![\"Analysis\"](\"https:\/\/static.files.bbci.co.uk\/core\/website\/assets\/static\/news\/incident-types\/light-mode\/analysis.77b314ef10.svg\")
Concerns about leaving elements of the bill to Westminsterpublished at 17:27 GMT<\/p>\nConcerns about leaving elements of the bill to Westminsterpublished at 17:27 GMT<\/p>\n
17:27 GMT<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/3deaea16-e04e-4a73-bebc-145788cf5510.jpg.webp.webp\")
Lynsey Bews
BBC Scotland political correspondent<\/p>\n
Many MSPs are concerned about the legal protections on offer for
\nNHS staff. That includes ensuring there is adequate training in place for those
\nwho wish to participate in assisted dying, and allowing staff who
\nconscientiously object to opt out without any detriment. But fairly recently it
\nemerged that the Scottish government considers those aspects of the legislation
\nto be beyond Holyrood’s powers, and has tabled amendments to remove them.<\/p>\n
Scottish and UK ministers have instead being discussing the use of
\nsomething called a section 104 order – that would see the UK government
\nlegislate for these provisions at a later date.<\/p>\n
Liam McArthur has described the issue over devolved powers as
\n” fairly routine”, and has sought to reassure MSPs “that the law
\nthey wish to see will be the law they get”.<\/p>\n
But some in the chamber are nervous about removing what they see
\nas crucial elements of the bill, and leaving them in the hands of politicians
\nat Westminster to sort out.<\/p>\n
Indeed, a number of organisations representing medical staff have
\nraised concerns, stating the move raises important questions about
\n“transparency, accountability, and the robustness of the legislative
\nprocess”.<\/p>\n
Westminster’s Scottish Affairs Committee suggested a draft order
\ncould be published before the final vote at Holyrood next week – to give MSPs
\nclarity on how legal protections for staff would be dealt with. But there is no
\ntime left to do that – and it’s possible this issue could prove a major
\nstumbling block for the bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Concerns about leaving elements of the bill to Westminsterpublished at 17:27 GMT 17:27 GMT Lynsey BewsBBC Scotland political…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-468411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}