As Members will be aware, the Scottish Parliament has voted by 69 votes to 57 to defeat a Bill that would have introduced assisted suicide in Scotland. This means assisted suicide will be kept out of Scotland. If that Bill had passed in the Scottish Parliament and gone on to become law, it would have ushered in an irrevocable change that would have put vulnerable people at risk and seen the ending of thousands of lives through assisted suicide in Scotland.

It is interesting, after two years of debate and intense scrutiny the Bill received, that Holyrood, which is widely regarded as very socially progressive, to use that phrase, came to the conclusion that introducing assisted suicide was unsafe and dangerous. We saw MSPs come to realise the flaws that were in that Bill.

The lesson we should take in Ireland, given that these debates are coming up and we had a committee of these Houses, on which I served, looking at the issue, is, first, the importance of political leadership. It is noteworthy that the First Minister of Scotland, as well as the leader of the Scottish Labour Party, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives and the Deputy First Minister, all voted against this Bill. That is the importance of political leadership because this is an issue that can take off and on which there can be highly emotive debates. People can feel manipulated emotionally and pressured to support measures like this that are, in fact, quite dangerous.

The second issue, which has been pointed out by Dr. Gordon Macdonald of Care Not Killing, is that one in four people who would benefit from palliative care in Scotland is not getting it. Countries need to provide proper assistance in dying. High-quality palliative care involves psychological and social support. It is about the alleviation of symptoms of pain and discomfort, but it is also about much more. We need to make sure that, not just at the end of life but in all cases, because while caring is always necessary, curing is not always possible, there are in Ireland broad-ranging supports available so that people do not feel pressured into thinking that their lives do not matter or matter less and that they would be better off asking to have their lives ended. It is such a problem for society when that happens.