Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Jeevun Sandher Excerpts

Friday 16th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Paul]

I thank my right hon. Friend for making that point; he is absolutely right.

I have tabled amendment 80, which would bring the Bill back to its original intentions. It would require that in order to be eligible for an assisted death, the pain and discomfort experienced or expected from a person’s terminal illness could not be reasonably relieved to their satisfaction through palliative care. It seeks to limit assisted death to the very small group of people who may benefit from it, not the larger group who just need adequate palliative care to give them the comfortable, dignified death they deserve.

[Dr Jeevun Sandher (Loughborough) (Lab)]

The hon. Member’s amendment speaks of “severe pain and discomfort”, but there is a reason why the medical profession has not gone for that. How does she propose we assess severe pain and discomfort as opposed to medium pain? Is a fungating wound part of severe pain and discomfort?

[Rebecca Paul]

The key point is that we need to improve palliative care. We are spending so much time and effort focusing on this Bill rather than doing the thing that would actually help more people. My amendment 80, in combination with amendments 30 and 31 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer), would drive significant improvements to palliative and end-of-life care, getting us closer to consistent and universally available care for all.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Rutland]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention, because it allows me to continue making an argument that will address those points. First, substantial motivation is vague, undefined and legally imprecise. This new clause is a blunt instrument and an attempt to shut the door on entire groups of people accessing an assisted death. How would one establish what a substantially motivating factor in any individual case is? No motivation exists in a vacuum, and feeling a burden can co-exist with physical deterioration and untreatable pain. Secondly, if suicidal ideation is to think about dying by taking one’s own life, would that not encompass everyone considering assisted dying?

[Dr Sandher]

I think today of Norman Ward, who in 2020 shot himself while terminally ill because of the terrible pain that he faced. Does my hon. Friend agree that under subsection (f) of new clause 16, Norman Ward would have been unable to access the choice that would have ended his suffering?

[Tom Rutland]

I agree with my hon. Friend.

Similarly, I cannot support amendment 102, which would require doctors to ensure that there were no “remediable suicide risk factors” before conducting a preliminary discussion with the patient. There is no clear legal or clinical definition of the term “remediable suicide risk factor”, and the Bill already includes multiple checks on mental capacity and mental illness, including by independent doctors and a specialist panel. The vagueness of this amendment risks wrecking this much-needed Bill.

I emailed Karen again yesterday to ask if I could refer to her in this speech. Her father-in-law had sadly died in the time that had passed between her initial email and our exchange yesterday. The Bill was not passed in time for him and he could not benefit from it. However, Karen hoped that his story could make some small contribution to changing the law. There do not need to be more people in Karen’s father-in-law’s position, or in Aimee’s grandmother’s position—they can have choice at the end of life, and our brilliant palliative care workforce, like Karen, can have choice on the kind of care they provide too.