The House of Lords stands accused of sabotaging a landmark bill on assisted dying after peers tabled a record-breaking 942 amendments, a move campaigners say is a deliberate attempt to talk the legislation out of existence. The development has left those with terminal illnesses, including a man with just months to live, feeling heartbroken and fearful of dying in unbearable pain.
A Plea for Peace from the Dying
Nathaniel Dye, a 39-year-old music teacher from east London, is living with incurable stage 4 bowel cancer that has spread to his liver, lungs and brain. He has been made an MBE for his campaigning work and now faces the prospect that the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill will come too late for him.
"I fear my family seeing me die in unbearable pain," Mr Dye told The Mirror. "Twenty people a day die in unmanaged pain. I'd rather die peacefully for everyone's sake." He described the flood of amendments as putting up barriers and warned that if the bill is blocked by "parliamentary fun and games," it could signal an "existential crisis for the House of Lords."
Mr Dye is one of more than 100 terminally ill people and their families who have signed a letter urging peers to listen to their voices. "Decisions about how we die must not be made without hearing from those who live with dying every day," they wrote.
Haunted by Memories of Agony
Another signatory, Jenny Carruthers, 57, from Bath, is determined to spare her children the trauma she witnessed when her partner, Gypie Mayo, died of liver cancer in 2013. She recalls him screaming in agony, a memory that haunts her.
Diagnosed with terminal breast cancer, Ms Carruthers wants the option of a peaceful death at home. "What they're doing now is vicious," she said of the Lords' actions. "Given our few number of pages, we've overtaken everyone, all the other bills that are in parliament by miles, and it is a way of them blocking and slowing us down."
She described her ideal passing: "Ultimately what I'd like is to be able to have a last night in my own bed, hold their hands, have a glass of champagne and say 'night night' and to be peaceful. What I'm headed to isn't that."
Wrecking Amendments and Public Outcry
The sheer volume of amendments has been condemned by campaign group Dignity in Dying as procedural games. A YouGov poll commissioned by the group found that 58% of the public believe it is unacceptable for the unelected Lords to "talk out" a bill already passed by the Commons.
Among the hundreds of amendments tabled are several contentious proposals:
- Lord Frost’s amendment requiring that illness is causing "unbearable suffering... which cannot be relieved."
- Amendments from Baronesses O’Loan and Grey-Thompson demanding a negative pregnancy test.
- Baroness Coffey’s amendment stating a person "has not left the UK in the last 12 months," a rule that would prevent terminally ill people from fulfilling bucket-list travels.
Sarah Wootton, CEO of Dignity in Dying, stated: "Peers have a responsibility to ensure this debate focuses on the people whose lives and deaths are shaped by the current law... With almost a thousand amendments tabled, the risk of deliberate time-wasting is clear - and profoundly unfair to dying people."
The bill, which has twice won backing in the House of Commons, now faces its committee stage in the Lords on Friday, with its future hanging in the balance as terminally ill people watch on, hoping for a change that may come too late for them.
