Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Friday 24th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

Such moral dilemmas hint at the fundamental shift in the raison d’être of medicine that is required. A systemic shift will be needed to change the NHS constitution and redefine “medical treatment”. So I am grateful to this House, whether or not it has taken 14 days, that we heard the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, warn that the Bill’s open-ended Clause 41 would be a Trojan horse clause for fundamental change to the NHS by the back door, yet amendments to it have been sneeringly described as trivial, overly cruel and absurd.

Having sat through hours—days, even—on the Employment Rights Bill in this place, I thought that it was my responsibility to look at this Bill’s impact on workers’ rights. When I asked about two-tier conscience clauses that could leave out junior staff and ancillary workers such as porters and care workers if there were no system-wide opt-in model, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, batted my worries away. However, since my speech on that topic, I have talked to people, including prison officers, care staff and even a real-life porter—they were all trade union members, by the way—who thanked me for raising it and said that they had changed their minds after the debate because it had made them understand and reconsider the Bill’s broader impact. It seems a credit to the Committee that it has allowed people outside this Chamber to think about lawmaking beyond soundbites and emotive headlines.

My final words are to comment on who we, the alleged filibusterers, are. No disrespect, but we are a bit of a ragbag and not an organised ideological collective. I am in awe of my temporary comrades in arms, who have treated this process with diligence and moral seriousness. It is lazy and insulting to hear people being discussed in the media so disparagingly, or the suggestion that all the amendments were some conspiratorial plot. That is cynical misinformation and an undignified smear. So when—probably—or if any version of assisted dying legislation returns here, I hope that all sides will continue to read the small print, line by line, and that we will stop smearing each other and maybe work together on bringing through safe and workable legislation, if we must have the legislation at all.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, we can all get all Members who are standing in if their speeches are kept short, sharp and to the point. We will hear from my noble friend Lady Hayter, then we will go to the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, the House of Commons and the public want the Bill, but the number of amendments and the length of the speeches mean that we have run out of time, so it cannot go back to the Commons. This is bad for democracy. Even more seriously, it is bad for the terminally ill—those mentally competent adults with fewer than six months to live. The Bill would offer them the choice of a more peaceful way out of this life, a way under their control, with friends and family around them, rather than an isolated and often risky suicide. A particular mum of three asked, “How dare a handful of Peers look society in the face and say they care about dying people? How dare they put their particular beliefs above the care and compassion that should be due to those facing an agonising death?”

Of course, we never heard from those affected. As my noble friend Lady Hunter said, we on the committee, where we were outnumbered by the opponents to the Bill, were denied the opportunity to hear from those facing deaths or from those bereaved, who had to watch their partner die without this help. As we just heard from my noble friend Lady Blackstone, we heard from the royal colleges, organised groups, professional bodies, social workers, the church, palliative care experts and lawyers—everyone except for whom the Bill was designed.

We have heard in the debates that the amendments are actually about improving the Bill. But I know, and I think that we all know, that some people would never have supported the Bill, even if we had accepted a thousand amendments. The most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury—although she was a Prelate at the time—admitted this at Second Reading, saying that she was going to propose a vote against the Bill at Third Reading. We heard her say today that she is against it in principle, so for some these amendments were not about improving the Bill but because they opposed it in principle.

Had we just been interested in trying to make assisted dying safer for the vulnerable groups, we would not have had to have those amendments referred to—that everyone, including a man, should have to have a negative pregnancy test before they could apply for assisted dying. We would not have had to consider the idea that some of the very people who needed this—such as those in care homes—would be denied it; that anyone being treated in an NHS hospital would have to leave for a private place with different doctors and carers if they wanted an assisted death; or, indeed, that the intimate private discussions with the panel should take place in public, so that the public can watch people talking about why they wanted to bring their deaths forward. We would not have been told in the amendments that this all costs too much, even though the estimate is the same as what the NHS spends a year after accidents caused by people wearing flip-flops—I kid you not. The cost—

[The Archbishop of Canterbury]

Will the noble Baroness confirm that while I have said very clearly that I oppose the Bill and that I would bring it to a vote on principle at Third Reading, I have not in fact tabled any amendments?

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

It was the in principle issue that I was discussing rather than amendments, but I take the most reverend Primate’s point completely.

