Holyrood to sit on Friday as MSPs ‘way behind’ with assisted dying Bill

Debates on amendments to controversial assisted dying legislation have been pushed into Friday – with the parliamentary business minister telling MSPs Holyrood is “way behind” with considering amendments.

With more than 300 amendments having being tabled to the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill, MSPs have sat late both on Tuesday and Wednesday to deal with them.

But with parliamentary business minister Graeme Dey saying that the Parliament was behind schedule for the amendments to be concluded on Thursday – as had originally been planned – MSPs agreed that Holyrood would take the rare step of sitting on Friday.

However, Scottish Labour’s deputy leader, Jackie Baillie, said: “This process feels slightly chaotic, and I don’t think shows the Parliament in a terribly good light.”

She said the Bill on assisted dying, brought forward by Liberal Democrat MSP Liam McArthur, was the “most consequential member’s Bill” of this five-year parliamentary session and “indeed probably since Parliament was established”.

Ms Baillie said Holyrood had “consistently underestimated” the amount of time that is needed for legislation.

As she spoke out, former first minister Nicola Sturgeon complained that Holyrood was debating timetabling, saying MSPs could instead “be making more progress with the assisted dying legislation”.

Those comments came after independent MSP Jeremy Balfour spoke out against sitting on Friday.

He said: “If this Parliament genuinely seeks to be a Parliament that wants those who have caring responsibilities or who need carers to be involved, to change the timetable at this time of the week makes it very difficult for some individuals.

“I know there are members who will not be able to be here on Friday because they have caring responsibilities, or they themselves need carers.”

Meanwhile, Conservative MSP Douglas Ross said Holyrood needed to consider why “such an emotive and important Bill” had been left to the “final weeks in this session” to be considered.

Mr Ross told Holyrood: “Liam McArthur never hid that he was introducing this Bill, we have known about it for years.”

Mr Dey however spoke about the “pressure the Parliament is under” in the run up to the end of March – when Holyrood breaks for Easter recess, with MSPs not returning until after the May 7 Scottish Parliament election.

“We scheduled a lot of time for this particular piece of legislation,” the minister added.

“Extensive work was done by the Parliament staff and by business managers to arrive at the original scheduling for the assisted dying Bill.

“But that was entirely predicated on progress being made in line with what might reasonably be predicted.”

However, Mr Dey said that dealing with amendments had “not proceeded at the anticipated pace”, saying as a result of that Holyrood had to find “additional and exceptional time” to complete consideration of amendments.

The minister added that the Parliament has to “crack on with this”.