Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 14th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, bearing in mind that this is a Private Member’s Bill, it seems to me, as an Englishwoman, that whatever efforts are required, we should be, at the end of the day, removing Wales from it.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, in my modest experience of six departments in both Houses of Parliament, I have always come to the conclusion and repeated that Whitehall does not do devolution. By the way, I declare an interest: I live in England but within 10 miles of the border of Wales. Therefore, I commend the noble Lord, Lord Harper, on raising this in a practical fashion that probably nobody else in the House is able to do. I doubt that Members of Parliament in the other place had the opportunity to raise it in detail, because there will be MPs running on both sides of the border. I commend him on raising it, and I resent the fact that he was interrupted at the end.

[Lord Gove (Con)]

My Lords, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, in raising this question. Whether or not the suggestion from the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, is the right way of addressing this issue is genuinely a moot point. But she is absolutely right to raise the whole question of the fitness for purpose of the Bill, given the nature of our devolution settlement.

I speak with a modicum of experience. For just over four years, I was the Conservative Government’s Minister for Intergovernmental Relations, responsible for seeking to make the devolution settlement work at a time when we obviously had a party of one colour in government in Westminster and parties of very different complexions in Belfast, Cardiff and Edinburgh. Prior to that, as Secretary of State for Justice, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, I had to navigate the thickets of our devolution settlement.

It requires care to make it work. In order to do so, we have to take account of conventions, of legislative competences, of precedents and, as my noble friend Lord Harper pointed out, of the interwoven nature of the lives of communities that live on our borders. It is absolutely right that we should do so, both as a revising Chamber and as a revising Chamber considering legislation of such moment.

As everyone has pointed out during the passage of the Bill, strong feelings are engaged on every side. If we are thinking about fundamentally changing the responsibility of the state and our NHS when it comes to the balance between alleviating pain, prolonging life and, in certain circumstances, ending life, then we must proceed with care.

It was the explicit wish of many in the House of Commons, including in Committee, that the Bill takes seriously the operation of the legislation—so it is not finicky, an abdication of responsibility or something to be criticised when raising these specific and precise questions. It is our role.

Of course, many of us recognise, whatever our feelings on the Bill, that the House of Commons clearly gave its express wish that those who are living with a condition that means that their life will soon end in any circumstances should be able to choose the timing and manner of their death. I respect that clearly expressed wish. Some of us may take a different view about that imperative sent to us from the House of Commons as a matter of first principle, but all of us have a responsibility to look at how the legislation operates, because we are not in the business of simply recognising and respecting a sentiment, no matter how sincere; we are in the business of introducing legislation that must work and be made to work. Therefore, it is our responsibility in the days ahead to look in detail.

That is why I make no apology for specifically referring to the operation of the Sewel convention. Introduced by Lord Sewel of Gilcomstoun, a fellow Aberdonian and a former Labour Minister, it is a convention that broadly governs how we and the Government should legislate with respect to devolved matters. The Sewel convention makes clear that the Government should not normally legislate in areas that are strictly devolved without the full consent of the devolved legislative chambers—the Senedd Cymru, the Holyrood Scottish Parliament or the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Because it is a convention, of course it is the right of Westminster—Westminster is ultimately sovereign—to legislate without that consent. But the broad convention, on which the success of our devolution sentiment rests, is that that should be exercised only sparingly. This point was made very well and repeatedly by the promoter of the Bill in this House himself, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer. On a variety of occasions in the past, when the Government of which I was part sought to legislate in a way that may have caused disquiet or opposition in devolved legislatures, he has pointed out the importance of the Sewel convention, and he is not alone in doing so.

The former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, in a report commissioned by the current Prime Minister in the other place on the operation of the Sewel convention, recommended that the Sewel convention be made justiciable and that it should be the case that it should move from a constitutional convention to be a legislative part of our constitution. The Government have not yet taken that step, but it is the stated intention and policy of the Government to ensure that, if one did choose to legislate without the consent of a devolved legislature, that would be capable of challenge in the courts, which it is not yet.

In stressing the importance of making sure that we proceed with care, I am doing no more than expressing not just my experience of how important it is to respect the devolved sentiment but my acknowledgement of the direction of travel that the Government had set out with their belief in making the devolved settlement work better.

The point has been made that our devolved settlement with regard to Wales is complex, and indeed it is, as a number of noble Lords have pointed out. Crime and justice are not devolved, but health is. But again, even in the area of crime and justice, there is no settled will.

