Meeting of the Parliament 22 March 2016
I pay tribute to Nanette Milne for the massive contribution that she has made on health and other issues during her 13 years in the Parliament. I have enjoyed working with her for the several years that we have been joint conveners of the cross-party group on cancer. Since the bill is in effect a health bill, which I dealt with during my six months on the Health and Sport Committee, I take this opportunity to say, for the last time, thank you to the committee’s wonderful clerks and the always helpful members of the Parliament’s legislation team and delegated powers and law reform team.
This is not my last speech, but like Nanette Milne I thought that the Burial and Cremation (Scotland) Bill might be a suitable topic for an older person such as me. Although it is the prerogative of an older person to look towards death in a realistic and light-hearted way, that is certainly not the situation for any parent who loses a child. In the context of the bill, that also means infant loss, stillbirth and pregnancy loss, which must be the most devastating experience that anyone could suffer. If anyone doubts that, they need only listen to the evidence that we heard. I thank all the people who gave evidence to us on the record and those SANDS Lothians parents who gave evidence to Nanette Milne, me and, I think, one other member of the Health and Sport Committee in a private session.
There was a great deal of discussion in that and other evidence sessions about ashes. I have even heard people ask, “What difference do the ashes make?”, but if we listen to the parents, we know how important that is. Once we have listened, we can begin to empathise—to use the word that Bob Doris used—with those parents. I raised the issue of ashes in committee and suggested that there should be an expectation that ashes will be recovered, that the processes and equipment in crematoriums should be dealt with in regulation and that we should always insist that the maximum amount of ashes will be recovered. I pay tribute to the minister, because she reassured me in committee that the codes of practice covered those issues. I note, too, that amendment 74 is about the making of regulations about
“the operation of equipment for the carrying out of cremations”.
Therefore, I think that the Government has dealt with those matters.
Earlier, I was reassured on the issue of putting women at the centre of decision making in relation to ashes, and I think that we are all united in the belief that the bill does that in a satisfactory way.
Of course, there are issues that are not dealt with in the bill and which perhaps cannot be dealt with in the bill. An issue that was raised by the SANDS Lothians parents in the private session was that of the training of staff, which is crucial to how staff relate to parents—mothers in particular—in such situations. They recommended that there should be specialist roles in midwifery, maternity and bereavement services, and I hope that the Government will consider that.
We ought to think about not just how health staff relate to patients, but how we as politicians relate to parents in such situations. As I have thought about the bill and the issues that it deals with, that has made me reflect on the need for politicians in general to have empathy with the people with whom we discuss matters, both so that we can respond appropriately to the individuals whom we meet and can develop suitable policies and legislation. As I come to the end of my political career—although not my political involvement—it seems to me that empathy is the most important quality that a politician can have.
I support the bill, including today’s amendments, of which there were quite a lot, but as someone who lodged more than 1,000 amendments at the final stage of the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Bill, I am in no position to complain about late amendments.
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