John Swinney to reveal stance on Assisted Dying

John Swinney will reveal this week if he will back a bid to legalise assisted dying for terminally ill adults in Scotland.

The Scottish First Minister revealed he has now reached a conclusion on how he will vote when the legislation, brought forward by Liberal Democrat MSP Liam McArthur, comes before Holyrood on May 13.

While the SNP leader refused to say as yet which way he will vote, he said it had been an “incredibly difficult judgment”.

The proposals set out to give those at the advanced stage of a terminal illness the option of requesting help to end their life – with Mr McArthur having now said he will raise the age limit at which people could seek such a death from 16 to 18, bringing this in line with proposals currently before Westminster.

The vote at Holyrood later this month will be the third time MSPs have considered the issue – and a vote against the general principles of the legislation on May 13 would mean that Mr McArthur’s Bill would not proceed any further.

Swinney voted against both other attempts to introduce assisted dying in Scotland, and had previously committed to making his views on the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill vote known before its first vote at Holyrood.

He said: “I have reached a conclusion and I will set out my reasoning in the course of this week.”

MSPs from all parties will have a free vote on the issue, and Swinney stressed that he has “only have one vote in the parliamentary consideration of this issue”.

While he promised he would “make my position clear during this week” the First Minister said he was “conscious of the fact if I say what I am going to do, it may well influence the debate”.

But he accepted accepted that because of his position as First Minister “people are keen to hear what I think and what I feel about this”, but he said: “It has been an incredibly difficult judgment to come to.

“I have voted against both measures previously in the Scottish Parliament and I did that really without any doubt in my mind.

“I have found the handling of the issue at this moment much more difficult to reconcile in my own mind, and I think that is a tribute to Liam McArthur, who has constructed a much better Bill and the many representations I hear about this issue.”

Swinney also said he had wanted to leave the Health Committee at Holyrood, which has been scrutinising the proposed legislation, to “hear all the evidence and come to their conclusions”.

MSPs on that committee this week published a report in which they said it would not make any recommendations on whether the Bill should be approved as it is a “matter of conscience for each individual MSP”.

Mr Swinney meanwhile said the Health Committee had done an “absolutely outstanding job” in its scrutiny of the legislation.

The First Minister added: “I think they have actually done the right thing, to inform parliamentary debates, because they have heard the arguments, they have questioned it all, from all perspectives.”

He continued: “I’ve read a lot of the proceedings, I have watched some of the proceedings. I couldn’t tell you what these Members of Parliament believe about the issue, they are just going about it dispassionately.

“They have heard all the evidence, laid it all out in a rational, dispassionate fashion and at the end they have said: ‘We don’t think it is appropriate to come to a conclusion.’”

He added: “I feel the committee’s handling has been outstanding.”