Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Baroness Berger and Baroness Finlay of Llandaff

Committee stage
Friday 6th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I wonder if I might briefly apologise to the Committee. I was reading a quote—they were not my words. The quote was about a young woman who was said to have committed suicide. If we are going to be respectful of everyone, we must drop the word “commit”. It is not a crime to end your own life. I know that, for the relatives of those who have taken their own lives by suicide, the term “commit” can be deeply offensive. But as many people in this Committee will know, when you have experienced the suicide of someone very close to you, it lives on, in the way that a death also lives on in the person left behind. But I apologise, because it was a quote I was reading, and I think we should return to the topic of the amendments before us, if we may.

[Baroness Berger (Lab)]

My Lords, I am going to do as the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, has requested and carry on with the group of amendments before us. To echo the sentiment just expressed about the language we use in this place—and it does matter—there are Members on all sides who have used the term “commit suicide”. Suicide is no longer a crime or a sin and, on that basis, for people affected by suicide and those left behind, it is a good reminder that we should all endeavour wherever possible, as the media tries to do outside this place, not to use that terminology.

In reference to one of the points just made by the noble Baroness, Lady Gerada, we will come back to these issues in some later amendments. Complicated grief can arise from an assisted death, and I shall propose some amendments to address that and to think about the people who are left behind. We certainly have evidence of that in other jurisdictions. We also know that adverse complications can arise from the drugs people ingest through an assisted death, which can have far-reaching consequences for the people left behind. We will debate that later.

As a signatory to Amendment 87A, I welcome the fact that these important changes will be accepted, along with Amendment 87. However, I want to add some additional information. It is important to acknowledge that these amendments do not address all the gaps connected to eating disorders. There is no protection for people whose eating disorders may bring them within scope of the Bill’s definition of terminal illness in other ways. That includes refusing treatment rather than food, which is addressed in Amendment 92, which I do not believe the sponsor would accept at the moment, or a person with bulimia sustaining damage to their organs through vomiting.

Why does this matter? We have talked about anorexia, which is a fatal disease and one of the mental health conditions that leads to the greatest loss of life through mental illness. However, it represents only a minority of eating disorder cases in the UK. A large population study published in 2017 found that anorexia accounted for just 8% of eating disorder cases. We know that bulimia is far more common, but it can also be fatal, with well-established risks including sudden cardiac death, severe electrolyte disturbance and rupture of the oesophagus. The amendment rightly focuses on anorexia but, as someone who is a signatory to Amendment 87A, I acknowledge that we must do everything to provide protection to all people with eating disorders in this country, including bulimia.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Baroness Berger and Baroness Finlay of Llandaff

Committee stage
Friday 5th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berger (Lab)]

My Lords, I will very briefly raise my serious concerns about the three amendments that remove the specification for domestic abuse training. They are Amendments 290, 366 and 931. In the Commons, this was a significant area of concern for all MPs, specifically the risk to those suffering domestic abuse, and, as such, the sponsor of the Bill there accepted the amendment that introduced explicit requirements for training on domestic abuse, including

“coercive control and financial abuse”.

I listened very closely to the intervention from my noble and learned friend about the definition contained in Clause 56(2) that refers to control and financial abuse. But just because the definition of domestic abuse in the Bill includes coercive control and financial abuse, that does not mean training on domestic abuse will always include both those things. A training provider would not have an obligation under the Bill to cover all aspects of the definition, whereas the Bill, as currently drafted and as we received it, includes specifically both coercive control and financial abuse in that training. I urge my noble and learned friend to reconsider those amendments, based on the contributions in the other place, and to ensure that training covers and encompasses all those specific elements.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I have some questions for the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, about his Amendment 6, because my concerns also relate to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. It does not seem to reflect the way that seriously ill children behave.

I have looked after children dying of malignancies. They knew that they were dying and asked really straightforward questions. They would ask about how they would die and would want to have in-depth conversations. I recall one little boy who asked me if he could play football in heaven, after another little boy in an adjacent room had died a few weeks earlier. These children asked for explicit details and wanted to have lots of conversations. Another one said that he would die after his goldfish died. Sadly, that was prophetic and when he was close to death, he asked his divorced parents to come in and promise to look after his siblings together. These children know each other; they want to ask questions and need to have them answered.

I am not sure how, with Amendment 6, doctors are meant to respond to these children when they ask questions. At the moment, you respond gently and openly, and explore with them what they are really asking about in an age-appropriate way. I have a concern that this could make people feel risk-averse about having open communication with these children, and let children remain isolated with their fears. They hear about assisted dying on the news and in the media; the ethical aspects are part of the senior school curriculum in some areas. I am really concerned that Amendment 6, while well-intentioned, and the adjacent amendments, might actually make the day-to-day looking after of these children as they are dying more difficult.

Amendments 170 and 405 seem to lower the threshold for communication. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, for pointing out that whenever an interpreter is used they must be a registered public service interpreter, to avoid the poor communication scenario which I referred to last week. Speech and language therapists are essential, so can the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, explain how with one would judge “effective”, as is listed in his amendment, and assess “reasonable steps”? These seem very subjective and I am not sure how they would be monitored. Others have spoken to the other amendments, so I look forward to hearing the comments from the noble and learned Lord.