Chamber and committees

The bill is important to people across Scotland, including my constituents, and I am grateful to everyone who has contacted me about it.

Assisted dying already exists for people who have the financial means to access it, but that choice is not available to most Scots. Denied access to safe and legal assisted dying, hundreds of terminally ill people in the UK end their lives each year, and many more attempt to do so.

Robert Easton was a retired firefighter from Hamilton. Dying with pancreatic cancer, Robert desperately wanted choice. He considered Switzerland, where assisted dying is legal, but cost and other barriers ruled it out. That led him to research ways to end his own life.

Some of the methods were brutal, says Robert’s daughter, Joanne Easton, who has come to Parliament today. Joanne told me:

“Dying people should not be forced to consider going into the woods with a length of rope. They should not have to think about stepping in front of trains. It took him three weeks to die, in hospital then hospice. It was so drawn-out. I thought; I need to get him drugs. I would have done anything for him. But it was too risky; I didn’t know what would happen.”

I was moved to learn that, before he died, Robert sold his motorbike and gave the money to the hospice.

Like this bill, his story is not about palliative care versus assisted dying; it is about choice, dignity and person-centred care at the end of life. Joanne says that she will regret for the rest of her life that her dad was not given the choice that he wanted.

Sadly, even with universal access to hospice care in Scotland, hundreds of Scots a year would still suffer with immense pain as they die. Four in 10 Scots have seen a loved one suffer in that way.

I believe that the status quo is unfair, unsafe and unregulated and that it is failing dying Scots. Therefore, I agree with the bill’s policy memorandum that

“an individual’s personal autonomy to decide on their medical care, and how their life should end in situations of terminal illness, should be protected in law”.

In a compelling letter to MSPs, Rhona Baillie, chief executive officer of the Prince and Princess of Wales hospice in Glasgow, explains her view that, rather than being a replacement for excellent palliative care, assisted dying is a potential addition to the options that are available to those who face terminal illness. This position is not one of advocacy or opposition, but of commitment to patient-centred care. I agree with Rhona Baillie that the discussion around assisted dying should focus not solely on clinician opinion but on ensuring that people have informed, compassionate choices at the end of life.

There is a solid majority of public support in every constituency, including among disabled people, for a compassionate assisted dying law, so should the bill not be allowed to proceed to the amending stages for further scrutiny?

Liam McArthur has prosecuted the case for the bill in a respectful and collaborative manner, and I hope that members take the opportunity to work with him at stage 2.

I support Liam McArthur’s proposal to amend the bill to raise the minimum age to 18 and I welcome the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee report’s recommendation for clarity on some matters.

The bill rightly contains provisions that would make it an offence to coerce or pressure a terminally ill adult into an assisted death. I agree with Hospice UK that nobody should ever feel that they have to choose an assisted death because of a real or imagined fear of not receiving the care that they need. Whether or not the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill proceeds, I support calls from Marie Curie Scotland for the recognition and delivery of a right to palliative care. End-of-life care must be properly funded, and charitable hospices must be financially sustainable.

I do not know whether I would choose an assisted death for me, but I do not want to deny others that choice, and that is why I will vote for the bill tonight.

I am grateful to Tess White for taking the intervention. Can she tell members why her party opposed an equal right of appeal that would have given communities the same rights as developers?

Will the member take an intervention?

Does the minister recognise that referring to communities as the “third party” in decision making is really at the root of the problem? The campaign for equal rights of appeal is about treating communities as equal partners. Does the minister recognise why I say that?

It is important that we have robust environmental impact assessments. Tess White might know that, in a previous life, I was a chartered town planner, so I will be happy to have a longer discussion with her on that aspect. I am glad that she has intervened on me, because it allows me to underline the point that I made in my intervention on her earlier, about the imbalance in our planning system. We do not have a level playing field, which is why my question to her on equalising the right of appeal goes to the heart of the debate. My colleague Sarah Boyack, who is nodding from the Labour front bench, is a fellow former town planner—perhaps we are responsible for the current shortfall in practising planners in this country. These are critical debates, and it is absolutely up to the Government to get this issue right. If it will not lead on that, in the next parliamentary session we will need a Government that will do so.

