Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Lord Harper and Lord Deben

Committee stage
Friday 23rd January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harper (Con)]

I am grateful for that intervention; it is a very good point. The importance of it is emphasised by one of the points that the noble Lord, Lord Birt, made in his opening remarks: that many people do not seek to make decisions on these matters until quite late in the process. If you were facing considerable pain as a result of your medical situation, not only might you not think about assisted suicide early on but, if it not available in your area, you may not have sought high-quality palliative care early enough. Again, that needs to be available at pace, as well as the choice of assisted suicide.

The second reason why I think these amendments are important is this. I do not know whether I am the only noble Lord to have thought this, but it does seem odd that what we are, or the noble Lord is, proposing here is a personalised service, I presume funded by the taxpayer—the noble Lord nods his assent—which would support somebody in a very personal, individual way to seek one particular outcome. But as far as I am aware, unless something happens in the National Health Service that I am not aware of, we do not offer a personal navigator to help somebody with their journey through seeking medical treatment that will actually help them live and live well, and it just seems to me a slightly odd sense of priorities that we are proposing to put in place a service that is only available to help somebody die.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

I wonder whether my noble friend could think a little bit about the money involved in this. I am sorry—it sounds a bit odd, but I do feel very strongly that we ought to talk about how much all this is going to cost and where that money is coming from. In the very unsatisfactory answers from the Minister, who gave the opinions earlier on in previous arrangements, I asked directly whether she would assure the House that this money was additional money, rather than money that would otherwise come from the National Health Service. I wonder whether my noble friend would think to himself about the extra cost that this would mean. Where would it come from, and why are we not spending it on a lively attitude, which is to help people when they are ill with better palliative care, instead of going in for this death concept?

[Lord Harper (Con)]

I am grateful for my noble friend’s comments, and he is right: we had an extensive exchange on this subject on a previous Friday, and I am sure the Minister will correct me if my interpretation of what one of her ministerial colleagues said was incorrect, but it was very clear when I asked whether the Government were going to fund anything in the Bill. The Minister confirmed that, if Parliament were to choose to pass the Bill, the Government would indeed fund it and make sure it could be delivered. But when I asked the Minister whether that funding would be extra funding from the Treasury or would be taken from other parts of the public services—I think this was in the context of the extensive debate we had on the proposals on the court system by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile—it was made very clear that that assurance was not given. I am afraid that the only conclusion I could come to, which was not challenged by the Minister—if she thinks I have got it wrong, she is welcome to intervene—was that the money would come from other parts of the public services.

I have to say for myself that, if this assisted dying navigator proposal were to be funded by taking money away from NHS services to pay for it, I think people would find that quite extraordinary. I personally would find it indefensible that we were, again, taking money away from services to help people live to pay for a service to help them die. That would show a very odd sense of priorities. When the Minister responds, because she is the only one who can answer this question, not the sponsor of the Bill, because he is not, as far as I am aware, responsible for His Majesty’s Treasury, I hope she can tell us—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Harper (Con)]

I think that the reason why the noble Lord, Lord Birt, has put down these amendments is that it is not clear, from what the Government have said or what the Bill says, where this service is supposed to be—I see that the noble Lord, Lord Birt, is nodding at that. If the sponsor of the Bill had set out in the Bill more detail about how it would work and where it would sit, if there had been a proper process, many of the amendments from people with concerns would need to have been tabled and we would be moving faster. It is because of that gap and that failure, which is the sponsor’s responsibility, that this is taking a long time. It is necessary scrutiny to get the Bill right. That is what the public would expect of us.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I think that we can clear quite a number of these things away by taking one central issue. The big problem about being in government is that it is not a single issue that faces you; it is a whole range of issues, and you have to get a balance between them. When we talk about cost, it is perfectly possible to say that there is a majority of people who want this thing, and there is a majority of people who want that thing. The Minister and the Government have to decide how to share out the money that is available between those things. That is crucial to any decision made by this House. My concern is that we are not facing up to that. This is a single issue being presented to the House as if it can make decisions about single issues, irrespective of the effect of the decision on all the rest of the single issues that people also have strong views about.

If you asked the public whether they wanted more money for palliative care, they would almost universally say yes. If you asked the public whether they wanted a National Health Service where they could get an appointment with their GP within a week, they would say yes. If you asked the public whether they wanted a National Health Service where there was someone who could help them through complicated arrangements, they would say yes. The problem for this House is that we have to decide, first of all, what burden these proposals place on the National Health Service, the judicial service and the Government as a whole.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Lord Harper and Lord Deben

Committee stage
Friday 16th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben (Con)]

I hope that it was an intervention, because, if so, I am able to comment on it. If we start talking about paternalism, we will go backwards in time. We are not really talking about that at all; we are talking about the legislation of this House and the House of Commons. We are talking about how we produce legislation that works. What worries me is that there are a lot of words being used, such as “paternalism”, “kindness” and others, that are making us less precise. Law has to be precise enough for it to be properly implemented.

