MSP 'convinced' Assisted Dying Bill will pass at Holyrood

Liam McArthur expects to publish his Assisted Dying For Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill on Thursday.

With both Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Labour leader Keir Starmer pledging to allow a debate on the issue at Westminster after the next general election, Liberal Democrat MSP McArthur (below) said there was now an “increasingly irresistible” momentum towards changing the law.

His member’s bill will be the third time Holyrood has voted on legalising assisted dying, with previous bids overwhelmingly rejected.

But McArthur, speaking on BBC Scotland’s The Sunday Show said he believes the “political mood has changed”.

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He said: “I am absolutely convinced that this long-overdue reform will pass and that the political mood now is closer to where the public mood has been for so long.”

The MSP added: “In recent weeks you have seen both the Prime Minister and the leader of the Opposition both committing themselves to meaningful votes on this issue in Westminster after the next general election.

“I think the momentum behind the case for change is now increasingly, I think, irresistible.”

'A change that is long overdue'

McArthur said that the current ban on assisted dying is leading to “too many people at the end of life facing horrible, traumatic deaths that impact not just them but those that they leave behind”.

He continued: “And that is despite the very best efforts of palliative care, which we need to invest in and improve access to.

“But the choice of an assisted death in certain, specific, circumstances is a change that is long overdue.”

He told how his Bill would require two doctors – including one with no prior relationship with the patient – to both confirm the person is terminally ill and has the capacity to request an assisted death.

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McArthur also said there would be a waiting period of two weeks between the request and the medication – which they would have to be able to take themselves – being provided.

At the time the medication is given, the medical professional would “also need to satisfy themselves both of the determination of the patient to continue and the fact that capacity was still there at the end”, he added.

Doctors and others opposed to the procedure would be able to exempt themselves from being involved, McArthur stressed, adding there would also be a requirement for those requesting an assisted death to have lived in Scotland for at least a year beforehand.

While he added that some issues would need to be resolved with Westminster, initial conversations with the Scotland Office about his Bill have been “constructive”, with McArthur adding: “I am encouraged by those early discussions.”