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Lord Pannick (CB)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 14 November 2025

Debate

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Contribution

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Shamash. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, speaks with enormous authority based on enormous experience, but we are considering an amendment which seeks to replace “capacity” with “ability”. As Clause 3 of the Bill makes very clear, “capacity” is the term used because there is a well-established, tried and tested scheme under the Mental Capacity Act 2005. By contrast, the word “ability”, which the noble Baroness seeks to insert, is inherently uncertain; it has no defined legal meaning. There are later amendments to this Bill, to Clause 3, which do seek to address the concept of capacity in the context of this Bill. They are very important amendments and I look forward to our debates on them—but to insert “ability” as the governing concept would simply cause confusion.

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