Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Morrow Excerpts

Friday 12th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

My Lords, on Wednesday we marked World Suicide Prevention Day. This year, the theme was “changing the narrative on suicide”, and we were reminded how simply being willing to open a conversation with a person in crisis can interrupt suicidal thoughts and renew hope.

It is with tragic irony that just two days later, we are debating legislation that would indeed change the narrative on suicide, but in exactly the opposite way than intended. In fact, experts have warned that this legislation

“may reduce societal taboos against suicide in a way that conflicts with campaigns aimed at suicide prevention”.

Since assisted suicide was introduced in Victoria, Australia, assisted suicides have increased by some 50% among older people. Similar patterns have been observed elsewhere.

I am conscious that the Bill’s supporters feel uncomfortable with the language of “assisted suicide”, but we cannot shy away from the facts of the Bill itself. Clause 32 amends the Suicide Act 1961 to avoid doctors being prosecuted for providing lethal drugs for patients, an act that would otherwise clearly be categorised as, in the words of the statute,

“capable of encouraging or assisting the suicide or attempted suicide of another person”.

The argument is made, rather callously in my view, that terminally ill people are dying anyway, but why should the importance of suicide prevention disappear just because someone is terminally ill? In truth, I would go further and say that this time of vulnerability is precisely the time when the protections afforded by the Suicide Act are most needed.

As the Royal College of Psychiatrists explains:

“Mental disorders, such as depression, are more common in people nearing the end of their life”,


and,

“Anxiety can amplify fears of future suffering”.


The tragedy is that, under the Bill, a person’s wish to die could be endorsed before that person can see the benefits of psychiatric or psychological treatment. Evidence suggests that suicidality in chronic disease often peaks at 90 days, but the assisted suicide process could take less than a third of that time.

The requirement in Clause 12 for psychiatric referral if there is any doubt as to the patient’s capacity does not resolve the problem. Many people may reach the low threshold of capacity set out in the Mental Capacity Act but still have their thinking obscured by poor mental health or other disabilities. For this reason, the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Psychiatrists have made clear:

“Vulnerable patients, particularly those with remediable mental health or other unmet needs, are not adequately protected by the current Bill”.


Human rights lawyer Tom Cross KC goes further, warning that the Bill as drafted,

“unjustifiably discriminates against those persons whose disabilities manifest in the expression of suicidal ideation”,

and so breaches Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

To finish, it is unconscionable to me that a doctor might be seeking to persuade a suicidal terminally ill patient of the value of life one week, only to effectively abandon suicide prevention and endorse despair once he considers they have only six months to live. The law should not send the message that some lives are not worth living. For that reason, I will be opposing the Bill.