Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Lord Wolfson of Tredegar and Baroness Merron

Committee stage
Friday 5th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, I can be extremely brief, because of the confirmation given by the noble and learned Lord and also knowing that the substantive issues of domestic abuse, interpreters and various other matters will be dealt with in their appropriate place.

At the risk of underlining my reputation as a legal geek, I invite the noble and learned Lord’s attention to his Amendment 350, and in particular the Member’s Explanatory Statement. I understand the amendment, but I do not understand the statement. The amendment leaves out from “to” to end of the line and inserts “section 12(4) and (7)”, which are about “sharing of specialists’ opinions”. The Explanatory Statement says:

“This is a drafting change (consequential on subsection (4) being added to clause 12)”.


Now, Clause 12 already has a subsection (4), and the noble and learned Lord’s amendments to Clause 12 are to subsections (5) and (8). I do not know whether the Explanatory Statement has confused me and in fact the change is not consequential on a new subsection (4) being added but just stands in and of itself. It may be that I am confused unnecessarily, but if the noble and learned Lord could just clear up that minor point, I would be grateful.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, shall be brief. All but three of the amendments in this group have been tabled by the Bill’s sponsor and, as has been discussed, they make a series of drafting changes to the Bill, including making sure that terms are consistent throughout and removing ambiguity and duplication.

The Government are neutral on all the policy choices reflected in these amendments, as they are on the Bill as a whole, but have as usual provided drafting support to make the Bill legally workable. As a part of the discussion today, it is of course for the sponsor and for Parliament to determine whether any of the amendments that the sponsor has chosen to table have changed the intent of amendments that were debated in the other place.

Amendment 7 in this group, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, seeks to amend Amendment 6 by changing a reference in Clause 1(2)(b) from “a preliminary discussion” to “their first preliminary discussion”. It does not make any wider changes to the Bill to provide for more than one preliminary discussion to take place, so this may lead to uncertainty. As with all amendments that have not had technical input from the Government, noble Lords may wish to note that the current drafting of this amendment may require further consideration to make it fully workable, effective and enforceable.

Amendments 8 and 9, on which I raise no major workability issues, appear to be trying to achieve the same purpose as Amendment 6, tabled by the Bill’s sponsor. But I would note that Amendments 8 and 9 have not had the technical drafting support from officials and therefore may not be fully workable, effective and enforceable.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right; on that point they do change the policy intention. I am grateful. I would welcome the thoughts of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, on that.

Finally, in the absence of my noble friend Lord Howe, I have been asked on his behalf to formally speak on his Amendments 301A and 305A. In speaking to those amendments, I want to highlight the threshold which is set for determining whether an individual is in England and Wales at the time of the first assessment. I hope the noble and learned Lord will be able to pick up this point.

As the Bill is drafted, the question as to whether somebody is ordinarily resident in England and Wales rests on what is called the

“opinion of the coordinating doctor”.

My concern is that an opinion without any further evidential requirement may be too low a bar, particularly given the need to guard against the risk of what has been called death tourism. In other parts of the Bill, the noble and learned Lord has used the word “satisfied”, and I think we would agree that that entails a higher evidential bar than merely “opinion”—indeed, that is also higher than “believes” or “reasonably believes”. “Satisfied” is a higher standard. When the noble and learned Lord replies, can he use that opportunity to explain why the test here is only “opinion” and not “satisfied”, as that test is used in other parts of the Bill?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this debate on the issue of residency and eligibility criteria. As I have already made clear and will now repeat, I will confine my comments to amendments on which the Government have major legal, technical or operational workability concerns.

First, I turn to the amendments which narrow the residence criteria in respect of eligibility for assistance under the Bill. Amendment 11, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, would change the residence criteria for assistance under the Bill from requiring a person to be “ordinarily resident” to “permanently resident”. Unlike “ordinarily resident”, “permanently resident” does not have a set definition in the context of UK immigration law. It is possible that it would be taken as referring only to those who have citizenship or indefinite leave to remain, which is a much narrower scope than the current wording of “ordinarily resident”.

Similarly, Amendments 23, 309, 300A and 306A would restrict access to assisted dying support to British citizens or people with indefinite leave to remain. This may result in migrants on long-term work or study visas who have resided in England and Wales for longer than 12 months being denied access to an assisted death, thereby potentially giving rise to indirect discrimination based on race. These amendments may be subject to challenge under Article 14 of the ECHR when read with Article 8, on the basis that this may amount to unjustified discrimination. This differential treatment would require an objective and reasonable justification.

In addition, under various international agreements, the UK has an obligation not to discriminate against EU, EEA and Swiss nationals on the basis of nationality, although the agreements do not prevent restrictions on the basis of residency. Since these amendments would prevent individuals from those countries from accessing these services on an equal basis to UK citizens in the same circumstances, they are likely to be contrary to the UK’s international obligations under those agreements.

