Official Report 1177KB pdf
The next item of business is a debate on motion S6M-19128, in the name of Douglas Ross, on the Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill at stage 1. I invite members who wish to participate in the debate to press their request-to-speak buttons as soon as possible, and I call Douglas Ross, the member in charge of the bill, to speak to and move the motion.
14:55
I have thought a lot about how to open this debate. I have moved through different positions on what I want to emphasise at the very beginning—there is so much that I want to get through. This debate is so important to so many: to the people who invested time and energy in the Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill, and to those who may not know all the detail of how we got here but who simply hope that the bill can help to address the appalling number of drug and alcohol-related deaths in Scotland.
That is where I will begin—with that shocking loss of life. Last year, there were 1,017 drug deaths and 1,185 alcohol-related deaths. Our fellow Scots’ lives were cruelly cut short and families were heartbroken, carrying the pain of loss that will never go away. That is happening to far too many people far too often. Over the course of one day—today, when we are in this chamber, debating this bill—six more of our fellow Scots will die from drug or alcohol addiction. For them, the bill will be too late. However, we can give hope to so many others.
This afternoon, I was outside, meeting supporters of the bill. I spoke to one mother who wanted to thank everyone who is getting behind the bill because, tragically, she lost her son two and a half years ago. However, her daughter, who faced similar addiction problems, got the support that she needs and now works in drug recovery. That mother, who is going through the pain of the loss of a son, feels pride in a daughter who has turned her life around. I also heard from John, who told us that, six or seven years ago, he went to sleep every night wishing that he would not wake up in the morning—but he did. He kept going, he got support and he was out there today, banging the drum for members of the Scottish Parliament to back the bill.
We have a simple choice: to agree or not the general principles of the bill. That is not to say that it is the finished article or that it is perfect in every way—it is just about whether we agree that there should be a guarantee for everyone to receive the treatment that they need, when they need it, to tackle their addiction.
Does Douglas Ross recognise that treatment for drug addiction and chaotic lifestyle factors is often about more than only rehabilitation? It is about harm reduction and stabilisation. Comprehensive, trauma-informed recovery work needs to go alongside that.
Mr Ross, I can give you the time back for that intervention.
Thank you. I agree with Alex Cole-Hamilton’s point, and I am grateful to him for the way in which he has approached the bill. I know that he needs to be convinced on some aspects of it, but he is willing to get behind it to allow further debate and support.
I go back to the point that we are voting on the general principles today. We are not voting on implementation issues that may be a cause for concern; it is only about whether we want to support the general principles.
I also want to thank the people who have helped the bill to get to this stage. Annemarie Ward and Stevie Wishart are the architects of the bill. They were living and breathing it long before I picked up the parliamentary reins to take it through Holyrood. They are the most knowledgeable and articulate advocates for the bill and for getting people the help and support that they need when they need it. If the bill passes stage 1 today, it will be because of the work of Stevie and Annemarie, and I will forever be grateful to them for what they have done.
I also thank all the party leaders and ministers. I have spoken to the Minister for Drugs and Alcohol Policy and Sport, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, and representatives of every party. I spoke to them at the beginning of the process, and I had to speak to more of them at the end of the process, because there are now more parties represented in the Parliament. I am grateful to everyone who has engaged during the process.
I am grateful to the committees that considered my bill—the Finance and Public Administration Committee, the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee and the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee. I thank everyone who engaged with those committees and with my consultation on the bill. I thank Elliot Roy, who supported me through the early stages of the bill, and Jamie Carter. I thank Aris Wilson, in my office, who did a lot of the work to get people round the table so that I could speak to them. I also thank the press for its backing for the campaign, including The Times, in today’s edition of which I explained why MSPs should rally behind the bill, and the Sunday Post, which, at the weekend, gave us a clear picture of what is at stake.
My final thanks in my opening remarks go to members of the non-Government bills unit, who are sitting at the back of the chamber: Neil Stewart, Roz Thomson and Alison Fraser. I have said this in relation to other non-Government bills. I am on my final lap in this Parliament, as I will be leaving it in a few months’ time, but I will tell anyone who has the honour of being elected here that that group is one that they should focus on, embrace and support, because those individuals can take an idea, put it into words in draft legislation, help with scrutiny, do all the hard work and the heavy lifting and, in some cases, allow us to put our hopes and aspirations into law. I am very grateful to the three of them. [Applause.]
The details of the bill are known, and I will not reiterate them, but I want to talk about the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee’s scrutiny. I was disappointed that a majority of the committee felt unable to support the general principles of the bill, but I know from my experience on the Education, Children and Young People Committee that some SNP members voted against the general principles of a bill that that committee considered but were then able to abstain in the stage 1 vote in Parliament. I hope that Government members will consider that today.
