Chamber and committees

As the last speaker from my party who will be speaking in favour of the bill, I say: what a day and what an afternoon. This has been the Parliament at its very best. At times such as this, the Parliament is much bigger than the sum of its parts. Members have been speaking without a party line, whip or pre-prepared script, so there have been some deeply moving and incredibly powerful contributions from all sides of the chamber.

I will not repeat all that has been said in the debate, because we have heard many testimonies and personal arguments, and many fundamental issues have been raised. Members who were able to be at the demonstration at lunch time had an opportunity to hear from some of those who are deeply affected by the issues that are raised in the bill, such as Dianne Risbridger, who is suffering from renal cancer and wants to have the opportunity to decide her end of life. She said that it is better to have the opportunity and not use it than to need it and then find that you do not have it.

Stephen Wisniewski talked about his mother’s extraordinarily painful death, which he and his brother had to progress through. Louise Shackleton talked about accompanying her husband to Dignitas in Switzerland. She made the point that he had to go far earlier than he needed to, and that if the opportunity for such a choice existed here, he would still be alive today, but he felt that he had to end his life at a point when he was still able to undertake that. We also heard from a woman whose husband was in the Royal Navy—a 50-something veteran who had inoperable brain cancer and who, on his third attempt at suicide, succeeded. Just think about what those people went through.

I pay tribute to Liam McArthur and the extraordinary work that he and generations of his teams have done. I also pay tribute to the committee’s work—Clare Haughey’s introduction of the committee’s consideration was deeply powerful.

I was in the Parliament for the two previous bills on this issue. I cannot look up to where Paul Sweeney and Maggie Chapman are sitting and not think of Margo MacDonald sitting in one or other of those two seats. She was hugely big-hearted and enormously compassionate, with an enormous personality. It is lovely that Peter Warren, who was her indefatigable parliamentary assistant, is up in the gallery and has been listening to the debate throughout our proceedings today.

I was also in the Parliament to support Patrick Harvie’s bill. It was probably the first and last time that I ever supported him in the chamber, which was probably a relief to him and me. I read through both of the stage 1 debates, and it strikes me that the world and the debate have moved on. The direction of travel has changed. I was the only Conservative who voted in favour of the previous bill on this issue. This time, although we may be in the minority, far more Conservatives are prepared to do so.

That is the direction of travel across the world and in public opinion, as shown by those who have made representations to us today. When I read the transcripts of the previous debates, I saw that the churches, the clinicians and all the medical practitioners were fundamentally against the principle of assisted dying. Now, they have moved to being neutral or taking a different view. Three of the four most recent leaders of my party believe that the legislation should be supported. The Parliament should have the courage to move forward, too.

I have been very engaged with the principle of deliberative democracy in this parliamentary session. One of the most interesting things to come from all those who have participated in the pilots, or whom I met elsewhere, is that they can accept a no if the issue is fully discussed, and they can accept a yes, even if it goes against what they believe, if the issue is fully discussed.

Therefore, I appeal to all members to allow us to have the fullest possible discussion of the issue, to take a breath for a moment and to look around the chamber that Enric Miralles built for us. Was it built to be a chamber where we closed down discussion, or was it built to be a chamber where we opened our hearts and our minds to the widest possible discussion of the most fundamental and difficult issues that we as a Parliament are ever asked to face?

I believe that we were not elected to be a nest of fearties. I accept that, if the bill progresses, it might end up with people concluding that they cannot support it, but surely it is our duty to all those out there who believe that there is an issue that we should explore more fundamentally that we do not, for the third time, after one debate, simply say, “This far and no further.” Let us take the issue and examine it fully.

I say to those who have talked about palliative care that I support the debate that Miles Briggs has begun. However, I note that, in both the previous debates—15 and 10 years ago—everybody said the same thing: that we need to do more in relation to palliative care. Here we are, still saying the same thing. That cannot be something that we hide behind.

Finally, in relation to one of the previous bills, a Church of Scotland minister turned to me and said, “Jackson, we all have a right to life, but we don’t have a duty to live.” The issue before us today is whether we believe that people should have the choice—in that final analysis, and in those final days with a terminal illness—as to whether they should be supported to make their own decision. Let us explore the issue further and give justification to those who have fought for it and to the architects of the bill by passing it at stage 1.

I thank all those who might be watching to see how we followed up the round-table discussion on PE2034. From my perspective, that was one of our most productive round-table discussions, because of the really useful information that our witnesses were able to bring.

The next petition is PE2034, which was lodged by Stuart Chirnside and calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to halt its current proposals for highly protected marine areas—HPMAs—in Scotland and to bring forward new proposals that take account of sustainable fishing methods.

We previously considered the petition at a meeting almost a year ago, on 29 May 2024, when we agreed to write to our friends at NatureScot, seeking clarification on whether it is undertaking any work related to highly protected marine areas. NatureScot responded to confirm that it is not progressing any work related to highly protected marine areas, in line with the Scottish Government’s announcement that it will not progress with the proposals.

In the light of that, do members have any suggestions as to how we might proceed?

I think that illuminating some of the alleged ways forward with evidence of incidents would be quite helpful in enabling the committee to understand whether such things have actually ever occurred.

I thank you again for your comments, Mr Ewing. Are members content to keep the petition open and to pursue the matter further in the way that has been suggested?

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you, Mr Ewing. That is all duly noted.

Mr Torrance’s recommendation is that we keep the petition open and pursue the issues as he has directed, which Mr Ewing has fleshed out. Are members content that we proceed on that basis?

Members indicated agreement.