I participated in the convention looking at the future of the constitution with regard to Welsh devolution, led by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Williams of Oystermouth—Rowan Williams. In it, he made the case—I believe it is a case that exercises the sympathy of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd—

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 21st November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, in the circumstances, I do not feel that we can justify more than two hours on this group. I think we should move to wind up this debate.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 5th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a really good discussion showing the range of views and expert opinion that we have here. I think I heard from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, that he was willing to look at the age question. I think he said that he was more likely to add safeguards—

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, specifically ruled out changing the age. He wanted to put qualifications on it; that was as far as he went.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

The point I was making—I am sure he will speak for himself in a moment—was that he was willing to look at that. He said that he was more likely to look at additional safeguards between 18 and 25. But I think he said—again, correct me if I am wrong—that he is willing to have further discussions with a lot of the experts we have here, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Cass and Lady Finlay, and, I am sure, others, to look at the whole question around age, as a product of the good debate that we have had here today.

I think I heard that the noble and learned Lord is taking on board the comments; he is willing to go away and look at this whole question with the experts here and, I hope, come back with something that reflects the reasonable view of everyone here today. I think we are being shown a way forward. I am keen to hear later about a lot of other things, such as the residency question and a lot of the other groupings, so at this point, I think we have what we are looking for—have we not?—in terms of a good discussion on this. I hope that we can go on to talk about some of the other groups.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 9th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I have my name on a number of amendments. I did not know that those rules applied—anyway, they do not.

I have added my name to a number of amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Haslemere, in this group.

In general, I am glad to support many of the amendments on palliative care in this group. The Bill asks us to accept that assisted dying is a medical intervention, albeit an irreversible life-ending one, which is something I am not entirely happy with. It seems obvious to me that there must be guaranteed input from the best-placed medical experts in end-of-life care: that is, palliative care specialists. That is essential for the informed consent of the patient.

I imagine and hope that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, is very sensitive to the importance of palliative care. I know that he is in the much-cited Demos Commission, which I will not bother quoting again, and I am hoping that he has not changed his mind. I think the noble Lord, Lord Carter, made a very important point earlier to the sponsor of the Bill about the number of amendments, for which we have all been chastised and finger-pointed at and tut-tutted at. I kept my patience last night, although my blood pressure did go up.

None the less, I genuinely think that the number of amendments could be really slimmed down if the sponsor of the Bill were to go through, for example, all the amendments on palliative care and say to us, “I accept the principle of this and I will come back with my own amendment” or what have you. We would then not have this issue. We are not an organised political grouping; people table amendments and add their names to them in good faith, which is what I have done, and they then speak in good faith. We are not trying to repeat things for the purpose of delaying the Bill but because we think that it matters and is important. That is what we are doing here.

On this group, and the concept of 10 important themes, we need an assurance that real choices will be offered to a patient with a terminal illness and they will be given the option of a palliative care assessment and, hopefully, then, possibly palliative care. That safeguard would really reassure us, and it is a key theme, and so on. One of the reasons why I say that is, under the Bill, GPs can mention palliative care to a patient. I am a great fan of GPs; they are fantastic generalists who do a good job. But very often they do not have all the expertise of a palliative care specialist in knowing how precisely medical intervention can improve a patient’s condition, or indeed change their will to live.

It is important for the Committee to note that research has shown that those who wish to hasten their own death often change their mind when they receive more information. Palliative care can mean that people who want to die then want to live, and that is important if we are going to talk about choice. It is possible that you might want to die, that you are determined you want to die in assisted death terms, having had your terminal diagnosis. But why is it that you want to die? That is the motivation behind the discussion in this group.

One of the things that happens is that many people are frightened and fearful, and one of the things they are fearful of is pain and terrible symptoms, which by the way are often graphically described by supporters of the Bill, and I think that they can scare people. It is the idea that your pain and symptoms cannot be controlled. When I talk to supporters of the Bill—some of my friends, colleagues and members of the public—they are completely compassionate in talking about how the Bill will help people who are suffering intolerably and in excruciating pain. None of us wishes that on anyone—or, indeed, on ourselves. It is a frightening prospect.

That is actually often a fear and a dread that the right kind of care can mean will not be realised. Patients are understandably frightened of being in that kind of pain, so they need to know that. Toby Porter, the CEO of Hospice UK, summed up the way I feel about this. He said:

“An outcome in which someone chose an assisted death because of a real or imagined fear that they could not get pain relief or other symptom alleviation, or because their family would not get support through their illness, would clearly be a moral and practical disgrace to any country”.


That is absolutely right.

We all know family and friends and so on who have died and who have had terminal illnesses. People will say that morphine is simply not enough to control the pain. That is the kind of thing that I would say, because I know nothing about medicine. So, it is a great relief to discover that palliative medicine resident doctors say that morphine is the tip of the iceberg for pain management. There are countless other options available, but to know this requires training and experience, which I have not got. When you are having a chat in the pub with mates—or indeed, when I was in hospital pumping in the morphine—it is good to know that somebody, somewhere, has got the experience. That is the palliative care specialist and every terminally ill patient should at least be offered the option to go to see one. This is a modest but meaningful addition to the Bill and I hope that the noble and learned Lord, in the spirit of listening, accommodating and compromise that we heard about last night, will make changes to the Bill accordingly.