The committee was right to recognise in its report
“the strength of evidence it has seen and heard throughout its Stage1 scrutiny of this Bill of a high level of dissatisfaction with current availability of and access to support services for those experiencing harm from drug or alcohol misuse.”
That is it. The committee has heard that evidence. The Government knows that what the committee said is true, because it has told us so publicly and in meetings. That is why we need to pass the bill.
I reiterate that the bill was developed and drafted by people with lived experience. They know what the problems are and they know what the solutions are, and my bill is one of them.
I had intended to go through a number of issues with the committee’s report, but I have already taken up quite a lot of time. I was open with the committee—I said to the convener and the members of the committee, to whom I am grateful for the work that they did, “We can work together to amend elements of the bill.” That is what our parliamentary process is about. We should look at areas of concern. I hold my hands up: the bill is not perfect. There are areas that I had not even thought about until I was questioned about them as part of the committee’s scrutiny, in relation to which it became clear that the bill could and should be improved. We have the opportunity to do that.
A number of points would have to be addressed—although, in some cases, that would involve quite significant amendments, in others, it would require only limited amendments—in order to get the bill through. We must look at those areas.
I hope that I have shown throughout the bill process—I sat through every committee session on the bill, and I have tried to engage with members across Parliament—that I am willing to work with and listen to people inside and outside the Parliament to make the bill better and to get it right. Some stakeholders have reservations about the bill and some whole-heartedly support it, but they would all like to work together to improve it if we can get it through stage 1 today. However, we must get past stage 1 to do that.
As MSPs consider their votes this afternoon, I ask them to think about the optics of shutting down the debate on a bill that seeks to tackle our national shame of drug and alcohol deaths. Exactly one week ago today, the Parliament agreed to the general principles of the Dog Theft (Scotland) Bill at stage 1. Surely we do not want to find ourselves in a situation in which the Parliament is more interested in debating pets being stolen than in people dying, but that will be the outcome if members vote down my bill tonight. I make a plea to members across the chamber: support the bill and give us time to improve it, so that we can have a bill that we, in Parliament, and people across Scotland can rally behind.
I am exceptionally proud and genuinely honoured to move the motion in my name.
I move,
That the Parliament agrees to the general principles of the Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill.
15:04
First, I make it clear that the belief in a right to recovery is something that unites us all, wherever we sit in this Parliament. No one in Scotland should be denied the chance to access the support and treatment that they need to heal, recover and thrive. That will not be disputed by anyone in the chamber.
The subject is highly emotive. For me, it is not just an abstract policy debate. I grew up with the impact of alcohol addiction in my family, and I know deeply and personally how it touches lives and how it can shape a childhood, a family and a future. I am incredibly proud of my mum and my dad for how they became sober. Even in the same household, each of my parents had different recovery journeys. That illustrates to me that there is no one right road to recovery. My family’s experience stays with me every single day that I am in my role, and, as minister, I will always be open to finding new ways to improve the support that is available to people and families who are living with problematic substance use.
It is precisely because of that personal understanding that I and my ministerial colleagues have approached the proposed legislation with great care and attention. Since the introduction of the bill, the Scottish Government has been listening carefully to the range of views and evidence that have shaped the findings in its stage 1 report—both that which I have heard in my many visits and meetings since taking up the post and that which has been provided to the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee. I thank everyone who provided evidence and shared their experiences. I also thank the committee for its thorough and thoughtful consideration of the bill.
The Scottish Government shares the central ambition of the bill. We agree that the level of drug and alcohol deaths is, tragically, much too high in Scotland, and we remain committed to tackling it and improving access to services. Since the national mission was announced, in January 2021, we have seen significant investment and progress in the treatment and care of people who are affected by drugs, and much of that progress has also supported people with alcohol problems.
More people can access residential rehab through our funding of eight new facilities, and we are on track to reach our target of 1,000 publicly funded placements per year by 2026. We are driving consistency of care for people through the continued implementation of medication-assisted treatment standards, and we are reducing the risk of opioid overdose through the continued distribution of thousands of naloxone kits across the country, with all front-line police now supplied with kits.
We opened the United Kingdom’s first official safer drug consumption facility in Glasgow. We developed rapid action drug alerts and response—RADAR—which is an early-warning system that is designed to alert us to new and emerging threats across the country. We put people with lived and living experience right at the heart of our charter of human rights for people who are affected by substance use, driven by the national collaborative. We are also making good progress with the development of national drug-checking facilities, and I can confirm that the Glasgow facility has now received its licence from the Home Office.
However, although we share the bill’s ambitions to improve access to treatment, we all also have a responsibility to ensure that any legislative proposals are workable, deliverable and aligned with the evidence that is available, and it is clear—
Will the minister take an intervention?
Yes.