Deputy Presiding Officer, I do not know whether I am getting time back or not, so I will have to race through the rest of my contribution.

It is great that two of the Parliament’s committees are focusing on the issue. Last week, at the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, I was able to put questions to Dr Richard Dixon from Environmental Standards Scotland. I was concerned to hear Dr Dixon, whom I am sure the Government respects, say that

“the Government produced a really shoddy secondary paper that went into environmental courts and why it does not want one, but it was still not very convincing.”

He said that creating an environmental court is one way that the Government could accelerate towards Aarhus compliance but that the Government seemed

“desperate not to do that.”

To me, that is inexplicable. He said that

“The original consultation on the governance review hardly mentioned an environmental court and dismissed the idea without any evidence.”—[Official Report, Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, 25 March 2025; c 47.]

I would love to hear the reason for that.

This issue matters to my local community. We have had to fight against speculative applications for incinerators, so I pay tribute to the Dovesdale action group and to my constituents in Whitehill.

I also thank members who have supported my call for an ecocide law in Scotland, because we need system change. It is not about picking out individual locations and types of application.

We need to make sure that our systems work for people and the planet, and Aarhus compliance should be at the heart of that. Reputationally, this is damaging to the Government, but it is also damaging to Scotland, and we need urgency from the Government. The Government will get backing from the chamber, but it needs to come up with something that is credible.

It was good to hear the First Minister speaking today about the importance of the rule of law. Does the minister agree that access to justice is the ultimate guarantee of the rule of law and that, rather than just progress on the Aarhus convention, we need full compliance?

We are here because Scotland is clearly in breach of the Aarhus convention, which is denying Scots access to environmental justice.

I believe that this is a vital debate. Scotland is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, and we are simply not doing enough to tackle climate breakdown. The pollution of our air, land and water is not a rural or an urban problem—it is an everywhere problem. I therefore agree with Michael Matheson’s point that we should not try to split our communities. Decisions about the use of land and how we treat the environment are taken in systems that benefit the wealthy and the powerful—often to the detriment of the people and communities who have the fewest resources.

The Scottish Government’s persistent failure to comply with the Aarhus convention is not simply embarrassing; it is endangering the human rights of my constituents and all the people of Scotland. I pay tribute to the Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland, Planning Democracy, Friends of the Earth Scotland, RSPB Scotland and everyone else who is fighting for environmental justice and the right to a healthy environment.

Christina McKelvie was passionate, principled and patriotic. We had our political differences but, over many years, I experienced her warmth, which so many others have mentioned, and her wisdom.

As a quarter of Christina’s team, “the Holyboobs”, with Gillian Mackay and Christine Jardine, I will cherish our unforgettable moonwalk around Edinburgh. She united us to raise funds and awareness of breast cancer—an illness that does not care about party politics.

Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse Labour Party paid tribute to Christina on Friday night, and I extend our sincere condolences and love to Keith, Lewis and Jack; to her grandchildren; to all her family and friends, especially her SNP family; and to everyone who loved Christina.

Larkhall and District Volunteer Group will remember her as compassionate. Friends of Stonehouse Park have honoured a “positive personality”. Hamilton District Foodbank said:

“It has been a privilege to have had Christina in our lives.”

I will remember the woman who believed in human rights, fought for equality and championed social justice.

Christina loved a good quote, so I will conclude with words that she spoke in the Scottish Parliament that she loved. She said:

“Be bold, be courageous and be brave, because the people of this land—our Scotland—demand and deserve nothing less.”—[Official Report, 25 May 2016; c 61.]

[Applause.]

I welcome the minister’s update. The issue of clarifying the definition of “sustainable and regenerative agriculture” has come up during scrutiny of the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill. What is the Government doing to ensure that there is a clear and consistent definition and that the aims that underpin the Government’s vision, strategy and legislation are clearly understood?

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to progress its ambition for Scotland to be a world leader in sustainable and regenerative agriculture practice. (S6O-04518)