Amendments 11A, 258A, 306B and 449A, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, seek to change the residency requirement from “ordinarily resident” to “domiciled”. These amendments would add complexity and potential uncertainty to the eligibility requirements. “Domiciled” refers to the determination of a person’s permanent home largely for tax purposes, meaning that a person can be domiciled in a place without being resident there. It is not a familiar concept in domestic law outside of taxation, so it is unclear how it would apply in this context. Further elaboration in guidance would be needed to make these amendments workable. It is also unclear what practical impact this change would have when the Bill would still require people to be physically present in England and Wales in respect of the steps under Clauses 8, 10, 11 and 19.

I will next turn to Amendment 14, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Lord Wolfson of Tredegar and Baroness Merron

Committee stage
Friday 14th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, this is the first debate in Committee on this important Bill so I hope that the Committee will allow me to take a minute or two to set out the approach of the Official Opposition. As my noble friend Lord Kamall and I said at Second Reading, the Official Opposition have no collective view on this Bill. Although each Member of the Opposition Front Bench will have their own view on the Bill, we will support noble Lords across the House in their scrutiny of the Bill. We will also table a small number of additional amendments where we feel that parts of the Bill need probing further. We will not seek to delay the passage of the Bill, nor will we seek to hold up progress in Committee. Instead, we will seriously engage in detailed scrutiny of the Bill so that we can collectively deliver the best possible piece of legislation.

In that regard, I respectfully pay tribute to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, for demonstrating his openness to improving the Bill already by tabling amendments that we hope to get to today and which reflect concerns that have been raised by noble Lords. I speak for all my colleagues on the Opposition Front Bench when I say that I look forward to working with him to ensure that we send a better Bill back to the other place.

The amendments in this group relate to the territorial extent of the Bill. My noble friend Lady Coffey is seeking to remove references to Wales in the Bill so that it would apply only to England. While I am not entirely persuaded that making this an England-only Bill is necessary per se, these amendments raise important questions about devolution. The core question for the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, is why the Bill does not apply to the whole of the United Kingdom on the one hand or only to England on the other.

At the heart of this is, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, said—although various Acts of Parliament may put us to sleep, a speech by the noble and learned Lord never does; I was listening very carefully—that these amendments speak to the devolution settlement that we work with and the inconsistencies and confusions of that settlement. The noble and learned Lord used the word “complexity”. It is extremely complex. In this area, we have the problem that criminal law is not devolved to Wales whereas health is devolved. To pick up the point made by the noble and learned Lord, with which I respectfully agree, declaring the appropriate interest, Wales should not be regarded as inferior to Scotland. That is a point of general application.

The Scottish Parliament, as noble Lords know, is currently considering its own legislation on this topic. I hope that noble Lords have picked up that the Scottish Bill is significantly different in key ways—most markedly in the definition of terminal illness. In Scotland, it lacks the “six months to live” test which, whatever view we take, is at the heart of the Bill before us. The definition of terminal illness in the Scottish Bill is:

“For the purposes of this Act, a person is terminally ill if they have an advanced and progressive disease, illness or condition from which they are unable to recover and that can reasonably be expected to cause their premature death”.


I am not quite sure about “premature” in that context in all cases, but that is what the text says.

Leaving aside the point that those resident in one part of the United Kingdom will therefore have different rights to assistance under the law from those in another region of the United Kingdom should both Bills pass, I see the point that my noble friend Lady Coffey is making. If the people of Scotland may choose whether to have a law for terminally ill adults who wish to end their lives, why—I ask rhetorically, so to speak, looking forward to the response of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer—should people in Wales not have the same choice? This is the key question that the noble and learned Lord has been presented with by this group of amendments.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Baroness Merron) (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the opening comments of the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, which were helpful. I thank noble Lords for this debate.

I want to set out some points about the role of government Ministers. As noble Lords are well aware, the Government remain neutral on the principle of assisted dying and on the passage of this Bill. Whether the law in this area should change is absolutely and rightly a matter for Parliament. I and my noble friend Lady Levitt will speak in Committee as government Ministers responsible for ensuring that the Bill, if passed, is legally robust, effective and workable. To that end, I will not be providing a government view on the merits of proposed changes. Those are rightly a matter for noble Lords to decide. Throughout Committee, my remarks will focus only on amendments where the Government have significant workability concerns. I hope that this will be of assistance to noble Lords in their consideration of amendments. Where no comment is made, any workability concerns are less significant. The Government are unable to confirm at this stage that the current drafting of those amendments is fully workable, effective or enforceable.

Turning to the amendments in this group—