Baroness Grey-Thompson — Hansard

Lords Debate 7 July 2026

Railways Bill

My Lords, I start by drawing the House’s attention to my registered interests. I am chair of the Accessible Transport Policy Commission and a board member of Active Travel England. The Disability Discrimination Act was passed in 1995. It was the bare minimum of what it was possible to get through P…

Lords Debate 24 April 2026

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

I will continue. Almost 250 Members of this House have been involved in a massive and sustained effort to try to make the Bill safe and workable. The House staff, as we have heard, have been outstanding in their service to us all and I am sure we are extremely thankful and grateful to them for that.…

Lords Committee Stage 15 April 2026

Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) (Amendment) Regulations 2026

My Lords, I declare my interest as the founder and director of Cignpost Express Test, which did a lot of Covid testing for sports events and currently does health screening at PGA golf events and Mercedes Formula 1 testing, so I have quite a bit of experience in health screening. As other noble Lord…

Lords Debate 13 April 2026 2 contributions

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 263ZA and 263ZB. I declare that I am chair of Sport Wales, I have recently been appointed to the board of Active Travel England and I am a patron of Fields in Trust. Sport England is notified only if there is loss or damage to sports fields. While I admire the Go…

My Lords, I have attached my name to both amendments. I cannot say that I have quite as long a history in accessible transport as the noble Lord, Lord Borwick, does, but in the mid-1990s, I sat on the National Disability Council with the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, which oversaw the implementation of…

Lords Debate 27 March 2026 3 contributions

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

My Lords, I have Amendments 673A and 679 in this group. Amendment 673A would provide that a medical practitioner who had opted into the process could choose to opt out at any time, and Amendment 679 would insert a new clause. I will start with a number of questions for the noble and learned Lord. I…

My Lords, in addressing the noble Lord, Lord McCrea, I think the noble and learned Lord was actually answering one of my questions on Amendment 679. I think the noble and learned Lord suggested that there might be a differentiation between NHS and private providers in the hospice sector. Does he see…

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Lords Debate 20 March 2026 4 contributions

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

My Lords, I have Amendments 172, 322, 322A and 406 in this group, which address the requirements of accessibility, BSL and Braille. In speaking to her amendments, the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser of Craigmaddie, raised a number of issues. While I tabled all my amendments before the start of Committe…

My Lords, in moving Amendment 168, I will speak to a number of amendments in this group. The lunchtime break was very useful in being able to reflect on the discussion of the previous group and think about where the two areas may interact. Clause 22 of the Bill introduces a new role of independent …

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Lords Debate 13 March 2026 3 contributions

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

My Lords, I shall speak to two amendments in this group, Amendments 701 and 703. The noble Lord, Lord Murray of Blidworth, raised some very valid points in the earlier group on local variation. The method that my noble friend Lady Finlay has raised seeks to address some of the issues that many of us…

My Lords, the purpose of my amendments in this group is to ensure that all patients’ needs are taken into account and support is given so that people have a genuine choice. I am delighted that my noble friend Lady Campbell of Surbiton will speak to this group. Amendment 149 would ensure that the sub…

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Lords Debate 2 March 2026 4 contributions

Crime and Policing Bill

My Lords, I have a number of amendments in this group: Amendments 240, 241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248B, 263 and 265. I have also added my name to Amendments 257 and 264, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Polak, which I strongly support. Unfortunately, the noble Lord is not able to be in his pla…

I apologise that the Minister has not seen the letter. If I had realised that he had not seen it, I would have made sure he did. I recognise that it is difficult for him to respond to a letter that he has not seen. Will the Minister make a commitment at the Dispatch Box that, if I do not move Amendm…

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Lords Debate 27 February 2026 4 contributions

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

My Lords, I have two amendments in this group, the first of which is Amendment 125. I am concerned because the Bill as it stands leaves the responsibility of appointing the commissioner to the Prime Minister alone, with no guarantee of the usual safeguards that are applied to public appointments. As…

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser, raised some interesting points in this group of amendments. I do not have the noble Lord’s experience of local councils—I declare that I am president of the LGA, but that is largely an honorary role—but I have a lot of exper…

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Lords Debate 24 February 2026

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

My Lords, I covered Amendment 17A, in my name, in Committee, so I will be brief. Currently, the vast majority of cigarette butts are made of cellulose acetate, and each cigarette butt contains around two straws-worth of plastic. Globally, around 6 trillion cigarettes are smoked each year, with 4.5 …

Lords Debate 6 February 2026 6 contributions

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendments 82 and 83A, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Polak. I note that Amendment 83, which was tabled by my noble friend Lady Murphy and the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, has been withdrawn. It would have extended the period of eligibility from six to 12 month…

My Lords—

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Lords Committee Stage 2 February 2026

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

My Lords, I strongly support Amendment 121A from the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. I apologise for not speaking at Second Reading, but a number of amendments have emerged in this Bill that fit my wider interest in accessibility. I did not want to repeat myself, as some of the issues fall under the pre…