There is also a question for the Government and the Minister here. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, explained this very well. In relation to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, yesterday, it was a shocking revelation that the Minister responsible for palliative care said that the Government would not publish their modern framework until after the Bill had passed through Parliament. The noble Lord, Lord Stevens—

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

With respect, he did not say that. The noble Lord, Lord Stevens, said it would not be done “in effect”, the implication being—I do not disagree with what the noble Baroness is saying—that the Government have given a date which is beyond when this is expected to be law. The Minister did not say, “We’re waiting until after the Bill”. The crucial words of the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, were “in effect”. He was very careful in what he said.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I had thought I was implying that. I was not trying to imply some conspiratorial holding back; it is just that the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, said this was

“a dangerous reversal of the timetable we require”.—[Official Report, 8/1/26; col. 1416.]

That is the point I was really getting to. That is shocking: not because anyone is malignly behaving in this way but because the Government therefore need to commit to bringing forward that report, so it is available before we reach Report. I urge the Minister to reassure us that that is the case.

I will finish off by saying that the noble Baroness, Lady Brown of Silvertown, explained excellently that, for all of the importance of palliative care, hospices and so on, not everyone has equal access to them, which is well documented. I want to see that framework, because this is one of the chilling aspects of the Bill. For those of us who campaign to raise money for hospices, and who are desperately keen that palliative care is well resourced, to hear, as we heard earlier today, from the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, who stated baldly and perfectly reasonably that whichever choice we had in the previous group would cost a lot of money, makes me think, “Oh, spend the money somewhere else”.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 23rd January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben (Con)]

I am perfectly happy to accept the intervention, but I understand why the noble Lord, Lord Birt, did not accept any intervention, as he might have found it difficult to answer the questions that we are asking.

The point that I am making is very simple and it remains: we have to make a decision always among priorities. The problem with this decision—and it is why this should have been a government Bill and not a Private Member’s Bill—is that, as a Private Member’s Bill, it is a single-issue Bill. It is promoted by people who want this to be decided irrespective of its effect on everything else that happens. That it is not acceptable, it seems to me, for the Government. The purpose of my comment is that it is not about how much the proponents think it will cost; it is about the effect of this over the rest of the National Health Service. If the Bill is passed, where is it going to fit? The Government really cannot get up and say that we are entirely independent. They have to tell us, if this Bill is passed, where they see it sitting, because the proponents of the Bill have not expressed this. What is the real cost; that is, not the sum of money, but the effect of it on the rest of the service provided? They also have to tell us how it will impact the essential demands that the public have for so many other things.

We can argue about what the public think about this Bill—I am pretty sure that they think about this Bill rather differently from what it actually is—but we have to recognise that the public also have very strong views about what money should be spent in other areas. The Government have to tell us, from their point of view, how much it will cost, what the effect will be on the other services provided, where it will sit if it is passed, and how they will overcome the problem that many of those who may be asked to support it have said that they will not. Those are things for the Government to tell us and, so far, they have been unable to put answers to any of those questions, which is the second reason—the other is the point that the noble Lord has just made about amendments—why we have constantly to go on arguing, in detail, about this Bill.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, I will give a specific example. On 8 January, at col. 1416, the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, made a short speech, which consisted of about six specific questions. One of them was about the interaction of the health service and the Bill. Later that evening, I said to my noble and learned friend in intervention that he should come back within the next 10 days and answer those questions. The fact that he has refused to do so, and the suspicion being he has no intention of doing so, is why the amendments will keep being raised. That is basically the point that the noble Lord, Lord Empey, was making: there is a suspicion that they will not be answered. If we could do that, we could make more progress anyway because of the nature of the amendments that have been put down.

[Lord Gove (Con)]

My Lords, I am wholly in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and my noble friend Lord Deben, that greater clarity, both from the promoter of the Bill and from the Front Bench, would assist the Committee in making sure its mind could be made up on these delicate issues.

The noble Lord, Lord Birt, used to be my boss when I was a junior journalist at the BBC; I owe him a great deal. In framing this amendment, he has shown that a fine line, by insisting on speed and precision, can show us just what expedited delivery of a public service can achieve. If only the skill with which the noble Lord, Lord Birt, has ensured that the ratchet moves forward at speed in this legislation had been applied, for example, to our planning system, or to any of the other areas where government is laggard and failing. As the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, pointed out, if the same degree of precision had been applied to the operation of our courts and tribunals, we would not need to be contemplating the end of trial by jury.

