move to set up ad hoc committee of msps
Special team may scrutinise End of Life Bill
Published:
Controversial plans to legalise assisted suicide could be scrutinised by a specially-created Holyrood committee, it emerged yesterday.
The Scottish Parliament’s business bureau has agreed to recommend to MSPs that an ad hoc committee should be set up to scrutinise veteran independent MSP Margo MacDonald’s End of Life Choices Bill.
Party whips said the move would be the right way forward because the issue touches on the remits of several committees such as health and justice.
The new committee, which will only be given the go-ahead next week if approved by MSPs, would be chaired by a Liberal Democrat politician.
It is understood that former government minister Ross Finnie, the party’s health spokesman, will be nominated for the role.
The Press and Journal approached Lib Dem chief whip Mike Rumbles who confirmed the business bureau’s proposal.
West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine MSP Mr Rumbles said: “This bill is a moral and ethical issue and MSPs will have a free vote. Liberal Democrats take this issue very seriously and it is right that it should be treated in a proper way.”
Health committee chairwoman Christine Grahame, who expected the bill to be scrutinised by her team, last night said she was “very angry” with the business bureau’s recommendation.
She added: “I think setting up an ad hoc committee is a distortion of what committees are for.
“My committee is highly experienced and members all work well together.”
Parkinson’s disease suffer Ms McDonald’s bill would make Scotland the first part of Britain to change the law, which currently leaves Scots open to prosecution for culpable homicide.
intolerable
The bill stipulates that the person must be diagnosed as terminally ill or permanently physically incapacitated, and finds life intolerable. The person must have been registered with a GP in Scotland for at least 18 months.
Ms MacDonald, an independent MSP for the Lothians who launched the bill at Holyrood last month, said her attempt to change the law was not personal. She added that it is meant to try to give people the autonomy to exercise some control over how they die and the legal right to seek help and to protect the people that give assistance.
First Minister Alex Salmond has previously said he is “not convinced” about the proposal.
Critics of the bill include the British Medical Association Scotland and campaign group Care Not Killing.
