Tag: Newcastle

The Bishop of Newcastle spoke at the second reading of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill on 12th September 2025, touching on her experience of the assisted dying debate in New Zealand and flaws in this legislation:

The Lord Bishop of Newcastle: My Lords, this is not the first country in which I have lived and worked during such a debate as this. I was a Bishop in New Zealand ahead of the referendum on a similar Bill there five years ago. I witnessed the arguments, heard the reassurances and have since followed its implementation, including the pressures on healthcare professionals and the unforeseen consequences from a lack of clarity around process.

Only recently, New Zealand published its five-year review of the Act, highlighting significant practical challenges, concluding that the review committee is ineffective as an oversight body and recommending reforms. Five years on from the passing of a Bill much like the one before us, it would be irresponsible not to take its findings seriously. Most strikingly, the report highlights confused principles for the service and even recommends that the New Zealand Government establish specific principles to underpin the Act. This is no small matter—to be five years into providing the service without clarity on the principles on which it was built. For legislation where the consequences of poor drafting are so high, it is alarming that such principles were not defined from the outset. Yet, almost a year into the passage of this Private Member’s Bill, we are still discussing core concepts, without sufficient detail on how a state-sponsored suicide service would be implemented. That should trouble us all.