Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Green of Hurstpierpoint Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 19th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Green of Hurstpierpoint (CB)]

My Lords, I have agonised, as we all have, about the Bill. I will make three brief points. First, I support the principle of the Bill. I say that as a religious person. I seek to live by a Christian narrative and I share with many Jewish and Muslim friends, among many others, a belief in the givenness and sanctity of life. But there is no simple deduction to be drawn from this as to what the state can properly permit or prohibit. If a terminally ill person of sound mind and settled disposition wishes to end their suffering and die in dignity, I do not think that it should, in principle, be a criminal offence to assist them.

Secondly, though, I share the worries of many noble Lords about encouraging a climate of suggestibility that subtly, or not so subtly, influences the vulnerable. However, I want to tell a story that, in effect, raises the opposite issue. This occurred in a jurisdiction notorious for its relatively loose framework of legislation on assisted dying. I will disguise the details somewhat, because this is still raw for those intimately concerned.

A person with terminal cancer decided to die with dignity. A family meal was held to celebrate their life, all drank a glass of champagne and then the person went to the next room, where the doctors were ready to administer the dose. In the aftermath, the spouse was grief-stricken and depressed, the grandchildren were in floods of tears and demanding to know why their grandparent had done this and the parents, struggling with their own bereavement, had to cope with the emotional distress of three generations.

In the last analysis, we may want to acknowledge that it is the person’s decision—it is their life and their death—but I cannot help asking what this says about those precious human relationships being terminated along with that life. Martin Luther is said to have said that we believe alone and we die alone. Well, yes and no.

Thirdly, we can hold our heads up in defending the principle of the Bill only if we ensure not only that its constraints remain robust but that it is holistically focused on how to end life as well as possible. Above all—and so many of us have already said this—palliative care must be integral to any satisfactory approach. I would add to that the crucial importance of mature societal discussion of what dying well means. We need to move beyond the bare assertion of a libertarian principle and beyond our sanitising euphemisms about death.

There is no way of making this simple and it cannot be a matter just for lawyers, legislators and care professionals. It is surely also a matter for conversation in families, schools, religious groups, humanist discourse—for all of us. I will support the Motion from the noble Baroness, Lady Berger. I will not do so to delay the Bill; I want to see an appropriate Act on the statute book in a reasonable timeframe. But, if this is as important as we all say it is, we should devote the time needed, including, dare I say—I am not an expert on procedure—the Fridays in the new year that we might need if that is what it takes to get this right.