Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Cashman Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 19th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cashman (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I watched as my late husband and partner of 31 years died, knowing there was a better, more humane way. When my dear friend of many, many years suffered for months, she knew there was another way, and she implored me to help. And I did. I was prepared to break the law, as I contacted clinics in the Netherlands and Switzerland. However, it was to come to nothing.

But these are the words of an observer. I would rather you hear the words of someone facing death, my dear friend, Elise. She writes:

“I’m 51 years old, and I have secondary cancer of the lungs, liver and bones. Or to put it bluntly, I’m dying. I was diagnosed just over a year ago. My medical team are very reluctant to give me a number, but I’ve been told that people with similar conditions can expect to live for around two years. I’ll let you do the maths ...


I’ve just been told that my life-extending drugs have stopped working. I’m in a horrible limbo, awaiting test results to determine the next course of action, and hoping against hope that my liver holds out until I can get onto a different medication. I’m absolutely terrified.


I’m not telling you this to garner pity. Believe me, I am living my very best (end of) life. I am surrounded by beautiful family and friends, and immersing myself in art and culture, and generally having as much fun as is humanly possible. I try to find the joy. Every. Single. Day. But some days that’s harder than others. Not least because I know that one day, things will start to deteriorate. And the pain (which on a bad day is already pretty bad) will become intolerable.


I’ve witnessed terminal illness close up. I’ve seen a long, painful, drawn-out death. It was deeply traumatic. I still have nightmares about it. I can still smell it, and taste it. I do not want that for myself. I don’t want that for anyone.


This Bill is urgent. The stakes couldn’t be higher. It is 100 years in the making, and it can’t come soon enough. And much as I’d love to be a medical miracle and defy the odds, if it does pass, it will probably come too late for me. But I’m asking Peers to vote in favour, in the hope that it will save the unnecessary pain and suffering for many hundreds, indeed thousands of people just like me. And their families.


Since becoming part of this campaign, I’ve heard the most harrowing end of life experiences from people I now consider my friends. People like Gareth whose father … blew his head off with a shotgun. And Lucy, whose partner Tom eventually suffocated after hours of faecal vomiting. Every single story breaks my heart all over again. Not least because there could have been another way. And that’s why this vote is so important. It’s a vote for another way. A more progressive, compassionate way. A vote for choice for terminally ill people …


I don’t want to die. Of course I don’t. I am having the time of my life right now. Truly, there’s something about a terminal diagnosis that makes you really live life to the full. But I do have to face reality. I’ve had a pretty good life, and I want a Good Death. I deserve a Good Death. And I would challenge any Peer that votes against, to look me in the eye and tell me why I don’t deserve that. Why don’t I deserve to die in dignity?”


These are the words of my friend, Elise Burns, about a Bill that does not impose choice, but allows it.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Cashman Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 24th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cashman (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I thank the Chief Whip for the opportunity to speak. I will speak briefly. I spoke at Second Reading and in Committee. I did not mention then, but I will mention now, that 12 years ago I watched my husband of 31 years die a slow and agonising death. When death came, it made absolute sense to him and gave him peace. To me, death makes no sense, but when I face it, I want to have the death of my choosing, as indeed my friend Elise Burns does, who is facing stage 4 cancer and is in your Lordships’ House this afternoon.

I also remember my dear friend June Brown, who implored me to get her to a country where she could die with dignity and have the death that she wanted. I deeply regret that we have not passed this necessary and important Bill. We have not fulfilled the humane wishes of those who seek the right to choose how they die. But I honestly believe that we have fulfilled the wishes of those who believe that this House should be radically and drastically reformed.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest, as past chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which ended on 1 December last year. I say that because it is pertinent to the remarks I will make. I gave evidence to the Select Committee in the other place as long ago as 2024. While the Equality and Human Rights Commission took a neutral position on the principle of assisted dying, it found several flaws with this particular Bill.

After we started proceedings on the Bill on 22 January this year, I, with the support of 60 or so other Peers, wrote to the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, asking for a revised equality impact assessment, because the original one was by then so out of date and so much new information had come to light during our deliberations. The Bill itself had changed so enormously from when it was first tabled, so we thought it was important to get more up-to-date assessments of what the Government thought the impact of the Bill would be.

The noble Baroness, Lady Merron, very generously wrote back to me very quickly on 29 January. She recognised that these were important considerations but declined a revised impact assessment. However, she promised that, once the Bill became an Act, the Government would review all the impacts of the Bill. In other words, we were being asked to legislate blind—to move amendments without knowledge of what the impacts might be. That is an essential requirement of an Act of Parliament or primary legislation. We were asked to legislate blind. While I understood the Government’s position and their neutrality, that has been the effect of where we have been. It may be one of the reasons we have had so many amendments that some noble Lords find time-wasting.

I want to turn to one important thing in my final observation. I will not speak for long, but I want to impress upon the House the responsibility that we have when the state is asked to sanction—indeed, assist in—the taking of life rather than saving it. This is particularly so when so many other jurisdictions appear today to have stretched the ethics of where that balance should lie. That may not have been where they started out, but that is where they find themselves decades later. I believe that it is right that we in the UK, with our particular constitutional arrangements, take care and apply the due diligence that careful scrutiny seeks.

If we have people who find that the level of their suffering is so intolerable, I completely accept that perhaps we should think of a way of death for those people. I say that only to re-emphasise what the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, said what seems an aeon ago but was only a few hours earlier: autonomy without protection is not freedom; it is a risk. I will go further: it is a risk that we as legislators should not in good conscience allow to pass to be exploited by the unscrupulous. I believe we have discharged our duties, but that is not to say that this should be the final word on this most difficult and contested ethical issue. I hope that the proposers will take note of the good faith that we have all employed and try better next time, as I believe they may well be entitled to.