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Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 12 December 2025

Debate

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Contribution

My Lords, I want to make a very brief intervention in relation to the prison population. It is only the second time I have spoken on the Bill. I declare an interest as a trustee of the Prison Reform Trust. The suicide rate among male prisoners is four times as high as that of the general population. In the year to 2024, 89 male prisoners committed suicide. The Prison Service has a duty of care towards the prison population to protect them from committing suicide—to stop it. The Government run the Prison Service, so they must have a view on what to do about a prisoner whose suicide the Prison Service has correctly thwarted under its duty of care but who then requests an assisted death under the Bill. How will the Government balance those two conflicting things? That is my short intervention—to ask that question. I wholly support all the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, the noble Lords, Lord Moore and Lord Farmer, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester, and others on this crucial issue. I am genuinely interested to know what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, makes of this dilemma for the Prison Service and the Government.

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