Meeting of the Parliament 17 March 2026 [Draft]
I thank Liam McArthur for all the work that he has done on the bill.
In my notes, it says, “Try not to cry during this debate,” because it means quite a lot to me. I often use songs and music to describe how I am feeling and to tell people how I feel. It is often said that music is the soundtrack of our lives. I used that phrase in the stage 1 debate to express my love for Stacey—I kind of do that a lot. After 30 years of marriage, it is probably less romantic than it was back in the day.
It was American broadcaster Dick Clark who first used the phrase “Music is the soundtrack of our lives.” When we hear certain songs, we are instantly taken back to when we first heard them—the school disco, the relationship that was fleeting but powerful or St Mirren winning the cup. That last one might just be me.
Music takes us to the moments in our lives that shaped us. When I hear “All I Ask of You” from “The Phantom of the Opera”, I see Stacey walking down the aisle on the day we got married, looking gorgeous. When I hear “God Only Knows” by the Beach Boys, the opening bars melt my heart, and I am thankful that Stacey is part of my life. I have become the man I am because of her.
As members know—I said this during the stage 1 debate—Stacey lives with multiple sclerosis. Like many people who live with long-term conditions, she carries it with remarkable strength, even if life is not always quite as rosy as she sometimes leads us all to believe it is.
There is a song that means a lot to Stacey: “Smile”. The melody was written by the brilliantly creative but flawed genius Charlie Chaplin, and the lyrics were added later and made famous by Nat King Cole. The lyrics say:
“Smile though your heart is aching”.
In many ways, that has become her anthem.
Stacey lives with MS, high blood pressure, asthma and osteoporosis. MS itself will not kill her, but it makes her more vulnerable to other illnesses that could come later, and yet she smiles. She smiles because we have each other, because we have our children, James and Jessica, and because we have our four wonderful grandchildren, who are soon to be joined by a fifth. She gets through the hard times because she has so much to live for. When Stacey talks about that song, she is not talking about the end of life; she is talking about living it—every day that she possibly can.
However, Stacey also says that, if the worst should ever come to her—if she was ever facing unbearable suffering at the end of life—she would want a choice.
There is another song that means the world to me: “No Matter What” by Boyzone. Please do not judge me. I played that to my daughter, Jessica, when she was wee. It was my way of telling her to be true to herself, to grow up into her own woman and to know that, no matter what, she would always be loved.
That is what it all comes down to for me. My wife and my daughter are two of the most important people in my life. We all have these stories—every one of us—but all stories inevitably reach their final chapter. For many, the end comes with peace and comfort. For others, it comes with profound suffering, a loss of independence and a loss of dignity.
The question is whether compassion has a place during the final bars of life’s soundtrack. We cannot control every note, but we can decide whether the final notes are shaped with humanity, dignity and choice.
I agree with those who tell me that we need better palliative care. My mum, Elizabeth, spent the last few days of her life in the Accord hospice in Paisley. Two days before she died, Stacey and I spent a whole Saturday afternoon creating a playlist, which included songs by the Beatles, Tammy Wynette, Patsy Cline and Willie Nelson. My mum liked two types of music: country and western. We had a great day, but a week later I was carrying her coffin down the aisle of Woodside crematorium to “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” and her personal anthem, “Stand By Your Man”. When I hear that music, I remember that sunny day.
Music really is the soundtrack of our lives—the songs that we hear before the memories we carry, the people we love, the lives we build and the moments that shape us. Stacey says, “Smile though your heart is aching.” That is how so many people live their lives: with courage, resilience and love for the people around them.
Every life—no matter how rich its soundtrack is—eventually reaches its final chapter. When that moment comes, the question before us today is simple: should those final notes be written only by illness and suffering, or should compassion, dignity and choice have a voice as well? If music truly is the soundtrack of our lives, the final note should be written with compassion and by the person themselves.