Simon Jenkins is right that the Lords should not kill legislation by procedural manoeuvre (Unelected Lords are blocking assisted dying: that’s a democratic outrage) . But peers are not playing games with the assisted dying bill; they are finally providing the independent scrutiny it has so far lacked. And the carefully crafted campaign slogans collapse under examination.
Rather than addressing suffering, the bill makes no mention of it – let alone requiring, as most assisted dying laws do, that a person be experiencing suffering that cannot otherwise be relieved. And, rather than respecting autonomy, as the Swiss do, under this bill the state – not the individual – decides the circumstances in which ending your life is acceptable, and makes doctors the agents of that judgment.
I’m a doctor who is not opposed to legalising assisted dying. But I cannot support a proposal that would require me to treat a patient saying they want to end their life in a radically different way just because of their life expectancy: more than six months, suicide prevention; six months or less, assessment for a lethal prescription.
The real democratic failure lies not in the Lords’ scrutiny but in the private members bill process, which has allowed a single MP – effectively fronting a multimillion‑pound lobbying group and its century‑old model of assisted dying – to advance that anachronistic approach as if it were the only option, blocking consideration of safer, more ethically coherent alternatives.
Dr Lucy Thomas
Palliative care doctor
Simon Jenkins seems to misunderstand the role of the House of Lords. It is not there to pat the Commons on the back and wave through their legislation; its role is to scrutinise bills using the knowledge and expertise of the Lords and provide a second layer of analysis. Surely this is extremely important when we are talking about actual life and death?
The crossbench peer Tanni Grey-Thompson, who herself has tabled amendments, said on X: “The role of the House of Lords is to debate a bill line by line. The Commons by comparison have amendments and votes selected so sometimes chunks of a bill are not debated.”
She and other peers are discussing evidence from the disabled groups, psychiatrists, eating disorder specialists and others whose views were either not selected to be heard in the Commons – where the majority of the committee held pro-assisted dying views – or ignored.
Mr Jenkins may lambast the Lords, but many of us say thank goodness for them.
Penelope Jenkins
Kenilworth, Warwickshire
I often disagree with Simon Jenkins, but not this time. Seven lords a-leaping do indeed appear to be blocking, not scrutinising, the assisted dying bill. I am one of very many in favour of being granted the right to choose my death at the end of life.
It seems that some in the Lords are trying to argue that until palliative care is available to all, assisted dying should not be an option. This is absurd. Assisted dying and palliative care are not in opposition. Both are necessary and desirable. What is on offer in the bill is actually very limited.
The real fear is that access to assisted dying will be so hedged about with permissions from doctors and judges that it will be available only to a few better-off and well-connected members of the middle and upper classes.
Margaret Pelling
Oxford
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