Frankly, the intervention of the noble Baroness sums up something else. There is a paternalism among some in this Committee who feel that they are so right about the Bill and that they can therefore ignore the comments of people who are trying very hard to overcome their own prejudices—if that is the right word—to get the Bill right. I find it a bit discomfiting to be lectured to, from time to time, as if I should not be making any of these comments because I do not seem to understand the higher views that are being presented. After being a Member of Parliament for 40 years and knowing what goes on in families in terrible circumstances, all I am trying to do is protect people. That is my job; it has been my job all my life. In response to the noble Baroness shaking her head, I say: that is not paternalism; that is the role of leadership in any circumstances. It is what decent people do, and, above all, it is what kindness demands.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to two blocks of amendments in this group. Before I turn to that, I just want to pick up on the points that my noble friend Lord Deben made. I strongly agree with the thrust of his speech, and I look forward to the response of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, to this group, not just to the specific amendments. Perhaps it will give us a sign of how he intends to respond.

I agree that if the noble and learned Lord listens to the concerns of the Committee and sets out clearly on the Floor of the House on the public record what he intends to do about some of them, that is the best way, from his point of view, to make progress. It is important that those commitments are made on the Floor of the House in public, rather than in private meetings. That is how Ministers generally conduct themselves when they discuss concerns with Back-Benchers. They might have meetings to discuss those concern, but, certainly when I was a Minister, I was always expected to set out at the Dispatch Box what I was committing to do on behalf of the Government so that people were confident that we all had an agreement and that it could not be walked back. Given that we are in a slightly different situation here, because it is a Private Member’s Bill and the noble and learned Lord is the sponsor, I would expect him to behave in the same way as a Minister piloting a Bill to give that level of public transparency, and I hope he will be able to do so.

I will pick up on what my noble friend Lord Deben said in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Jay of Paddington. I agree with her that we should not be paternalistic, but I do not agree that that is what we are in danger of doing. This group of amendments is about making sure that other people are not making decisions on behalf of the individual who is going to end up losing their life. This is about making sure it is actually their decision, that they are not being pressured into it and that someone is not making it on their behalf. Allowing somebody else to allow someone to be killed is the paternalistic thing—to turn a blind eye to it and do nothing about it. To make sure that it is genuinely that individual’s settled will is the opposite of paternalism. That is what we are trying to do in this group of amendments.

The first amendment I want briefly to refer to is Amendment 28 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff. It is about setting out in the eligibility criteria that someone is entitled to benefits under the special rules, for example, personal independence payment on the grounds of terminal illness. I accept that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, may quibble with the wording, but the point is to make sure that the person has gone through that process to apply for that benefit to make sure that one of the reasons they are seeking assisted suicide is not because of financial pressure. There may be other ways of achieving that, but that is the purpose of the amendment, and that is very important.

The Committee will be aware that under our rules for personal independence payment, if you have a terminal illness diagnosis, there is a fast-track procedure, rightly, so that you can get financial support much quicker than under the normal process. That is very important to ensure that someone facing a terminal diagnosis does not have financial pressures added to all the other things they are dealing with. The amendment is a sensible way of ensuring that someone has got that financial support and to make sure that is not the reason they are seeking assisted suicide.

Secondly, I support Amendment 31 and Amendments 68 and 68A, to which I have attached my name. They would make sure that it is genuinely somebody’s own request. The reason why that is important is—we will hear from the noble and learned Lord in a minute about whether he thinks the drafting of the Bill already deals with this—that I am very mindful of the issue that we hear about pretty much every week, and I suspect we will hear it again today from the Minister, who usually has an extensive piece in her briefing that counsels us on concerns about the European Convention on Human Rights and the extent to which decisions that this Committee takes might end up being challenged under that legislation and that we should bear that in mind.

I always listen to the Minister with care, and I am effectively doing what she is asking us to do, which is to be concerned about that issue. Even if the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, is able to assure us that, in his view, the Bill as drafted does not present that risk, I still want him to look seriously at these amendments because of my concern—which we have seen in other jurisdictions—about judicial oversight and judicial moving of the goalposts. This legislation will inevitably be challenged, and I want to make sure that we do not find judges starting to move the goalposts when there are challenges and allowing things to happen that we would not have wanted to happen.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Lord Harper and Lord Deben

Committee stage
Friday 12th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, this is a very sensible group of probing amendments, and it is a pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate. I will speak to them because the issues raised in this group concerning the difference between where somebody resides and where their GP is registered are exactly analogous to the situation regarding England and Wales, which I raised in an earlier group but have not received a satisfactory answer to.