However, in putting forward this proposition, I fear that the noble Lord, Lord Birt, is guilty of falling prey to two fallacies. The first is the Gadarene swine fallacy: the idea that, because so many are moving in one direction, we must follow expeditiously. He cited the fact that Jersey has voted for a form of assisted dying, and we are aware the debates are carrying on in Scotland and Wales. I shall not go into the devolutionary and union ramifications of those debates here—we will return to those later; they are critically important. But, as was pointed out by the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, the arc of history does not bend in any one particular direction, and certainly not in the direction that the noble Lord, Lord Birt, wishes to see it bend. We have been reminded this week that Denmark can say no to being told what to do by others, not just in geopolitics but in other areas as well. What we can learn from Denmark, and indeed from the French Senate, is that the consideration of the detail of legislation matters.

The other fallacy which was inherent in his speech is the Robespierre fallacy: the belief that one can discern and interpret the general will and then push in a particular direction. As we have heard on the Floor of this House, opinion polling on the question of assisted dying gives us almost the conclusions that we might want to have. I was struck by the opinion polling cited in the British Medical Journal, cited by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, which pointed out that the majority of those asked, when they were compelled to share what they thought assisted dying meant, thought that it either meant the withdrawal of existing treatment at a particular point, at the request of the patient, or improved palliative care. Of course, the noble Lord, Lord Markham, cited other opinion polling as well, but the critical thing is that opinion polling points in different directions. It causes me concern. But it is the purpose of this House and the purpose of legislators here not to attempt to discern the general will and to enact it, but to look at specific legislation and to decide whether it is fit for purpose.

That takes me to another point about the assisted dying help service: a question for the promoter of this amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Birt, for the promoter of the Bill, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, and for the Front Bench. It is undoubtedly the case that, if the amendment standing in his name and the name of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, were agreed, the process would accelerate, relative to that which is contained within the Bill. Yet, at the same time, it is the case that a new service is being set up, which, as a number of colleagues here have pointed out, might draw resources away from other aspects of the NHS. How is it possible that a service that is set up explicitly to accelerate, to be a concierge service in that way, will also attract, be staffed and operate in a way which ensures that at every point, objective, neutral, balanced advice is offered? Is it not in the very nature of this service that those staffing it—and one has to ask who would volunteer or would be paid for that role—would become engineers of a particular purpose? Is it not the case that those who would move towards recruitment in this area would be people who would be motivated I am sure from the best and most idealistic of motives, but those who would want to advance the path to death and accelerate suicide rather than incur reflection?

That takes me to a question for the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, who might say that this is an amendment from the Back Benches, not something that he has been party to and that we as the Committee might consider it overall. He might well say that he has his own timetable in this legislation to which he is attached, which he would like us to pay particular attention to as we reflect on the Bill. But the question for the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, is: if he could, would he back the amendment of the noble Lords, Lord Birt and Lord Pannick? Is he in sympathy with the desire to accelerate this process? It is not enough for him to say, “Look, I haven’t put this forward”. The key question is: if he is in sympathy, will he say so, and if not, why not? If he believes he is not in sympathy, is that because he thinks it is right that there should be appropriate, greater reflection, and that there is something momentous about this decision? Is it also right that he believes that this would mean a diversion of resources?

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 30th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I put in my opposition generally. Just as we said on the first day of debate, it is not certainly my intention to move a Division on this. We will leave these things to Report.

We have debated Clause 1 extensively but, as I said in my explanatory statement, I wanted the opportunity to potentially revisit certain issues, or to try to get some more answers on them if we felt they had not been covered. I know that on day one noble Lords thought I was filibustering by talking about Wales, but, for me, devolution is a really important part of the Bill, and I have to say that I was not satisfied by the Minister’s answers at the time.

Increasingly, pretty much every freedom of information request has been rejected, and I do not think that helps Parliament. The Cabinet Office tells us that the Government are forming policy on this issue in anticipation, but that it is not in the public interest to share that. I find that really challenging. It is no surprise that we have spent so much time on Clause 1; it is the key clause and let us not pretend otherwise. However, even the briefing pack for an official who gave oral evidence to your Lordships’ Select Committee— I did not put that FoI request in, but someone did—was turned down for release. That decision was made personally by the Justice Minister, again on the grounds that it was not in the public interest and “We’re only going to work with the sponsor”. I genuinely think we would make more progress if we had better understanding and more shared information as we consider one of the most significant changes to the law that we have had. However, I will not be pressing this to a Division.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, I agree with Clause 1. If there was a vote on it, I would vote for it. I may not carry the Committee with me but, having sat through Committee and one day of Second Reading— I could not attend the first day—I feel we have reached the point where, if the Bill were a tree, we have dealt with the trunk. We have now got to a point where we look at the branches.

The Commons—this is a message to the Commons, in a way—needs to know that we can move at pace once we have the Bill sponsor’s reaction and proposals following the debate on Clause 1. I am absolutely convinced that control of the progress and speed of the Bill is now completely in the hands of my noble and learned friend, not in those of the Committee.