Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Lord Winston and Lord Mackinlay of Richborough

Committee stage
Friday 23rd January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Con)]

I apologise to the Committee for not being fully engaged today. I have appointments elsewhere, and my father’s funeral was yesterday. I remember during the Covid period Ministers stood behind a sign reading “Stay home, protect the NHS, save lives”. My real concern now with the thought of a navigator that has only one direction is that will it be—I know it sounds rather flippant—“Save the NHS, choose a navigator, choose death”? That seems to be the chilling direction that the concept of a navigator and one choice only seems to be directing us towards.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

I feel tempted to try to answer that very quickly. I too will be leaving the Committee before we get to a vote on this or at least some decision from the Minister about what the Minister is going to say. I have to say that this discussion about the cost of treatment is not a reasonable one. The noble Lord, Lord Stevens, did not discuss this in his speech, but I think the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Birt, is overwhelmingly important because it is about the notion of our sensitivity in this situation.

There are many people who go to the health service who do not get treatment. It is not always a treatment. For years, I was pioneering in vitro fertilisation, which was not successful for a very long time. We got 16 babies worldwide in the first four years. There are now millions of happy families as a result, many of them in this House some of the time. The people in this House who opposed in vitro fertilisation—believe me, there were many of them—would probably have refused to accept assisted dying too. The fact of the matter is that the health service develops. It is not static. It changes depending on what the need is. In vitro fertilisation, instead of being an orphan subject, is now a major treatment funded by the health service. Unfortunately, it should be more funded, but we are getting a lot of success doing it in the way we are, and we will increase that.

It is also fair to point out that there are medical treatments developing all the time in the health service, which are not funded at the time when they are developed. Take cancer treatments, which are extremely expensive, very often with the most expensive drugs. Of course, we have to deal with the internal market in the health service, but we persuade the people who understand the need for healthcare, are faced with patients and have to treat them in the best way—

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Lord Winston and Lord Mackinlay of Richborough

Committee stage
Friday 12th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak for just a couple of seconds as I am very mindful of time. I support Amendments 24 and 458 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. We have had very little debate about the issue of pregnancy. I am quite shocked by that, given that there are administrations around the world with many years of experience, such as Oregon, which had similar legislation in 1997, and Belgium, which had it in 2002. They considered the issue of pregnancy during these very delicate discussions on assisted dying.

I am somewhat disappointed and concerned that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, has not addressed this, and I really hope that this can be addressed on Report. There is a world of difference between a very early pregnancy and a baby close to full term, which is reflected in our Abortion Act. May I therefore give the noble and learned Lord some advice? When this does come back on Report, the issue of pregnancy should be addressed, as it has been in other jurisdictions.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, as Amendment 24 has been tabled and pregnancy has been spoken about, I now feel that I ought to just make one point very quickly. The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, quite rightly presented a lot of statistics about cancer, but that she did not address the issue of cancers of the pregnancy itself. That is a serious issue. Choriocarcinoma, for example, is a fatal disease; it is rapidly metastatic, can cause issues all over the body and is not easily treatable. It could easily be that somebody who was pregnant with that, who would test pregnant with that condition, would be eligible. I therefore ask the noble Baroness to consider not pressing her amendment and to reconsider the wording of it, because I do not think that it would be an acceptable amendment later on. Both early in pregnancy and in late pregnancy, this would be a real risk.

[Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Con)]

I will just come back on that, if I may. I would also say that the wording in the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, is insufficient, because it is a far more complex issue than that. As I said, there is a world of difference between a very early embryo in the first few weeks and a close to full-term pregnancy. I certainly hope that this Committee would agree that point.