Lords Debate 30 January 2026 5 contributions

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

I realise that your Lordships wish to get on to the substance of the Bill, and the points I am about to raise are specifically on the Bill and will have an impact on the groupings we are about to debate. I notified the Chief Whip, the clerks and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, of my inten…

My Lords, technology has gone a long way to helping disabled people to lead inclusive and integrated lives in British society, and I generally support the use of it. But for many of us who worked on the coronavirus legislation, where we had to make very quick decisions, the speed with which we went …

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Lords Debate 23 January 2026 3 contributions

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

My Lords, I read this group of amendments with a lot of interest, in terms of whether a different way would be possible. I thank my noble friend for tabling them. I agree with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle that Australia is not an accurate comparative country to look at. Actual…

My apologies for intervening, but my noble friend mentioned the number of people who access palliative care. The state of New South Wales promised £743 million in extra funding for palliative care over a five-year period, but, when the law was passed, it cut that funding by £150 million and diverted…

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Lords Debate 21 January 2026 2 contributions

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

My Lords, Amendment 90 in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, seeks to require the Secretary of State to report to Parliament on the barriers preventing parents of critically ill children being by their bedside. I have been working with Ceri and Frances Menai-Davis…

My Lords, I thank everyone who has taken part in the debate today. I will not seek to sum up because I know we have a heavy schedule of business, but I think I am right in saying that there has been universal support for the amendment, which shows the devastating impact that situations like this can…

Lords Debate 16 January 2026 5 contributions

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

My Lords, I shall speak to three amendments in this group—Amendment 38, in the name of my noble friend Lady O’Loan, to which my name is attached, and Amendments 39 and 68. Amendment 38 seeks to address the challenges of those who have bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder or other condit…

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Harper; when he was a Minister, we had many interesting discussions, although they were possibly not as collaborative as those with my noble friend Lady Campbell. This group talks about motivation and I am sure we are going to be told t…

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Lords Debate 16 January 2026

Rare Cancers Bill

My Lords, it is an honour to follow my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. The noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, reminded us of that special day when Tessa Jowell spoke. I was sitting here and—I think this is what the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, was trying to say—the noble Lord, Lord O’Shau…

Lords Debate 9 January 2026 4 contributions

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 67 in my name, in which I have sought to bring back the role of the High Court judge. The complexity of this group of amendments is shown here, but I thought that it could be done with one amendment rather than the number of amendments that my noble friend Lord Carlile…

Oh, absolutely: I think pressure is something incredibly important that we have to assess. Certainly, from the huge number of disabled people I have spoken to, pressure comes in many different ways, and it is very difficult to detect. If we do not take that seriously, I think people will be coerced …

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Lords Debate 12 December 2025 5 contributions

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 21, tabled in my name, from personal experience. The richness of the debate today shows that, even in your Lordships’ Chamber, we all have completely different experiences of how we access a GP practice. I tabled this amendment partly from personal experience, tr…

The comments made by my noble friend Lady Gerada explaining the team-based approach seem very sensible in terms of providing that continuity of care. I am very lucky that I see the same GP every time I go; it is interesting to understand that not everybody experiences that. I am not absolutely welde…

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Lords Debate 21 November 2025 3 contributions

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

My Lords, I have three amendments in this group—Amendments 52, 58 and 181—which seek to explore coercion and ensure that people are free from undue influence, including social, economic and care-related pressures—not only active coercion, which is very difficult to prove. These amendments also seek …

This partly follows on from the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox. The noble and learned Lord mentioned in his previous answer to one of my amendments that the doctors would be able to investigate. I think many of us still do not understand how that investigation would take place. In terms of…

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Lords Debate 14 November 2025 5 contributions

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

I am very interested in that, because the response that I have had from the Minister is that nobody should be working on this beyond the Bill team, so nobody should be working on implementation. What the noble Baroness says is very interesting.

My Lords, this is the first debate in Committee on this important Bill so I hope that the Committee will allow me to take a minute or two to set out the approach of the Official Opposition. As my noble friend Lord Kamall and I said at Second Reading, the Official Opposition have no collective view o…

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Lords Committee Stage 3 November 2025

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment 34 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, to which I and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, have added our names. I declare an interest as the president of the Local Government Association. I thank ASH—Action on Smoking and Health—for its briefing, in whi…

Lords Committee Stage 30 October 2025

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

My Lords, I shall speak on Amendments 13 to 15. I apologise for not adding my name to Amendments 139 and 140, but I strongly support them. I added my name to this group of amendments because I did not know an awful lot about oral nicotine. I was talking to a group of university students about my st…

Lords Debate 27 October 2025

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

My Lords, I support Amendment 107 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Addington. I declare that I am chair of Sport Wales and president of the Local Government Association. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, talked about those who volunteer for sports clubs. It is a tough job, but people do it because …

Lords Committee Stage 27 October 2025

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

My Lords, I shall speak very briefly to Amendment 193, to which my name is added. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, for explaining its aim so well. I also support Amendment 4 from the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, and declare an interest as president of the LGA and chair of Sport Wales. Wi…