SCRUTINY in the House of Lords “should never be conflated with obstruction”, the Bishop of Newcastle, Dr Helen-Ann Hartley, wrote last week, in a joint letter with six other members of the Select Committee that heard evidence on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.
The committee heard “vital and often highly critical evidence” from several experts, including psychiatrists, coroners, and social workers, the peers wrote, in an open letter published on 11 December.
The letter says that the majority of the experts “indicated that the Bill, as it stands, is not fit for purpose”; further scrutiny was needed.
The Bill is being scrutinised by “committee of the whole House”, and more than 1000 amendments are under consideration. Four days of debate have been held so far, and a further ten are planned for the first four months of 2026.
“Our entire purpose at this stage is to take note of the concerns of experts and professionals, and to propose amendments which aim to interrogate the detail and demonstrate where improvement is needed,” the letter says.
Last Friday, the Bishop of Gloucester, the Rt Revd Rachel Treweek, who is the lead bishop for prisons, spoke in support of an amendment to prevent prisoners’ being eligible for an assisted death.
She said that the “prison population is in worse health than the general population”, and that age-related illnesses started at an earlier age.
Palliative and end-of-life care was inconsistent, she said, even though, under the law, prisoners were entitled to equal access. Incidents of self-harm were high.
Given the issue of prison overcrowding, “the desire to remove people from the system is high,” she said. “I fear how the Bill could play out among the prison population.”
In a debate the previous Friday, discussion focused on an amendment to raise the minimum age for an assisted death from 18 to 25. Under the terms of the legislation, the person must have a terminal illness and be expected to live for less than six months.
The Bishop of Leicester, the Rt Revd Martyn Snow, said that, while the peers were discussing an issue that related to 18- to 25-year-olds, there was not one in that age group in the chamber. “The voices of children and young people are, it seems to me, vital in such a debate,” he said.
The President of the Catholic Union of Great Britain, Baroness Hollins, who is Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry of Learning Disability at City St George’s, University of London, argued that the minimum age should be raised as an “enhanced safeguard”. She cited research suggesting that “maturity may be delayed by adverse childhood experiences.”
“It is, therefore, reasonable to assume that some young adults with serious illness may carry such developmental vulnerability into their decision-making around the end of life,” she said.
Last week’s letter referred to “troubling” reports that the Labour Party, while in opposition, had supported changing the law by means of a Private Member’s Bill. A policy document leaked to The Guardian suggested that legislation could be “influenced heavily through the process if we are lending government support”.
Legalisation of assisted dying was not included in the Labour manifesto before the 2024 General Election, but Sir Keir Starmer did, in December 2023, say that there were “grounds for changing the law”.
“Traditionally this has always been dealt with through a Private Member’s Bill and a free vote, and that seems appropriate to me,” he said.
A spokesperson for the one of the sponsors of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, Kim Leadbeater MP, said that the Government had “remained scrupulously neutral” throughout the process, and that policy decisions on the Bill had been made by the Bill’s sponsors: her and Lord Falconer.
