Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Paul Waugh and Anna Dixon

Report stage
Friday 13th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Paul Waugh (Rochdale) (Lab/Co-op)]

I rise to speak in support of the amendment in my name, which seeks to strengthen new clause 14 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater). Why do we want to restrict advertising about assisted dying? It is not just because such adverts could appear crass or insensitive, or because we worry that private companies could profiteer from death, but because advertisers know that they influence choices. The issue of choice, whether it is informed choice, skewed choice, self-coercion or coercive control, as has already been mentioned, is, in many ways, at the heart of the Bill and whether its safeguards are sufficient.

My brother works in advertising and he knows its power. It is why companies spend billions of pounds on it, why Google is the giant that it is, why we see lots of adverts at Westminster tube station trying to influence every single one of us, and why X is full of ads. Advertising works because we human beings are suggestible, and prone to messaging, visual cues and hints. Older people are bombarded with adverts for everything from stairlifts to care homes. One person’s advert, though, is another person’s public information campaign. It is not impossible to imagine a future Secretary of State, who passionately believes in the merits of assisted dying, authorising such a campaign. It could be a Government-approved plotline in a soap opera, or an ad read out by a podcaster that ever so subtly sounds like a news item, or even their own opinion. Many in this House rightly try to protect teenagers from online harms, but the online harm of an ad for a website about assisted dying shared on TikTok could be a reality without the tighter safeguards in my amendment.

[Anna Dixon]

I thank my hon. Friend for speaking so clearly about the issue of advertising. Does he recognise that this country has banned pharmaceutical advertising because we do not want to have the situation that exists in America where people are popping pills all the time? There is a reason that we are protecting patients and we need to do the same with assisted dying.

[Paul Waugh]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. The dangers of what is happening in America provide a real lesson for us here.

As the hon. Member for Reigate (Rebecca Paul) put it, conversations about assisted dying should happen in person—between the relevant doctor and the patient. They should not be prompted by a TV ad, or something seen on a bus. My hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Daniel Francis) spoke very movingly about the way that IVF services have been commercialised, leaving people who are, as he says, “already on their knees” vulnerable to exploitation, so that someone else can profit.

I am certain that nobody in this House believes that passing this Bill into law should mean the rise of a similarly aggressive market for assisted death, but it is our role—indeed our responsibility—to deal not only in intended consequences, but in unintended ones, too. The real risk in the drafting of new clause 14 is that it allows exceptions that are not specified in the Bill. A future Secretary of State will be empowered not only to make the necessary regulations, but to amend them at any time; and a future Secretary of State, who does not share the concerns of this House, would have the ability to draw the exceptions so widely as to make the ban worthless. There are a number of similar advertising bans already in place on tobacco products, surrogacy and the latest cancer drugs being marketed to the public. In every case, the legislation sets out the exceptions, leaving no room for doubt as to how Parliament intended to protect the public.

Why should the services that this Bill would legalise not be subject to that same legal clarity? Do people who have less time to live not deserve all the protection we have the power to give them from a death they do not truly want? I cannot believe that this Parliament would be content to have that power taken out of its hands, and the rights of our most vulnerable constituents left for someone else to decide on some other day.

My amendment therefore sets out that exceptions to the advertising ban should be limited to cases where a person has requested information and where the materials are intended for health professionals and not for their patients. New clause 14 would allow a future Secretary of State to make provisions that would usually have to go through the House in legislation. It is not at all clear to me why that power is needed to introduce a ban on advertising.