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Lord Harper (Con)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 13 March 2026

Debate

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Contribution

I wanted to ask the noble and learned Lord, on his comments about the contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, about the role of the NHS. As noble Lords know, that this is to be provided by the NHS is not set out in the Bill. It is allowed for, and there are powers to amend the founding principle of the NHS to make it possible, but I had understood and Ministers indicated that, if this legislation were passed, this would be done by the NHS. The noble and learned Lord said that this question is not of enormous importance to him; it is more about the process, which comes back to the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, made about it being workable. However, I should like the noble and learned Lord just to set out his view about where assisted suicide should be provided, because the question about whether it will be provided by the NHS or not is really important. Whatever view the noble and learned Lord takes, the Committee deserves to know which of those two scenarios it is, before it makes a decision on whether it wants to support the Bill.

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