Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

John Grady Excerpts

Friday 13th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Carla Lockhart]

No, I will not.

Amendment 443 sought to mandate that those substances be approved through the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and either the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence or the All Wales Medicines Strategy Group processes. I therefore strongly support amendment 96, tabled by the hon. Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson), which

“ensures that drugs can only be approved if the Secretary of State is reasonably of the opinion that there is a scientific consensus that the drug is effective at ending someone’s life without causing pain or other significant adverse side effects.”

That is a common-sense approach that should attract support from across the House.

This week, more than 1,000 doctors wrote a powerful letter to all MPs to outline their deep concerns about this Bill, calling it a

“real threat to both patients and the medical workforce”.

I strongly urge this House and colleagues to read that letter before Third Reading. The Government’s own impact assessment does not provide any comfort with regard to the use of lethal drugs under the terms of the Bill, which the doctors’ letter picks up on, saying that

“there is no requirement for…[the drugs]…to undergo rigorous testing and approval that would be required of any other prescribed medication, nor indeed for them to be regulated by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency”.

They go on to say that that is

“contrary to all good medical practice”.

This matters not just for regulation, but with regard to patient safety and complications. There is no requirement in the Bill to inform patients about how risks—including a prolonged death, rather than the promised peaceful and dignified death—will be managed. Complications do occur, and this is not scaremongering. In Oregon, when complications have been recorded, patients have experienced difficulty swallowing, drug regurgitation and seizures, and they have even regained consciousness. In Canada, a Canadian association has noted that patients have experienced regurgitation, burning and vomiting.

I draw Members’ attention to the written evidence submitted to the Bill Committee by a group of expert senior pharmacists and pharmacologists. In their submission, they warn that the approach of the Bill puts the cart before the horse. Specifically, they caution against proceeding without

“a comprehensive review of the evidence for efficacy and safety”,

and note that that review

“should be scrutinised by MPs before…consideration of legalising assisted suicide”.

These are not small details or incidental matters, yet, even at this late stage in the Bill’s passage through the Commons, we are still being asked to pass legislation without satisfactory answers to basic questions from experts in the field. That is simply not good enough.

I am grateful to have had the opportunity to speak, and I will close by saying simply that whatever mitigating amendments may be passed, this Bill remains morally and ethically wrong. It is flawed and should not be passed.

[John Grady (Glasgow East) (Lab)]

I rise to speak to amendments 8, 13, 82, 83, 85 and 86, but first I turn to amendment 77, which would extend some of the provisions of the Bill to Scotland. My review of the Bills in Scotland and England that are proceeding at the minute suggests that if someone moved permanently from Glasgow to Bradford or Newcastle, they would lose their right to an assisted death in Scotland and would have to wait a year to acquire their right to an assisted death in England. Imagine the heartbreak if somebody was diagnosed as terminally ill three or six months into their permanent move to Newcastle. That is a natural consequence of the law of habitual residence; there is long-standing case law on that. One matter that has not been addressed satisfactorily is how the relationship between Scots and English law and the Scottish and English Bills will be worked out. I suspect that that will require further primary legislation in this place and in Holyrood if both Bills pass.

I turn to the remainder of the amendments. Amendment 13 is very sensible and would introduce much-needed scrutiny and oversight to the appointment of a commissioner. The right hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen) has set out in detail the very sensible reasons for the introduction of his suite of amendments. Amendment 86 is particularly important, because the panel faces real difficulties in compelling people to come before it if they have relevant evidence. It seems manifestly reasonable that the panel should hear from people who have relevant evidence. I am also concerned that the panel process does not provide a clear role for people who love and care for the person seeking an assisted death. Amendment 8 would require the panel actively to consider hearing from such people, which addresses a serious gap in the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that across all aspects of the Bill we cannot legislate only for those with good mental health, or for those who are loved, supported and protected? We must have at heart the best interests of the most vulnerable and those without a voice or without loved ones, to ensure that they are protected.

[John Grady]

I am obliged to my hon. Friend—that is precisely why I joined the Labour party as a 16-year-old. Faced with terrible circumstances, some people will seek an assisted death. I find it hard to accept that those will be truly autonomous choices. We must be clear that the very same circumstances that have denied people dignity and robbed them of autonomy throughout their lives will drive them to an assisted death. I find that deeply troubling, and I worry that we are placing too much confidence in concepts of capacity, autonomy and self-determination.

Everyone accepts that coercive control is common—indeed, it is incredibly common, as is domestic abuse and elder abuse. There are very clear risks of coercion. I recognise that the supporters of the Bill have sought to improve protections, and to protect people in those types of circumstance. I have anxiously scrutinised those protections, and I do not believe that they will achieve their aim. That is why the amendments are so important.

[Jess Asato]

Last weekend my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) posted on X a story of two older people who wanted to die together, and who had found doctors to sign off their assisted death. Is my hon. Friend concerned that this debate might be romanticising suicide pacts given that, as we know, there are mercy killings, which are, unfortunately, actual deaths? Does he share the fears of the Government’s suicide adviser that the Bill will undermine suicide prevention efforts?

[John Grady]

I think everyone in the House debates this issue in good faith, and in the courts there is a general view that one should be reluctant to attack otherwise. I am sure that question was meant on that basis. However, one must not lose sight of the fundamental point that the protections in the Bill will not address the profound societal pressures that people will face. One must not lose sight of the fact that, whatever protections are included in the Bill, it will not protect people against coercion.

[Sir John Hayes]

Edmund Burke said:

“Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.”

Over time, I have seen many imperfect measures put before the House—under Governments of all persuasions, by the way—and usually, through scrutiny, they are improved. That is because the parliamentary process works when there is time available, and in particular when there is pre-legislative scrutiny, independent analysis and thorough thinking about the consequences of what we debate here. That could have happened on this important matter, but it has not because it has been shoehorned into a process ill-fitted for its purpose.

The amendments we are debating are a late attempt to improve the Bill. I particularly recommend the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer), who made an excellent contribution to our debate, my right hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) and the hon. Member for Rochdale (Paul Waugh). I support those amendments because it is critical that the safeguards in the Bill are not only maintained but improved and enhanced, for all the reasons advanced by hon. Members across the House about coercion and vulnerable people.

The hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Ellie Chowns) said she has never encountered coercion. North Herefordshire must be a wonderful place where people carry harps and drink ambrosia, but in the rest of the kingdom and, I assert, the rest of the world, there are many wicked people doing many bad things. We must never allow those wicked people to have reign and power over those who inevitably, because of their circumstances, will be at risk if the Bill is not improved.