Assisted dying bill MSP says he will ‘reflect’ on whether age limit should be raised

The MSP behind Scotland's assisted dying bill has said the age limit should be considered if parliament backs his bid.

Liam McArthur's bill would allow terminally ill people aged 16 and over to seek medical help to end their lives.

This differs from the bill put forward in England, where the age limit is 18.

Appearing before MSPs today, McArthur said "you can make a strong rationale" for adopting either threshold.

And he said he would "reflect further" on the matter if MSPs back the bill at its first hurdle.

The Lib Dem politician said there is "a logic for 16" because that is the age of "adult capacity for making medical decisions". However, he said 18 is the limit in place in Australian and American contexts and there are "persuasive" arguments for this. McArthur said: "It's probably an area where I'm keen to reflect further should the bill pass at stage one."

The legislation will have to pass several stages if it is to become law.

The inclusion of 16 and 17-year-olds is one of the more contentious elements of the proposal, which is the third attempt to legalise assisted dying in Scotland.

If passed, its provisions will apply to those deemed to have sufficient mental capacity to make the decision and two different clinicians will have to give approval.

McArthur estimates that 25 people would use the process in its first year, with this increasing to 400 annually within two decades of its inception.

Annual costs are estimated to be up to £313,900 in the first year and £369,000 in the 20th. However, the Finance and Public Administration Committee has suggested this may be an understatement.

McArthur began work on his bill before Labour MP Kim Leadbeater brought forward her plans in the UK parliament.

McArthur said the need for approval by two clinicians provides a safeguard and only those with an "advanced and progressive" illness from which they are not expected to recover would be eligible. 

On young people, he told the committee that evidence gathered shows they have "very clear personal experience to draw on, often of older family members who have perhaps gone through a bad death, so they feel very invested in this". He went on: "If the age limit was to change, it would need to take account of any concerns they might have.

"The numbers that are likely to seek to access an assisted death in any given year are going to be relatively low. I would have said around one per cent of the overall numbers that die in any given year. And so, the numbers at that end of the age spectrum are going to be exceptionally low and possibly even zero figures over a given year."

To use the provisions of the law, individuals would have to be "ordinarily resident in Scotland". Police Scotland has raised concerns over this definition and McArthur said he did not see this as "being problematic". He stated: "'Ordinarily resident' is phrased in such a way as to accommodate for situations where individuals may be working outwith Scotland for a period. They may be on holiday, possibly a prolonged holiday, but to all intents and purposes, they live in Scotland, they are registered with a medical practice, which is also a requirement under the bill."

While the bill is backed by campaigns like Dignity in Dying, it is opposed by others on a religious, safeguarding or human rights basis. 

On provisions allowing medical professionals to opt-out of involvement in assisted dying, McArthur said the matter is "fundamentally about choice, about giving dying Scots the choice, should they wish it, but that works both ways and there absolutely needs to be a robust conscientious objection for medical professionals".

He went on: "Where I have a problem with an institutional objection is that that is an organisation that may well involve and include individuals who are supportive of a change in the law."