Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Baroness Uddin Excerpts

Friday 12th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, what a pleasure and privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson of Winterbourne. In the light of the impassioned contributions in this Chamber already, I wish to speak as a mother, a daughter and someone who has worked professionally in suicide prevention. I speak with a heavy heart, acknowledging the hundreds of letters that have spoken of their pain and suffering in support of and in opposition to the Bill.

My beautiful, intelligent 46 year-old son and my equally magnificent 85 year-old mother live with various difficulties and disabilities. My mother has had numerous hospital appointments. They have taught me more about joy, courage and resilience than I could ever have imagined. To my horror, they have on several occasions been offered “no resuscitation” during routine medical treatment. State action such as this for the common good may give rise to fundamental consequences unintended by this Bill. It is lived experience that during Covid people such as my disabled son and my elderly mother, and many people of minority heritage, died in disproportionate numbers, often with “no resuscitation” orders in place on their records without their consent. It is not a surprise if alarm bells ring and fear is raised, as the noble Lord, Lord Rees, said.

That is not fearmongering on my part; it is documented disparity. The Bill, however well-intentioned, sends a powerful message: that in the future, if those people are seriously ill, they will be offered suicide deaths as a compassionate choice. I do not feel confident that the Bill provides safeguarding in wider practices in the real world, as promised in this Chamber by my friend, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer.

This is not a hypothetical concern. In the jurisdictions mentioned that have assisted suicide—in Canada, Belgium and elsewhere—the cliff edge is real. Legislation designed as narrowly as this Bill has expanded rapidly to include, as a matter of choice, people with chronic mental illness and people choosing death not because of physical agony but because they are distressed due to their basic social condition, healthcare, and other state provisions. Such reality may add pressure on those who are already vulnerable and the poorest in our society, as a cloak of choice and relief. Many suggest to me that this is an absolute abandonment of every principle our society values as a fundamental basic right: the choice to live in dignity and care.

Supporters of the Bill say that this is about autonomy, but choice exists only where there is parity of palliative care. Sadly, that is not the case for many elderly people and the disabled. Many already feel a burden when community care, mental health support and other accessible services remain chronically underfunded and out of their reach.

I am all too aware of the agony and suffering. I do not dismiss grief, or people’s human desires to control how they wish to die. But we cannot build laws on the basis of those able to access influence at the highest level, including bringing this matter to our Parliament, which gives the appearance, at least, that we may be overlooking the future rights of the most vulnerable in our society.

This proposal is presented as a panacea of state care, but today’s compassion risks becoming tomorrow’s coercion, especially as health and welfare services continue to feel deep constraints. If the Bill passes, how long before my son or my mother are softly and subtly made to feel that perhaps it is time, as the cost of their care rises, that their life, however full of love, could and should be ended, dressed up as mercy?

Our duty to protect will be fundamentally compromised as the Bill carries the seeds of deep consequences. It will send a powerful message that the majority silent opinion no longer counts, and instead Parliament can be persuaded to legislate over life and death by influential advocacy, to which millions of voices in our country have no access or pathways. I thank your Lordships for your patience.