Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Baroness Verma Excerpts

Friday 19th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma (Con)]

My Lords, I refer to my interest in the register as a founder and director of an adult social care business of 25 years. Over those 25 years, there have been many times when we have seen people who had to be looked after at the end of their lives. I have only got a few points to make. I have listened to the excellent contributions from around the House, but my mind remains firmly that we need to be a society that is willing to care to the last minute of every single human being who comes into this world.

I am a Sikh with Hindu practices. The core of my faith is to serve, protect and uphold the law. I would not want to uphold a law that takes life, because life is absolutely the most precious thing that we have. I do not want to see a change in relationship between the medical practitioners and the patients. We will slip down a very slippery slope if we start introducing things that we will have very little control over afterwards.

I was really pleased to hear from my noble friend Lord McColl last Friday when he said, in his expertise, that everything can be managed. We need to give pain relief not when pain is too much but at the beginning of when pain starts, to ease it and make sure that the person is comfortable.

A few years ago, my uncle received a diagnosis of stomach cancer. He was really well looked after by Macmillan nurses and stayed in LOROS for a while. Then, when he felt he wanted to come home, because he knew he was coming to the end of his time, he came home, and his family were around him to see him slip away. It was not an easy death, but it was one where we all shared time with my uncle.

It is hard for me to stand here and say that all people will be well informed. I know there are many among my own community, such as women in relationships where they have suffered abuse and coercive behaviour—how can they be given the option to make those choices for themselves when most of their decision-making will not be in their hands? I worry very much for those people who cannot, for circumstances they have no control over, take those decisions. I really want to make sure that whatever we pass and whatever we do has protections for those in our communities who do not have control over their lives, as we all think we should have.

I will finish with the wonderful words of my noble friend Lady Berridge. The family, the village that we live in, is surrounded by people we love. We would never knowingly want to inflict pain on anyone, but what we would willingly do is stand up and help everyone in our family to go through the journey as smoothly as possible.