I have not been given instructions.

I am happy to take the member’s intervention, and I am sorry for the delay in doing so.

I thank members for that discussion. I have listened carefully, particularly to some of the technical aspects, not least from Patrick Harvie on social media. I have also listened to Liam McArthur’s points on the specific provisions in the amendment.

I want to test with Liam McArthur the point on the breadth of the definition and what my amendment is seeking to not advertise, if that is the right way of putting it. We have an opportunity to look at whether the definition should be broader. It is not necessarily unhelpful that it is broad, given that existing legislation can change and that there could well be a difference between UK and Scottish legislation.

I would be keen to know whether that aspect would be a deal breaker at stage 3, if I were to bring back a revised amendment, or whether there are other aspects of the amendment that Liam McArthur thinks could be tightened up through drafting that would meet with some support.

I have been instructed to move the amendment.

Amendment 159 moved—[Pam Duncan-Glancy].

I understand that my amendments could do that. In one sense, you could say that you would see that data on deaths from both approaches caused change. However, the problem that we have is that by not including the assisted death element of the death on the certificate, we could be suggesting that cancer—to use your example—was the cause. However, we would not know whether it would have been the cause, because the person has instead died as a result of ingesting the substance.

We could run the risk of underreporting the numbers of assisted deaths, but we could also run the risk of not reporting accurately the reason why the person died. A person might not have ultimately died from their terminal illness; something else could have ended their life. In the case that we are discussing, that something else would be the ingestion of the substance that they chose to take in order to end their life.

Including the terminal illness on the death certificate is important, and that is why my amendments do not say that that information would not be there; the amendments simply reflect that we could not accurately say that the terminal illness caused that death, because, at that moment in time, it would not necessarily have been the cause.

I do not think that recording something that is not necessarily accurate in such important documentation is right or proper.

I appreciate that this is a difficult issue, but accuracy and transparency are really important. If deaths were recorded in a way that did not highlight that they were a result of an assisted death, we would create difficulties in the future. Not only would the information not be accurate, but it would, to an extent, be difficult to evaluate the social, medical and ethical impacts of the legislation.

Claire Baker has asked me to say, “Not moved”, if that is helpful.

No, that is not my intention. My intention is to catch things that would be directive and which would encourage someone to actively make that particular choice. Social media is a space in which advertisements are used; in fact, a lot of adverts come through social media, so I think that it is particularly important that, if we are to regulate advertising, we include social media. If we did not do so, we would be precluding a large platform that is consumed by many people and which we know includes advertising. That is why it is important to include that in the bill.

I move amendment 252.

I thank the member for offering that information in response to my question, which I appreciate. On balance, having heard that response, it is worth testing the issue with the committee at this point. This is a matter of principle as well as a matter of detail.

The point that has just been made about the need for information is different to the point about advertisements, and the amendment tries to deal with that. I believe that we, as a Parliament, need to make a clear statement that advertising assisted dying is not something that we support, given that any kind of encouragement or suggestion could leave vulnerable people without key protections.

Advertisements are often subtle, but they can be really powerful, so it is important for us to make the point at this stage that we do not believe that advertising assisted dying should take place. Of course, there may be other opportunities at stage 3 to look at the technical details. However, this has become a question of principle again, and it is important that we address that here, so I will press amendment 252.

Again, I have been asked to move the amendment.

Amendment 160 moved—[Pam Duncan-Glancy].

I will press amendment 229. We have had much debate on the group, including from last week, so I will be brief in my remarks, but I will remind us of some of the discussion that we had last week, which is important.

Checks and balances in legislation, particularly in matters of life and death, are crucial. Members have asked whether the referrals in my amendments, which come at the end point, are too late, perhaps suggesting that there is an issue with the drafting. However, the fact is that referrals do not readily happen. Referrals to social work or to disabled people’s organisations, to help disabled people or terminally ill people understand what it could be like to have to live a life in which they have a loss of function of some description, do not happen all that readily.

That is why it is important that, in this legislation if in no other—it should be in other legislation, too, but we have one piece of legislation before us today—referrals must be in place. I seek to add them to the bill because, as a last resort, surely, in considering life and death, the Parliament must contend that such provisions are crucial, even if we cannot provide them before that.

Many disabled people talk about how disabled people’s organisations changed their lives and helped them to see that life was indeed worth living. I note some of the comments that were made last week, particularly by my colleague Liam McArthur, saying that that is subjective. That is true, but so is the level of tolerance that people have for loss, and so is the desire to live or die. People who are seeking to end their lives must have access to that emancipatory support. Without it, life may appear, for some, to be intolerable.

Right now, the organisations that provide such support are on their knees and there have been questions about capacity, but there is no requirement to meet requirements on social care or housing—nor, indeed, to prevent poverty. Liam McArthur was right, last week, to raise questions about local authorities’ ability to meet the requirements of article 19 of the UNCRPD. Indeed, I am sure that they readily fall short, due to the lack of resources that they get. My amendments are an 11th-hour attempt to force action on the human rights of disabled people, which, surely, the Parliament must ensure that we put in place, to make it easier to live if—should the bill progress to stage 3 and pass—we legislate to help people to die.

Furthermore, I suggest that, in the absence of solid mitigation against such intolerable circumstances, fears that are proffered—for example, that people will not declare money concerns or the feeling of being a burden, so that they may be supported to die—would be better addressed by ensuring that the amendments are made, so that it is easier to live, rather than rejecting them, as has been the case so far.

These are reasoned amendments. They would protect the human rights of disabled people and people with terminal illnesses, and I encourage the committee to support them.

I press amendment 229.