Hansard

During September this year, the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee undertook scrutiny of the legislative consent memorandum in respect of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. During the House of Commons report stage of the bill, several amendments were agreed to that extend the scope of certain provisions to Scotland. Kim Leadbeater, as the bill’s sponsor, concluded that the legislative consent process was not engaged by any of those provisions.

The Scottish Government agreed with that assessment, except with respect to clause 43, which makes provision for regulations that prohibit

“the publication, printing, distribution or designing (anywhere) of advertisements whose purpose or effect is to promote a voluntary assisted dying service”

and

“causing the publication, printing, distribution or designing of such advertisements.”

For the avoidance of doubt, a VAD service, for the purposes of that clause, means the services as set out in accordance with the act, should the bill be passed—that is, VAD services in England and Wales. The provision would, therefore, not apply to any such services in Scotland were the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill to become law.

However, I note that the issue of advertising was actively debated during stage 2 proceedings on the Scottish bill and an amendment was agreed to that introduces a new section to the bill that would create an offence of advertising assisted dying.

We began our scrutiny of the LCM by writing to selected stakeholders to request their written views, and a number of them responded that they had no comments. The committee also received a detailed submission from Alzheimer Scotland that raised some points about the LCM. Those included highlighting the importance of careful alignment between any UK and Scottish Parliament legislation on assisted dying

“to avoid confusion, duplication, or conflict”.

The submission emphasised the need for robust definitions to ensure a

“clear distinction between prohibited commercial promotion that may result in exploitation and permitted factual information”.

Alzheimer Scotland also raised concerns about the implications of the provisions covered by the LCM related to article 10 of the European convention on human rights, arguing that although

“limitations may be justified to protect vulnerable individuals from inducement, they must be proportionate and clearly defined.”

It concluded by recommending clear mechanisms to establish how any resulting prohibitions would be applied and overseen in Scotland.

As part of its scrutiny of the LCM, my committee received assurances from the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care that the relevant provisions would apply only to what would commonly be understood as advertising and would not result in prohibitions being placed on the publication of factual information, for example, about the service in question or how it should be delivered.

On that basis, and on the understanding that the scope of the provisions is limited to the advertising and promotion in Scotland of a voluntary assisted dying service that would operate in England and Wales, my committee concluded its scrutiny by recommending that the Parliament agree to a legislative consent motion in similar terms to the draft motion included in LCM-S6-62.