Item 3 is consideration of new petitions, of which we have only one this morning. I highlight—as I always do—that, in advance of the committee considering new petitions, we do two things. First, we invite the Scottish Parliament’s independent research body, the Scottish Parliament information centre, to offer us a view on the issues that have been raised in the petition. That information is submitted to members of the committee in advance, with the papers that we receive. We also invite the Scottish Government to give us a preliminary view. We do those two things because, historically, they were the first two things that the committee used to recommend doing, which only delayed the progress and consideration of the petition. So, we come to the petition with those bits of information in front of us.

PE2147, lodged by Laura Jones on behalf of the Scottish Tenants Organisation, seeks to create more women-only homeless accommodation that protects and meets the specific needs of women. It calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to reform homeless services in Scotland, and to ensure that services protect women from sexual assault and exploitation, by increasing funding and supporting the creation of more women-only homeless accommodation.

The petitioner tells us that increasing numbers of women are being placed in unsuitable hotel and bed-and-breakfast emergency accommodation, with little consideration for the specific challenges and risks that that poses for women. The petitioner is concerned in particular about the risk of sexual assault and exploitation that women face when placed in temporary emergency accommodation.

As the SPICe briefing notes, although local authorities have a duty to assess anyone in their area who is applying as homeless and to provide temporary accommodation in certain circumstances, the Scottish Government has a policy to reduce the use of temporary accommodation. The briefing also highlights Scottish Government homelessness statistics for the period between April and September 2024, which indicate that hostels and bed and breakfast accommodation accounted for 24 per cent of temporary homeless accommodation.

In its response to the petition, the Scottish Government recognises that women’s experiences of homelessness are very different to men’s experiences, and the response to women’s housing needs should therefore also be different. The response draws our attention to the temporary accommodation standards framework, which was published in April 2023 and aims

“to ensure that any time spent in temporary accommodation causes minimal harm.”

To achieve that, it aims to ensure that the accommodation is of good quality, safe, warm and affordable, and that standards are consistent across Scotland. The framework includes standards on support to access different types of accommodation, which are allocated based on gender, and provision of single-gender accommodation for households that are experiencing domestic abuse. The Scottish Government response also references the implementation of the equally safe strategy, which is aimed at preventing violence against women and girls and supporting survivors who have experienced such abuse. In the year ahead, the Government will invest £21.6 million in delivering the equally safe funding programme.

Members will also have noted from our papers that issues related to the petition have been raised as part of the Housing (Scotland) Bill and the Social Justice and Social Security Committee’s inquiry on financial considerations when leaving an abusive relationship.

This is the first time that we have considered the petition and I can see that we are joined in the gallery by those who might have an interest in it. Colleagues, do you have any suggestions as to how we might proceed?

Thank you, Mr Ewing. I felt, in reading the Scottish Sentencing Council’s submission, that it had about it a terrible whiff of, “How can we get rid of this annoying inquiry by not really responding to it and doing so in the shortest possible way?” I did not feel that it was an adequate response whatsoever. It may not be possible to summarise matters, as the SSC suggests, but I think that it could have gone a little further in giving some examples that it may be aware of from its own experience in order to illuminate the issue further for the committee. I do not think that the SSC’s response did the committee’s inquiry justice at all. I am, therefore, very much of the view that Mr Ewing’s suggestions have merit.

Do colleagues wish to add anything, or are we content to keep the petition open and pursue these matters with the Government and in particular with the Lord Advocate and the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs?

We come to PE2102, which is our final continued petition this morning. The petition was lodged by Anna-Cristina Seaver and calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to abolish the option of an absolute discharge in cases in which the accused is found guilty of rape or sexual assault, and to introduce a statutory minimum sentence for those offences, including the convicted person being registered as a sex offender.

We previously considered the petition on 25 September 2024, when we agreed to write to the Scottish Government, Victim Support Scotland, Rape Crisis Scotland and the Scottish Sentencing Council. The Scottish Government’s response states that it supports discretion for the criminal court when sentencing in individual cases, including imposing an absolute discharge for rape and sexual assault, if the judge considers that to be appropriate. The submission states that the Scottish Government does not have any current plans to adjust the powers of the court to impose absolute discharges in criminal cases.

The committee asked the Scottish Sentencing Council for details on circumstances in which an absolute discharge might be given; we were curious to understand why that would happen if someone had been found guilty of rape or sexual assault. Its response states that, as each case is unique and turns on its own facts and circumstances, it is not possible for the council to be more specific about what exceptional circumstances might amount to in respect of any offence, which does not advance us terribly much.

Victim Support Scotland supports the aims of the petition and states in its response that there is no evidence to support a view that there are cases sufficiently exceptional to warrant an absolute discharge for sexual crimes. Given the seriousness of rape and sexual assault, Victim Support Scotland believes that there should always be some form of punishment and safeguarding for the public as the result of a guilty verdict. Its submission states that abolishing the absolute discharge for sexual crimes would validate the experience of survivors, show a clear outcome from the trial and demonstrate that justice has been carried out.

Rape Crisis Scotland’s response states that it is difficult to imagine any circumstance in which an absolute discharge would be appropriate for a crime as serious as rape.

Do members have any comments or suggestions for action?

Thank you. As there are no other comments or observations, are we content to support Mr Golden’s proposed action?

Members indicated agreement.

Mr Torrance proposes switching the lights off on this particular petition.

Welcome to the eighth meeting in 2025 of the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee.

Our rather dry order of business ensures that our first agenda item is a decision on taking business in private. Agenda items 4 and 5 relate to the consideration of a draft report on public participation and a paper on how the committee might consider requests from individuals to remove their names from active petitions. Does the committee agree to take those items in private?

Members indicated agreement.