I have jumped now to costs. The cost is about the same as the cost of accidents caused by wearing flip-flops. My estimate is, and I have had some better economists than I check, that the cost estimated for this is about two hours of NHS spending time. Would we say that NHS is not going to spend money on people who have had accidents wearing flip-flops,going skiing or horseracing or doing dangerous sports, that we would not come to their aid because it was too expensive? So how can we put costs in over this?

Progress could have been faster, it could have been more focused, it could have even been forensic had we concentrated on the big issues. I apologise to those affected, some of whom are with us today, because we have failed in what we should have done.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, I recognise that this is a day of disappointment. I am keenly aware of those who viewed this law as the solution to their plight, but also of those for whom the clear failure of proper provision of palliative services will not be solved any time soon and for those living with disabilities or with children with disabilities who struggle to access healthcare today. I also recognise that there is disappointment for many in their perception of their Parliament. I have, in my 15 years here, witnessed the best of parliamentary legislating as I sat on the Joint Committee scrutinising the Mental Health Bill after an independent review, a White Paper and a government response, but in my 15 years, this is not the best. I have said numerous times in Committee that the Private Member’s Bill process is being asked to replace pre-legislative scrutiny, and it cannot do that, so there is no surprise that huge concerns remain.

I will speak briefly of just two examples—it was going to be three, but I am mindful of time—that could have been dealt with if there had been pre-legislative scrutiny. First, the consultative palliative care expert Jamilla Hussain said in the Guardian on 18 May 2025:

“I am deeply concerned about the provision that there is no requirement to inform family or next of kin until after the assisted death has occurred”.


This led me to think that children could be that next of the kin who would be the first informed and then to the question of children as interpreters, so I tabled amendments in that regard. The latter amendment about interpreters was the subject of enormous criticism on social media, but it was not, in the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, a “bureaucratic” amendment. It was not “procedural obstruction”, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hunter, said. It was an important amendment, and it was not until the Select Committee of your Lordships’ House that Parliament first heard from the Children’s Commissioners about the impact on children, although outside the scope of the Bill, of the societal change we were going to introduce.

My second instance, or expert, is the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer. I have enjoyed the intellectual engagement in those meetings, and I am grateful for them, particularly the meeting that was held with Professor Alex Ruck Keene KC on the nuances of the Mental Capacity Act, down to the detail of decided case law. However, when the discussion came to the Mental Health Act, we got back to the basic outline principle that the Mental Health Act is not based on capacity. You can be detained repeatedly under the Mental Health Act but still have capacity. It was clear to me when leaving that meeting that we had gone from nuanced detail to basic principle and that we needed to have a look at the interconnection of the Mental Health Act and this Bill before we started.

I will conclude where I began, with the different views of the world—which was also the subject of a meeting with the noble and learned Lord. He came from a place of individual autonomy and choice when beginning to legislate. But as I outlined at Second Reading, that is an anathema to many people who live in close community—whether that is geographical, in the north-east, or within a faith community. As other noble Lords have outlined, I think there is disappointment among some people of faith that their motivations and views have been used so casually and negatively in the media campaign—although, I note, never by the noble and learned Lord in my meetings.

It is interesting that Professor John Lennox, emeritus professor of mathematics at Oxford, quoted an unusual source in Westminster Hall in June last year. He said:

“Polly Toynbee was spot on when she wrote in The Guardian: ‘Every day in Parliament, fundamentally different worldviews do battle. Politics is all about the clash of moral universes’”.


Atheistic, materialistic, secular, humanist, Judaeo-Christian, liberal and now neoliberal viewpoints are all welcome. I would hate to think what William Wilberforce or Martin Luther King would think if it were otherwise.

I have two final practical points. Away from your Lordships’ House, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale, and Lord Williams of Oystermouth are going to have a debate on the principle of this Bill on “Intelligence Squared”. If this view of the involvement of religious motivations is shared by the noble and learned Baroness, I would love to see her on a platform of that scale to discuss her views and intellectually engage properly on that issue, which is key to our liberal, democratic society.

My second point is to reiterate to the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, that the Private Member’s Bill process has not served us well. I am sad to see the polarisation and the polemic nature of many of our debates. I hope we can find a way to look at what has happened with this Bill to prevent it happening ever again.

My final point is to do generally with the law. I hear the comments from my noble friend Lord Dobbs, but for the parents of disabled children, we have not spoken sufficiently of whether the law will protect their children when they are gone.