Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Dobbs Excerpts

Friday 12th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dobbs (Con)]

My Lords, I speak as a cancer sufferer, as a man who applauds and supports the hospice movement and, I hope, as a conservative. I reject, as a matter of principle, the idea that the state can demand ownership of my body any more than it can own my spirit or my soul. The current law is cruel and untenable. The Supreme Court says it must be reviewed, the police refuse properly to enforce it and the public demand that it be changed.

There is the contrary argument that our lives and our deaths belong to God. I understand the strength of opinion of those who plead that case. But I suggest that you have no right to impose your view on others who do not agree. With respect, I see no hand of any God that I recognise in laws that condemn innocent men and women to die in agony even when they beg for their pain to stop.

Why are we so afraid to change? Do we really believe that there are ruffians waiting to pounce from the shadows upon their own families? That is the other argument that is put against the Bill. Are we to believe that we have become so cruel that we have turned into a society of casual killers? Is that what we are supposed to believe, what we are supposed to have become? Let us weigh that supposition—that is what it is—against actual suffering and against the reality of the totally unnecessary torments that so many are forced to endure, even when they beg for mercy. Weigh those things up, one against the other—measure fear against fact—and there is surely only one compassionate outcome: this Bill, or something very much like it, with all its many safeguards.

A nurse wrote to me: “I have never met a nurse or a doctor who is eager to end the life of any patient, but I have known many nurses and doctors who want to end their suffering. I hope and pray that the law will change and I will not be subjected to the laws dictated by those who do not agree with me”.

I wish I had had the opportunity, out of love, to help my mother pass peacefully in my arms, instead of watching her years of suffering. It would have been her choice, but she had no choice. Instead, I am left with an enduring memory of endless pain. Your body, your life and your choice—I wish all noble Lords long lives and a quiet and gentle and loving end.