Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Lord Harper and Lord Hamilton of Epsom

Committee stage
Friday 23rd January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harper (Con)]

Just for the avoidance of doubt for anyone watching these proceedings, the noble Lord, Lord Polak, is no longer present in the Chamber, but he is very much still with us.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My noble friend Lord Harper is absolutely right: he is still with us, but he is absent for the moment. It might have been that, when he was given his diagnosis that he had six months to live, he was told that his final months would be very grim indeed and he would suffer terribly. He might, if this Bill had been in place, have made the decision to end his life. That was 32 years ago and my noble friend Lord Polak is actually pretty fit and doing a good job in your Lordships’ House. So we have to question medical diagnosis in this case.

I am very concerned and would like to hear from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, what he thinks about the problems of wrong diagnosis. I am old enough to remember that there was a time when we had capital punishment in this country. One of the reasons why it was abolished was because of the miscarriages of justice and the number of people who were hanged when they were innocent. That was a very serious lever used to get rid of capital punishment. What percentage of misdiagnosis of terminal illness would the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, think would be right before he thought about whether the whole basis of this Bill was to be questioned? I do not think we have any statistics on misdiagnosis—maybe he has some—but it really undermines the whole basis of this Bill if we have doctors who quite innocently say that they think a person has only six months to live but then find that they have not and they live on much longer. This is a matter of tremendous concern to people in this country.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Lord Harper and Lord Hamilton of Epsom

Committee stage
Friday 9th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harper (Con)]

I am aware of that. I want to know whether it will contain detailed costings for the court process. Obviously, I do not know what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, is going to say, but one of the things discussed yesterday was whether he will accept any of the amendments that have been tabled. The point I am making is that, if he were minded to accept the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, which obviously have a cost implication, there is a role for the Government in assessing those costs as well as a role for the sponsors. I am simply asking whether, if the noble and learned Lord were to accept them—he may not, of course—he would also provide the costs to the Committee. At that point, I draw my remarks to a conclusion.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I will not detain the Committee for very long; the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, can be reassured that I am not in the business of making a long speech.

I have in the past expressed my concerns to the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, as to whether judges are the best people to make these decisions and whether they can do so against the advice of the contracting doctor. The problem is that the doctor will be absolutely adamant that he is right in his case; I do not see why a judge should be able to overrule that, and I am not at all certain that a panel makes it much better. We should concentrate very much on the question of the contracting doctor; my forthcoming amendments will, I hope, address that point.

The problem is that doctors are sometimes malevolent. I accept that the doctors in this House are dedicated to looking after their patients and the public good, but that is not always the case. There are occasions—the noble Lord, Lord McCrea, referred to them—when doctors get it completely wrong.

I am very pleased that although Esther Rantzen was given six months to live, that was two and a half years ago. She wrote an article in the newspaper saying how much she has enjoyed the extra time that she has been given, although she is an advocate of this Bill. We must accept that doctors get these things wrong, and I think we should be concentrating on the contracting doctor rather than on the process of review.