Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Magan of Castletown Excerpts

Friday 19th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Magan of Castletown (Con)]

My Lords, I must make it clear that I oppose the Bill. Morally and ethically, this is a most fearful piece of proposed legislation. Beyond that, the Bill is very deeply flawed. The flaws are legion. We must not lose sight of the Bill’s multiple deficiencies. This legislative proposal that seeks to legitimise assisted suicide is clearly unacceptable to a significant majority of conscientious medical practitioners. It is no surprise that so many leading medical organisations and medical schools have expressed very significant concerns.

The Bill includes no requirement for a person to be suffering or in pain in order to be eligible for an assisted suicide. It is now notable that majority GP opposition has continued to increase significantly. There is a huge risk that this right to die will quickly translate into an expectation, or even a duty, for healthcare workers to facilitate death when requested. There are no effective legal safeguards to protect the elderly and vulnerable.

The overriding necessity for the provision of universally accessible, high-quality, supportive and palliative end-of-life care has been swept aside. It is particularly striking that an overwhelming majority—between 70% and 85%—of palliative care doctors are opposed to assisted suicide.

Crucially, there are no built-in checks to protect against the inevitable risk of coercion. People with disabilities, in particular older persons, may feel subtly pressurised to end their lives. The replacement of High Court judicial oversight by a judicial panel—a lawyer, a psychiatrist and a social worker—brings an uncontrolled risk that such panels will become staffed by those who favour assisted suicide. Such judicial panels are clearly not qualified to overrule the joint view of two expert medical practitioners. Further, those who are not actually dying would be eligible for assisted suicide, and “terminal illness” is not clearly defined; the law could be applied to those who have years of life ahead of them.

We must also recognise that there has been totally insufficient pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill, with no public consultation and no proper engagement with the medical profession. Most of the amendments tabled in the other place were not even debated. There is also silence as to where the necessary funding will come from. Most likely, it will have to be found from existing overstretched health budgets, removing funds from palliative support that relieves suffering and saves lives. There is a real fear that the funding will be subcontracted out, leading to a rapacious, callous, profit-driven system.

It is unsurprising that, contrary to the contention of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, support for assisted suicide among the general public is significantly waning. Rarely has our role in this House, as a scrutinising and revising Chamber, been so important. It is imperative that we do not give succour to this charter for the culture of death.