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Lord Winston (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 5 December 2025

Debate

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Contribution

My Lords, I suggest that the noble Baroness, meaning absolutely well in a clearly very emotional area, has forgotten the real science. She is not a neuroscientist; indeed, I do not think that the commissioner is a neuroscientist. The greatest expert in the United Kingdom on teenage neuroscience is almost unquestionably Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, who works partly in London, partly in Cambridge and of course has been working extensively at UCL for a long time. She has studied teenagers in great detail, and it is very clear from her work on teenagers making decisions that they can make decisions in the right environment and in the right circumstances. I think one has to be very, very careful about making assertions about teenagers. There are many people well over the age of 25 who cannot make these decisions either. I think we have to be quite clear that we may need to take this sort of thing into consideration, but I do not think it is necessarily relevant to this amendment.

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