Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Friday 12th September 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

As an amendment to the amendment in the name of Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, to leave out “and to provide full support at ministerial and official level to the peer in charge of the bill for its remaining stages in the House of Lords”.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, I should make it clear at the outset that I am opposed to this Bill in principle but, above all, I am opposed to it because it is not an adequate Bill to deal with all the issues raised and does not provide anything like sufficient protection for those vulnerable people who might be persuaded, against their real will, to accept assisted suicide.

I agree with the words in the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, apart from his bold bid that, in effect, this Private Member’s Bill should be treated as a government Bill. That was not what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, said was happening; I am sure that he would confirm that civil servants are insisting on their neutrality being maintained, even when they are looking at the feasibility of the Bill—I see him nodding in agreement. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, asks for

“full support at ministerial and official level to the peer in charge of the bill”.

That would put the noble and learned Lord in the position of a Minister. Such support is inappropriate for a Private Member’s Bill of this kind. It does not pretend for one second to be neutral or even-handed.

If the last 27 words of the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, were removed, I would agree with it completely, but he seeks to take the steps that I have just described. Indeed, despite the large resources supporting the purposes of this Bill and the involvement of many experts, including the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, one of our most respected and knowledgeable legislators, this Bill earns a D-minus for its draftsmanship, even after all those committee meetings in the other place. It needs to be dismantled if it is to be an effective and proper Bill, to give it what I would, as a shortcut, call legislative legitimacy.

What evidence is there for the propositions that I make? I will cite two pieces of evidence that emerged from your Lordships in the last two days. First, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsey of Wall Heath, produced a report a couple of days ago which there is no time to read out. I will simply summarise that, by the calm standards of that committee, its criticism is excoriating. I was on that committee for a considerable period, and I never saw any Bill criticised to that extent. It says that the Bill is simply not fit for purpose, breaking several standard rules of draftsmanship. It is incompetently drafted, after all the time that has been spent on it, with the steersmanship of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer. Then yesterday, the Constitution Committee reported and endorsed the views expressed by the other committee, saying, in effect, that the Bill was not fit for purpose.

We must remember that this Bill would allow a citizen deliberately to perform acts which are intended to cause the death of another citizen. Since the end of capital punishment, no such act is allowed in our law to any citizen other than in war. That is the weight of the change which this Bill seeks to make. We must be given time, the space and the methods to amend the Bill if that can possibly be done, hence my support in due course for the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Berger, which would allow a Select Committee to hear evidence which the Commons committee chose not to hear and would have been very persuasive. I beg to move.

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[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, I will focus on the content of existing law relating to end-of-life issues. I do so to make the point that the current law recognises the fundamental importance of autonomy. It rejects the absolute sanctity of life, about which we have heard much from the Bishops’ Benches and noble Lords, and the Bill will introduce greater dignity and greater safeguards than currently exist.

There are two basic legal principles. The first is that you have a legal right to end your life. Since the enactment of the Suicide Act 1961, attempted suicide is no longer a crime. You do not need to satisfy a panel of doctors or psychiatrists. There is no special protection against your relatives. If you are a competent adult, the doctors cannot require you to eat, to have a blood transfusion or chemotherapy, and they cannot stop you going to Dignitas. Why is that? Because the law recognises that it is your life, and so it is your decision, and because the law rejects the absolute sanctity of life.

There is a second legal principle that follows from this, and it is that the health system has a legal duty in some circumstances to take positive steps to implement your wish to end your life. I will give noble Lords an example: the case of Re B (Adult, refusal of medical treatment) [2002] 2 All ER 449. This was an adult woman who was paralysed from the neck down. She was dependent on an artificial ventilation machine to breathe. She wanted the machine turned off: she wanted to die because of the poor quality of her life. Her doctors declined to do so, so she applied to the courts for an order that they do so. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Baroness Butler-Sloss, then the president of the Family Division, granted that order. She said the woman was an adult; she was of sound mind; it was her decision whether to live or die.

Parliament has intervened in this area. We made provision by the Mental Capacity Act 2005, Sections 24 to 26, to allow an adult of sound mind to make an “advance decision” refusing treatment to prolong their life, should the occasion ever arise, and should the person at that time lack the capacity to indicate their wishes.

I have one other example. When Tony Bland, a victim of the 1989 Hillsborough football stadium tragedy, was in a persistent vegetative state with no prospect of recovery and could not express a view about whether to live or die, the Appellate Committee of this House decided in 1993 that because he had no quality of life, there was a legal duty on the health authority to end his life support—to pull the plug. That is what the doctors did, and there have sadly been many similar tragic cases since.

For this Bill to authorise doctors to assist a person to end their life by providing a drug so they can die with dignity is entirely consistent with well-established legal principles which respect autonomy on end-of-life decisions. The Bill contains many more safeguards than already exist. It enables terminally ill people to end their life in a less painful and more humane manner than starving themselves to death or otherwise committing suicide, or travelling to Switzerland.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

I cannot take questions.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

Why not?

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

Because we are restricted to four minutes.

I support the Bill. I look forward to debate—including debate with the noble Lord, Lord Carlile—in Committee. Thank you.

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[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

Before the noble Lord sits down—

[Noble Lords]

No.