Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Baroness Cass Excerpts

Friday 24th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, I cannot tell you how disappointed I am to see this important Bill come down to this. I feel very strongly for the sponsors, as well, over some of the accusations that have been made here. I am not a medical or a legal specialist, but I am going to take just two minutes to make one point.

Despite being given the extra time that we have had, we are faced with a Bill that has not now been properly considered. A great opportunity has been wasted for a very small number of noble Lords to go to the extreme point. I am no stranger to this: I have had several Private Member’s Bills on schools lost for the only reason that they ran out of time.

It is clear to me that the Private Members’ Bill is not suitable for purpose, and this is better highlighted nowhere than here today. The difference is that this started in and passed the House of Commons, so it already has the approval of the House, and not just this House but the proportion of the British public who support it. They can see that the tactic of delay and manipulation is wrong, so I suggest that the Member system should be revised; it is not allowed to play with a Bill that has the clear will of the House—and I believe the collective House, although we never had the opportunity to test that.

However, looking past the non-passage of this Bill, those who took part in its fall have taken away the opportunity, and surely the right, of a painless death if that is a patient’s wish. I hope that the elected House will involve the Parliament Act and stop making the perfect the enemy of the good.

[Baroness Cass (CB)]

My Lords, this debate seems to have characterised everyone in the House as being either supporters or opponents of the Bill. I declare myself somewhere in the middle, and I suspect that there are many others who fall into that category who may have been quieter.

Following the views of the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, I have tried to keep my contributions to two or three minutes every time I have spoken—except once, when I spoke at a greater length to describe what I felt would be a more efficient, effective and safe medical model for delivering what this Bill promises. I have tried to engage in good faith with the sponsors of the Bill, both here and in the other place, to work with them and look at how a shorter and less onerous but safer process might work. This is difficult to do by amendment, however, when one starts from the point of having to make changes to a process which does not seem to fit with the natural patient journey.

When a Bill comes back to the House, I hope it may be possible that it starts from something we talk quite a lot about in the NHS: co-production. That is where we build the blocks upwards, with medical professionals and service users getting together to think about how a viable process might work in the NHS, and lawyers getting together to look at how this could proceed in an effective legal model, and so on for other experts. Rather than starting with pre-legislative scrutiny, as suggested by my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss and the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, we could start before it with building blocks to create legislation to which people with experience have contributed. That would gain the confidence of all the relevant professional bodies and, most importantly, the people who will benefit from it as patients.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords—