New Petition
Deceased’s Body (Deceased’s Estate) (PE1442)
Our next new petition is PE1442, by Douglas Reid, on the body upon death becoming part of the estate. I welcome our witnesses, Douglas Reid, Matthew Turner and Leona Turner, and thank them for coming along to the meeting. I also welcome Helen Eadie.
My intention is to ask Douglas Reid to kick off with a five-minute introduction, followed by some words from Helen Eadie. After that, I will ask my colleagues to ask questions about the petition.
Good morning. Scotland is one of the most enlightened societies in the world, and its laws reflect that. However, from time to time, something does not quite add up. I feel sure that the case of the status of the body upon death must have been an oversight or some problem to do with the interpretation of legal language. Whatever the case, like everyone I have spoken to about the matter, I was astounded to find out that, in the 21st century, I could make everyone aware of my wishes for the disposal of my body and write them down in my last will and testament, but they could still be overruled.
Since starting this petition, I have met people who have encountered various forms of alterations to their relatives’ wishes, such as cremation rather than burial and vice versa; people not being buried at sea or at a forestry site; and people’s remains not being donated to medical science. People’s last wishes are wide and varied, but they should be carried out.
In this modern age, undertakers are equipped to deal with any request. I have a photograph here of a hearse that is being pulled by a lovely, big motorcycle, which shows the extent to which they can become involved in people’s wishes. They are considering resomation to answer the concerns of the establishment and to deal with the wishes of people who do not want to pollute the atmosphere, even in death, and they are willing to cover the multiplicity of religious denominations in our cosmopolitan population.
The donation of the body to anatomical studies is possibly the most thoroughly secure option, as there are checks and balances throughout. That indicates the fulfilling of a person’s last wish. They have filled out the requisite forms and, upon death, the body must be put in a temperature-controlled state as quickly as possible. The embalming is a longer-term process, and the aftercare is the ultimate in professionalism.
My request is not so much a petition. It is not like a campaign on behalf of policies on wages, better land or housing. People do not talk openly about death, but, as I did when I found out that my last will and desires could be overruled because of an unfortunate omission in law, someone has to speak out.
I urge your good selves to put in motion the required legal procedures to amend the law accordingly. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr Reid.
I am pleased to be here this morning to support Mr Reid, whom I have known for 20-plus years. We have been good friends in that period but, apart from that friendship and my long-standing commitment to him, I believe that what he is asking for is absolutely right.
When I think back to my time on the Health and Sport Committee, I wish that I had known about this issue when we were discussing the Certification of Death (Scotland) Bill. I apologise to Mr Reid for not thinking about the issue at that time. If I had known about it, I certainly would have lodged some amendments to the bill.
I hope that the committee finds the same merit as I do in what Mr Reid proposes. I think that it is an individual’s right to be able to dispose of their body as they wish. I cannot imagine any one of us round the table who would wish to overlook or devalue in any way the advantages that come from medical research and the disposal of a body in that way. It is my pleasure to give my absolute support this morning to Mr Reid and his petition, and to help him in every way that I possibly can, as I have done throughout the process.
I thank Helen Eadie for coming along and giving up her time to support the petition. Before I put some questions to Mr Reid, I should emphasise to Matthew Turner and Leona Turner that, if they wish to ask any questions or make any points, they should feel free to do so by raising their hands as if they were in school.
Mr Reid, your petition is very interesting. Have you any particular evidence that, throughout Scotland, nearest relatives have changed the wishes in a deceased person’s will with regard to body donation?
As I said, people want to do something about death, but usually when it is too late. They say, “Oh, I wish I had done that.” They will talk about it, but they will not stick up their hand and say, “Count me in.” Even after the event, people tend to go away and say, “I’ll try and do that.”
For example, the figures on wills show that, unfortunately, less than 50 per cent of people have made a will. There are countless advertisements in the papers and all sorts of media forums to try to entice people to make wills through various professional bodies. I even had a telephone call last night from an international welfare organisation for animals to try to get me to put a small endowment towards saving wild animals.
As Helen Eadie mentioned, there are no figures; there are only my studies over the past two years since the issue arose initially.
On medical research and education, as Helen Eadie has said it is important to ensure that we have the requisite number of doctors and other medical professionals but they need human tissue to work on. I have set out my wishes, and my family is well aware of them. However, if human tissue is not dealt with immediately, it is of no use to medical science. Unfortunately, that has happened. The universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow would take all the human bodies that they could get. Thankfully, due to Professor Sue Black’s influence, Dundee is pretty much on an even keel. The figures for Aberdeen and St Andrews are not so high.
There are roughly 50,000 deaths a year in Scotland. The universities need from 3 to 5 per cent of bodies to do their research. About 975 students in Scotland need human tissue to work on, not to mention—as the universities have told me—the overseas students who come to Britain, because their countries do not allow human tissue to be used, and earn income for Scotland. They come here, get trained—which is a marvellous thing—and go back and save lives in their own countries. We have helped their education but we have also got the revenue from them, or at least the universities have. The general public are still very apprehensive about talking about death and “What have you done about Auntie Maisie’s disposal?” and so on.
I think that members would all agree that it is important that people leave a will, because of the great danger of dying intestate. I think that the committee understands that it is important that people make some provision for organ donation to help medical science. The issue that I was raising was whether there was any evidence that people’s wishes have been changed after their death. That is probably the key point as far as your petition is concerned, is it not?
To repeat what I have said, convener, I know nothing other than what people have told me. As Helen Eadie said, people did not know that their last wishes could be changed. It must have been an oversight.
