Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Baroness May of Maidenhead Excerpts

Friday 12th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness May of Maidenhead (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as an ambassador for Thames Hospice, but the views that I express today are my own. I recognise that across this House there will be very firmly held views on both sides of this argument, some coming from personal experience, as we heard from my noble friend Lord Forsyth.

However, I oppose this Bill and wish to set out my main reasons. First, I do not believe that the safeguards in the Bill will prevent people being pressurised to end their lives, sometimes for the benefit of others. I worry that, as we have seen in countries where there is such a law, people will feel that they must end their lives simply because they feel that they are a burden on others.

I worry about the impact that it will have on people with disabilities, with chronic illness and with mental health problems, because there is a risk that legalising assisted dying reinforces the dangerous notion that some lives are less worth living than others. Again, as we have seen in other countries, once a law like this is passed, the pressure grows to extend the scope of it. I also oppose the Bill because I believe that, by dispapplying the default of a coroner’s report, there is a danger that this could be used as a cover-up for mistakes made in hospital or for a hospital-acquired infection which has led to an increased likelihood of death. I have a friend who calls it the “Licence to Kill Bill”.

This is not an assisted dying Bill but an assisted suicide Bill. As a society, we believe that suicide is wrong. The Government have a national suicide prevention strategy. We bemoan the number of young people who are lured into committing suicide by social media and by what they read on the internet. This week, we had World Suicide Prevention Day. Suicide is wrong, but this Bill, in effect, says that it is okay. What message does that give to our society? Suicide is not okay. Suicide is wrong. This Bill is wrong. It should not pass.