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Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 21 November 2025

Debate

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Contribution

My Lords, I have a few amendments in this group. My Amendment 118 seeks to introduce “an independent financial review and background check on close relatives before eligibility can proceed. It aims to block eligibility where there is known financial abuse risk”. My Amendment 462 aims “to make coercion/financial abuse checking a shared statutory duty of both the Commissioner and the multidisciplinary Review Panel”. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, has set out some of the issues and concerns about coercion, which I do not need to repeat. I am a long-standing supporter of Hourglass, an amazing organisation devoted to combating the abuse of older people. It is neutral on the Bill, but its chief executive said in evidence to the House of Commons that “there is an epidemic of abuse against older people at the moment. Some of it is due to the economic climate that we are in, with people just wanting to have their inheritance now, and some of it is due to the fact that older people feel like a burden”.—[Official Report, Commons, Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill Committee, 29/1/25; col. 160.]

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