I will remind the noble and learned Lord of the situation and he can, I hope, respond in a positive way. There are two issues, one of which is the difference between where you reside and where your GP is registered. There are a significant number of people living along the England-Scotland border and the England-Wales border whose place of residence is not the same as where their GP is registered. Therefore, it is very important that the legislation makes it clear that the rules through which you access assisted suicide are governed by where you live, not where your GP is registered. That is important for the reasons my noble friend Lady Fraser set out—in England and Scotland there will potentially be very different legal situations.

As we know from the earlier debate, although the Bill covers England and Wales, the rules governing the detail of how an assisted suicide service will work in Wales will be set by the Welsh Senedd, not the UK Parliament. Therefore, it is important that the Welsh rules apply only to people in Wales, who are governed by a body that is democratically accountable to them, not to people who live in England; otherwise, there would be a massive democratic deficit. It is very important that the noble and learned Lord is clear about how that is going to work.

Secondly, I think the noble and learned Lord said in response to our debate on England and Wales that he and the honourable Member for Spen Valley had had some detailed discussions with the devolved Governments. However, I was not clear from his responses whether those discussions had covered this point. Obviously, they need to take account of the views of not only the devolved Governments but the UK Government—which, for these purposes is actually only the English Government. We need to understand how this is going to work in practice.

As I have said, and in conclusion, this must be got right now, in primary legislation. If we do not get it right now, somebody will have to spend months and years clearing up the mess afterwards, which is one of the things that I had to do when I was the Member of Parliament for the Forest of Dean to deal with the cross-border issues that had not been properly thought through then. This is a valuable set of amendments. I was pleased that that the noble and learned Lord acknowledged, I think last week when the noble Lord, Lord Beith, spoke about this briefly, that these are valid issues that need proper answers. I look forward to hearing them now.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

Could I be vulgarly practical about this, because of a point the noble Baroness mentioned, which is the parallelism with the deposit return scheme that got into terrible trouble? I declare an interest as chairman of Valpak. We had to work through that, so it is burnt into me how extremely damaging it was because it was not decided beforehand. I know that we are talking about much greater issues here but, as I hope the noble and learned Lord will accept, this is a really serious issue; it brought about enormous cost and a vast misunderstanding, and it ended up destroying what the Scottish Government wanted to do. It is a very dangerous precedent. I am sure that the noble and learned Lord will want to make absolutely sure that we do not have a repetition of something that cost vast sums of money, in both the private and public sectors, and that has undermined an important measure ever since.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Debate between Lord Harper and Lord Deben

Report stage
Monday 3rd November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harper (Con)]

That was quite a lengthy intervention, with a number of points. The case raised by the noble and right reverend Lord about a country that we would normally deem not safe is a perfectly reasonable one. But, as I said, my challenge back is this. Is there any offence that people who come from certain countries to which we would not normally return them can commit that is of a level of seriousness that we think should make them immune to being sent back to that country? I believe that there are certain offences that people commit for which it is reasonable that they forfeit the right to stay in the United Kingdom. That is a perfectly reasonable case.

It may be that the wording in these amendments is not entirely perfect, but the argument that we are having is whether, if you come to this country and you commit a serious sexual offence, for example—as in my noble friend’s example—or you murder or rape somebody, you should be able to stay here for ever because the country from which you came is not ideal and we would not normally send you back to it. That is a debate worth having. I think the general public would take a much more robust position in those cases than many Members of your Lordships’ House would feel comfortable with.

Finally, I challenge the Minister, as my noble friend Lord Jackson did, having got in before me, to respond to the points in the debate we had earlier about what the Government will do to bring forward amendments or changes to how they interpret human rights legislation to give them a better chance—I am assuming the Government will not accept these amendments—of removing people who we know the Government would like to get rid of. In the case that my noble friend Lord Jackson set out, it sounded to me as though Ministers were very frustrated—as frustrated as he is. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I do not think I could be accused of being extreme on these issues, and therefore I want to apply a very serious matter here. This is an issue that most disturbs people in Britain. There are those of us who are determined to protect a multiracial society, who strongly believe in people living with each other and who are proud to have their grandchildren educated with a wide range of different backgrounds in schools that care about that. We are very concerned when we do not deport people who have been guilty of offences, because it is felt by the majority of people in Britain not to be sensible to keep in this country people who have committed offences.