Angry Margo MacDonald attacks political carve-up over assisted suicide bill

Published on Wednesday 10 February 2010 21:55

MARGO MacDonald has hit out after the Scottish Parliament voted to stop its health committee considering her landmark bill to legalise assisted suicide.

Amid heated exchanges, MSPs split down party lines in deciding to set up a special ad hoc committee to consider the controversial End of Life Assistance Bill.

It was part of a tactic by the unionist parties to prevent the SNP holding the convenership of another ad hoc committee for the independence referendum bill.

Holyrood rules dictate that the four main parties take turns to chair ad hoc groups and by setting up an extra one, it means Labour is now due to chair the committee on the referendum.

Ms MacDonald failed in her bid to reverse the decision originally made by the parliament's business bureau, which holds its meetings in secret.

In an emotional speech, she told MSPs it would make them appear capable of dealing only with the "mundane and mediocre". And she warned the whole parliament's reputation would hang on their vote.

The independent Lothians MSP wanted the health committee, chaired by the SNP's Christine Grahame to consider her bill.

She believed the health committee, which has two GPs – one of whom, Labour's Dr Richard Simpson, has expertise in psychiatry – as well as a lawyer, Ms Grahame, had the necessary expertise to deal with her bill.

Ms MacDonald said: "This parliament is quite capable of … redressing some of the respect and hope that has been lost by our political and public institutions over the past few years.

"We will lose this opportunity and create an impression of being out of our depth dealing with anything other than the mediocre, mundane and unimaginative, which could be the charge levelled at us if we vote to demote parliament's trust in its health committee's professionalism and probity."

The motion to create an ad hoc committee was put forward by Liberal Democrat chief whip Mike Rumbles because it was opposed by the Scottish Government. He warned it would be "dangerous" to allow an MSPs to select which committee took charge of their bill and might be seen as the MSP "trying to gain advantage".

But Green co-leader Patrick Harvie questioned the decision, adding: "It seems an extraordinary departure to say that our normal committees cannot deal with those arguments properly through our normal processes."

The decision to create an ad hoc committee was backed by 69 votes to 49. The SNP MSPs all supported Ms MacDonald despite officially having a free vote. She was also backed by the Greens.

All the members of the health committee had signed a letter asking for the business bureau's decision to be reversed. However, when it came to the vote, Labour, Lib Dem and Tory committee members followed the party whip and voted in favour of the ad hoc body. This included Lib Dem Ross Finnie, due to be its convener.