Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Friday 12th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Evans, has indicated, everything has been said—but, obviously, not yet by me. For me, it is a simple matter of choice. I support this Bill. It is a choice to end your life at a time of your choosing, when all hope of survival has gone; a choice to ensure that your passing is peaceful and controlled; and a choice, as far as possible, that it occurs where you would prefer, with or without the people you choose to be present.

At the moment, people have that choice, as people have mentioned, to travel to a jurisdiction in which it is legal, but that choice is hampered by conditions. If you wish to travel to Switzerland, you will need to be able to afford a ticket and, if you are in prison, you will not be able to travel at all. You will probably need someone to accompany you and help with the arrangements, and those people need to risk an investigation and prosecution. It is not about whether the prosecution takes place; it is about the investigation that you are under and the family who are affected for the time that it takes to decide that you have not committed an offence. Finally, something that has not been mentioned too often is the fact that you need to be well enough to travel. Of course, illnesses progress, and not always at the rate at which medical people expect, so it can remove that possibility at a time when you most need it.

If those three conditions are not met—if you are poor, alone or already extremely ill—you do not have that choice. Why do only the rich and the well enough to travel have a choice? That cannot be right. Even for those fortunate enough to travel, they have to end their life in a foreign place, which is clinical, cold and anonymous, when they could have been at home, in the home they have enjoyed, surrounded by the people they love and the animals they probably regard as family.

Those who oppose this Bill say that better palliative care should remove the need for assisted dying. I do not accept that, because there have been too many cases where palliative care did not work. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, in particular, who said that we should have far more palliative care. There is an irony that, while 100,000 people do not have that opportunity, they are probably more in need of this option. To sit in a room and say to them, “We can’t ease your pain, but we might provide more palliative care in the future, but that is probably five to 10 years away”, is hardly a conversation that I would like to have with the people affected by it. Each one of us might want to imagine that we have to have that conversation, because that is the power that we hold in our hands. For me, it is not for doctors to say what a dignified, pain-free death is; it is for the person who is suffering that trauma to decide when enough is enough.

It is said that people may be induced or pressurised to go early. I am afraid that the risk of that outcome is already with us. If anybody imagines that no one is being pressurised at home to go early, they are naive. However, this provides the possibility that someone could intervene, should that be happening against someone’s will, and gives an option that might provide a better end than someone is anticipating.

People could of course take their own life, and I have seen people take their own life when all hope is lost. It is not attractive; they are not in control and they usually do it in a way that affects many other people. Then, of course, their families are left with all the uncertainty and pain that that can bring to them, when they have not been there or had the opportunity to make sure it is a far better end.

I will mention something very briefly. Once or twice today, I have heard people say that suicide is wrong. That is the underpinning of why we used to say that attempted suicide was a criminal offence. I do not think it is wrong. It may not be the best end for anybody, but I understand why people come to that conclusion. It is a very brave decision for those who make it and I do not think we are right to say it is a wrong thing.

Finally, we are told that 80% of the population support this Bill, and that matches my own polling with people I meet. This is a moment of conscience for all of us to vote according to our best judgment. However, that does not mean that anyone should try to stop the progress of this Bill by procedural mischief or interminable debates. If the Bill is voted down, that is what democracies do. It would be very unwise and unfair to prevent the opportunity for this vote.

So I support the Bill. The time has come to be more humane to the dying, and this Bill achieves a humane solution to the most awful problems at the end of our time on Earth.

Debate adjourned until Friday 19 September.