Meeting of the Parliament 11 March 2026 [Draft]
Before I speak to my amendment 173, I say that I fully support Fulton MacGregor’s amendment 171. It is a practical provision that shows the intersection between issues such as adult support and protection and observing the rights of adults with incapacity, on the one hand, and the legislation that will be enacted should the bill be passed, on the other.
Amendment 173 is designed to improve transparency and accountability and to promote robust record keeping. It would introduce a mandatory requirement for registered medical practitioners who carry out assessments under section 6 to prepare and retain a comprehensive written record of the assessment process. That would cover all inquiries made of other professionals; discussions with the person being assessed; explanations that have been provided regarding diagnosis, prognosis, treatment options, palliative care and the nature of any substance that might be provided; and advice given, referrals made and the clinical reasoning for decisions, including any instances in which inquiries or referrals were not completed.
There is a high prevalence of people choosing to die because they feel that they are a burden on others. For example, in Oregon and Canada, close to 50 per cent of people cite that as one of their main reasons for wanting to take their life early under assisted dying provisions. That raises serious questions about the prevalence of coercion. There are also issues such as the postcode lottery that exists in the provision of palliative care. Some people have excellent care at the point of need, but others receive too little, too late. Given such factors, it is incumbent on us to ensure that robust information is recorded so that the potential reasons driving the choice of an assisted death have been discussed fully; so that all possible help is provided to ensure that someone is not driven to take their life when they otherwise would not consider it; and so that the process does not become a tick-box exercise.
We have heard evidence from abroad of what is called “doctor shopping”. That is where patients are turned down for assisted dying because doctors who know them and their conditions well deem that they do not qualify, but those patients keep applying to different doctors until they find one who applies the eligibility criteria liberally—for example, by approving a disabled person who has many comorbidities.
That might explain why, in places where the law has not technically expanded beyond the terminal illness eligibility criteria, people with non-terminal conditions have nonetheless been approved for assisted dying. In Oregon, Government data shows that people with conditions such as arthritis and anorexia have been approved. An anorexia charity has found from whistleblowing doctors across the US at least 60 confirmed cases of people struggling with anorexia—mainly young women—being given drugs to end their lives under assisted dying laws.