Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Johnson of Lainston Excerpts

Friday 12th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

My Lords, I feel pretty humbled by the debate so far and by the many people who wrote to me; I thank them for doing so. I feel certain that the nation is looking to us here today in this House to deliver on this final liberty—that of being able to decide how, in certain specific circumstances, one leaves this world. I know that there are rightly concerns about the Bill and how, in practice, the prospect of giving people this right will operate, and I do not take this lightly.

Obvious and reasonable objections have been well raised today, and these concerns must be answered by the body politic. We must be aware that people may feel pushed to end their life early, as we have just heard. Vulnerable people must be protected, and I am always sceptical as to how the state can be genuinely compassionate. Safeguarding, well-being and other such nomenclature are often simply a mechanism to protect institutions and facades behind which officials hide.

These are not technicalities. We should also not use this, as has been well raised, as an excuse to reduce funding for palliative and end-of-life care. For this to be right and proper, it must indeed be a genuine choice, not a false one. However, in reality, this Bill is more about decriminalising those who help me with a choice that I want to make than about giving me that choice in the first place. As the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, has just so eloquently said, we already have that choice, but it is absurdly complex and solitary, and those who love us are removed from the process.

This Bill changes that. It allows us to have access to proper care in this country; it enables us to have real dignity in our departure; and it ends these, in my view, absurd situations we currently endure, where a spouse is arrested, potentially at Heathrow, having taken their partner to Dignitas. The fact is that this is happening today, already, in the worst possible way, and this Bill, with however many issues it contains, is at least fundamentally better than the situation we currently suffer. To this end, we in this House must not let the complexities defeat us. We should not use the technical needs of regulation as a block on the principle. I, who fundamentally dislike all forms of regulation, actually, in this instance, support proper clarity for doctors and a structure for families around this urgent need. We should be more fearful of failing to deliver this freedom than of the risks that the freedom of choice may entail, because with freedom always come risks. It behoves us to use all our talents to find a way to deliver on this last and final right of our citizens.

I am an optimist. Legislation can be revised and reviewed. Secretaries of State can take common-sense decisions, it is true, and the medical and other professions can pride themselves on really owning the process over which they have control. This is all possible. People often ask: what is the House of Lords for? I say it is precisely for situations like today, where we focus on solving complex and highly sensitive problems with a single goal in mind, which is to allow people to live their lives as they want, free from pain and suffering, from the moment they are born to the very end. I look forward to working through this Bill with that single objective in my mind.