Good morning, Mr Reid, Matthew and Leona. This is a useful petition because the issue is quite relevant for me. Earlier this year, I was approached by a constituent at my surgery to sign off the medical forms for the individual to donate their body to medical science. We spent some time discussing the issue before I signed the paperwork. The difficulty was that there was a dispute within the family, and my constituent had had to wait for an appropriate time to get all the family together to express her wishes about what she wanted to happen to her body after she died. Despite that, some family members were still concerned and indicated that they would not adhere to her wish to donate her body.
Your petition has brought focus to the issue of a person’s last wishes and whether, even if they have included those wishes in their will, the next of kin has to adhere to the terms of that will. The body is not part of the estate, and the next of kin can deal with the remains as they see fit.
I accept that the issue about donating the body to medical science is clear, but I seek clarification from you. In your opening remarks, you referred to several ways in which the body could be dealt with, including burial at sea, woodland burial and cremation. All those come with costs attached. Someone may say that they want to be buried in a £10,000 coffin, but the issue is how that is dealt with if the family or the people who are dealing with the burial cannot afford to carry out the last wishes of the individual.
We have to bear it in mind that, although someone may wish to have their body disposed of in a particular way, burial at sea is very cumbersome, expensive and fraught with legal pitfalls. In terms of your petition, how do we deal with those other issues that have been raised, bearing in mind that we may be putting an onus on family members that may be financially burdensome?
11:30
I appreciate what you are saying, but I do not think that it is an answer to itemise things. For example, the items that are definitely in a will that are unalterable can be a multiplicity of things that, regardless of body disposal, can leave a family very much in debt. Most of the people whom I have spoken to have thought the thing out quite well and have provided finances to account for their particular request. That issue has certainly not been raised with me in the two years that I have been discussing this.
Obviously, I could not and would not attempt to cover every type of financial eventuality, but why is a person’s body not treated like everything else that is attached to a person’s estate? Whatever happens within that particular estate would be covered by the respective laws associated with those things, whether that be in relation to property, material things, antiques or whatever—you name it, it would be covered—but at least the body would also be covered.
Bear it in mind, if I may return to my original point, that I am not here to defend myself. If I am in a state of life ending, I cannot defend myself but I will have put everything in print. All that I desire is for my wishes to be carried out.
Mr Reid, good morning. I think that your petition is underpinned with a very noble object in mind but, never mind the cost aspect of it, I am not necessarily persuaded that the current arrangement is not sensible and practical. I would like to ask you in what sense you think that it is not.
I anticipate that most relatives and executors of estates would do all that they could to honour the wishes of the person who had died. However, supposing that the individual died abroad—or died at sea or died up a mountain where it took a fortnight to recover the body—it may not be practical to honour in law the request within the deceased’s last will and testament regarding the disposal of their body. It seems to me that the current arrangement obviously obtains for those administered with the task. Yes, they must do all that they can to honour the sentiment of the individual in question, but they must have some regard to whether that objective is in fact practicable. To create a law that mandated a responsibility to do exactly what the deceased had requested may simply not be practicable.
Again, those thoughts and practicalities are there. For example, at the moment my family are fully aware of my desires, but they might become involved emotionally or otherwise with others who might be very persuasive and influential in making them alter their views. Indeed, Mr Wilson has just said that he has been involved with a family that was betwixt and between. That is the point that concerns me. Betwixt and between they may be, but it is not their body—it is my body.
Many years ago, when I was involved in the trade union movement, a lady delegate died in Malta and we brought her back to Britain to fulfil her wishes. We did that because we knew what her wishes were. If a request is practical, the thing will be done; if it is not, it cannot be done.
Coming right back to the bone of it, I do not think that, when the legislation on wills was first drawn up—I do not know when that was—and people were entitled to make a will that was to be adhered to, we had overseas travel, flights, cruises, emigration and all the rest of it. Back in the Australian colonies, if somebody was a criminal and died in Australia, did they transport them back to Britain to get buried in Perth cemetery? Excuse my laughing. Now that I have a vote and rights as an individual, I can only see it as an omission that my basic rights might not be fulfilled.
I accept the medical research aspect of it, which Mr Wilson alluded to, and that there may be circumstances in which someone’s body will not go to medical science either because of how they died or because of other circumstances. The university will not accept a body unless it is whole, intact and received in a limited time. I accept that limitation.
A thought came into my mind about expense. I am a Scotsman and, I like to think, a good patriot. When it occurred to me, some of my colleagues said, “Trust you, Dougie.” When someone donates their body to medical science, they do not pay for the cremation—that is done for them, so there is a saving to be made.
Thank you for that. As no other committee members want to ask questions and Matthew and Leona do not wish to add anything, we move to the next section of the meeting in which we will consider how we will deal with the petition. Your evidence and Helen Eadie’s will be very helpful as we consider our next steps.
I think that it is worth continuing the petition and asking the Scottish Government for its views. We could also ask for the views of university anatomy departments and Her Majesty’s Inspector of Anatomy for Scotland. Does any committee member have any other views or suggestions?
The Scottish Law Commission looked at a report on the estate of the deceased person in 2009. I suggest that we write to the commission, asking for its views on the petition and whether it thinks that it would be appropriate to consider some of the issues that have been raised by Mr Reid today.
Are members agreed on that course of action?
Members indicated agreement.
We will continue the petition and seek advice from various organisations. We will keep you up to date with developments, Mr Reid. I thank you, Matthew, Leona and Helen Eadie for coming along.
I suspend the meeting to allow the witnesses to leave.
11:39
Meeting suspended.
11:40
On resuming—