Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill: Second Reading - 11th September 2026

https://youtu.be/wjwLKfPmw4w

Rarely do we debate legislation that represents such a seismic shift in the relationships between individuals, the state, health providers and civic society. There is so much at stake. When Members believe strongly that a Bill is flawed and could be abused, resulting in serious harm, we have an absolute duty to implore others not to simply let it pass and hope for the best, but to consider it fully and deeply and to accept that our duty is first and foremost to protect lives. The potential consequences of poorly drafted legislation without robust safeguards are ultimately the responsibility of every single Member in this Chamber.

I come to this debate wearing several hats. I come as the representative for Canterbury, the home of this country’s Christian faith. Rather than removing that aspect from this debate, as others may have chosen to do, I must consider the views of the Church, and the archbishop has made her view clear again this week. There have also been representations from our sizeable mosque and that community. I come as a daughter who, this week last year, was sitting at my father’s bedside as he was dying from early onset Alzheimer’s, which so cruelly began when he was not much older than I am now. I come also as the partner of a filmmaker who directed the BBC documentary “Better Off Dead?”, which was led by Liz Carr and based on her decades of disability rights activism. I was already aware of Liz’s work through her Not Dead Yet campaign, but the opportunity to learn much more by discussing this subject at home in depth for so many months was invaluable.

Lifelong campaigner Baroness Jane Campbell has seen off so many attempts to pass assisted suicide legislation in the other place that she likens it to groundhog day. In the documentary, she says:

“People are decent, kind. They think that they’re doing us a great favour by giving us this choice. But what they don’t realise is how deadly that choice can be.”

It is worth repeating that not a single disabled rights organisation or professional body supports this legislation. If this place were truly representative of the UK’s population, there would be almost 100 physically disabled Members of Parliament, but we are nowhere near that.

We hear a lot about coercion. Those with learning disabilities are surely extremely vulnerable to that, as well as the elderly and people with dementia. Before my dad lost the ability to speak, he could absolutely have presented as being capable of signing on the dotted line to medical professionals who did not know him like the family did. In reality, he would have forgotten almost immediately what had just taken place, but he retained an ability to be jovial, and to mask his confusion and memory issues, for quite some time.

As for the slippery slope, every single example in other nations proves without a doubt that at the start, the intention may be that assisted dying legislation will apply only to terminal illness—dementia and Alzheimer’s are, of course, terminal—but the scope ends up expanding alarmingly, as it has done in Canada, and in the Netherlands, which is so much closer to home.

Mental ill health, and even solvable temporary social problems, have entered the fray in those other nations; I am talking about depression and homelessness. There are young people opting to end their life. Those in favour of this Bill may dismiss that as scaremongering, but it happens in one of our neighbouring democracies.

One of our most powerful speakers here, the hon. Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah), this week hosted Alicia Duncan, whose story featured in “Better Off Dead?”. Her mother was put on the Canadian MAID—medical assistance in dying—system’s track 1, which is for those who have a terminal health diagnosis, despite her not having one. Alicia’s family believes that she was essentially coerced, through an abusive relationship, and her children were not able to prevent her death. These horrifying cases may seem isolated, but there are many, many more stories, trust me, that did not make the final cut of the documentary—stories not told to anyone. We make laws based on worst-case scenarios every single week, so why is this Bill so almost uniquely optimistic?

If we have any doubt, we must vote against this Bill today. It does not mean that we believe that the principles of it are entirely wrong, but I urge colleagues to listen to disabled activists like Liz Carr, Tanni Grey-Thompson and Jane Campbell, and experts in palliative care in the other place, such as Ilora Finlay and Professor Katherine Sleeman. I ask them to please vote against this Bill if they have any doubt.