour singleness and single person households, that we need to empower children and young people and that we must build a kinder, fairer and more forgiving society.

The noble Lord, Lord Bird, spoke about the scourge of poverty. In my own diocese, in Dersingham in the west of Norfolk, a wonderful charity, Baby Basics, fills Moses baskets with all the essentials for those first few weeks of being a parent. An incredible group of volunteers does that work. Its referrals have increased hugely from 49 in 2019 to around 400 last year, supporting some of the poorest young families in west Norfolk.

There is much to be commended in this Bill. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, on bringing it forward, and I give it my support.