I am grateful to the minister for giving way, but I am slightly confused, because you have spent the first part of your speech backing the principles of the bill. Why are you then going on to say that you will not back it?
Please speak through the chair.
Surely the principles of the bill are about the right to recovery, which you have alluded to.
Always speak through the chair.
It is clear, from the evidence that was presented throughout the scrutiny process, that the bill raises profound legal, practical and resource concerns that risk undermining service delivery rather than enhancing it. The committee’s report outlines fundamental flaws in the legislation, from affordability and deliverability to the tension between the bill’s principles—
Will the minister take an intervention?
If the member will let me continue, I will set out our concerns about the legislation.
The committee’s report outlines fundamental flaws in the legislation, from affordability and deliverability to the tension between the bill’s principles and the evidence-based public health harm reduction approach, which we now know saves lives. The report also highlights the risks of overmedicalising care and deprioritising trauma-informed holistic support.
The committee heard from a number of people who were opposed to the bill. I made the point to the committee that 80 per cent of those who responded to the call for views were supportive of the bill but that that was not reflected at the committee stage. Everything that the minister is articulating can and should be addressed at future stages of the process. Therefore, surely the best approach would be for the Government to allow the bill to go ahead. It does not have to vote for the bill, although I would love it to do that. The Government could abstain tonight to allow us to make changes, sort out the issues and keep discussing this most important issue for Scotland.
I can give you the time back, minister, for taking interventions.
I absolutely acknowledge the willingness of the member in charge to amend the bill, but the committee concluded that the bill would need fundamental revision, and many stakeholders, including clinicians, legal experts and service providers, have raised concerns about its feasibility even with a significant number of amendments.
I also recognise a key argument that has been advanced by the member in charge, which is the need to give the bill a fair hearing and to enable it to progress to stage 2.
Will the minister accept an intervention?
In a moment.
However, the committee was clear in its final report, which drew on evidence from expert witnesses, including people working in clinical fields, that progressing the bill in its current form could lead to unintended consequences that would threaten to outweigh its intended benefits. Given those concerns, I recently met with the member in charge and suggested that we consider non-legislative options, but he was unwilling to have that discussion ahead of today’s debate. I place on record my offer to Douglas Ross and to any member: I am open to working together on the issues raised by the bill.
On that point, if the minister is open and willing, she should allow the bill to progress to stage 2, so that we can sort it out. That would be being open and willing.
I have already said that there are fundamental issues and that experts who have scrutinised the bill and who have given evidence on it have raised the potential for the bill to cause more harm than good. [Interruption.]
Minister, please resume your seat.
The minister has taken a number of interventions and has responded to those. I do not expect to hear a barrage of comments coming from a sedentary position.
Minister, I can give you the time back for those interventions.
As I said, I am confident that everyone in this chamber shares the ambition to tackle drug and alcohol deaths in this country, and I am more than willing to work with members and with Opposition parties on the issues.
Our new drug and alcohol strategic plan will embed the human rights-based approach that is outlined in the charter of rights published in December 2024. However, in contrast to what is proposed in the bill, it will do so in a way that is deliverable, adaptable and already aligned with existing policies and approaches, and that, crucially, has broad support from partners.
Over the summer, we engaged widely with service commissioners, delivery partners and representative groups and with people with lived and living experience. We have developed a suite of non-legislative measures that go further than the bill in improving access and quality. We will further improve treatment standards through a national service specification, to set expectations for rights-based services and for the expansion of MAT standards to cover all drugs and alcohol. We are continuing our commitment to residential rehabilitation and we are focusing on improving pathways for individuals. We will soon publish new standards for young people who are accessing treatment or support, and we will embed the whole-system approach by including mental health substance use protocols and renewed prevention efforts.
We are working across justice and homelessness services, and we recognise that tackling stigma is essential to enabling people to seek help without fear or shame. We are developing a new fund for grass-roots and community projects, building on the success of the Corra Foundation drugs mission fund, which supported more than 300 projects, and we will strengthen local accountability through a partnership delivery framework with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and continued annual reporting and monitoring.
Taken together, those actions reflect a rights-based, person-centred approach to recovery that is already being embedded in funding criteria and service design.
I will finish by saying that recovery is not only about clinical treatment; it is about housing, employment and healthcare. It is about strengthening families and communities and, above all, it is about restoring hope and connection to those who have lost both. Any legislative change must be part of a wider holistic and properly resourced response. Treatment is not just about diagnosis. Recovery is not just about abstinence, and it is not linear. It is not just about whether a person is using substances. It is about restoring hope and dignity and building relationships, and it is about empowering people to control their own destinies.
You need to conclude, minister.
I confirm that the Scottish Government’s intention is to vote against the motion.
I call Clare Haughey to speak on behalf of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee.
15:15
As convener of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, I welcome the opportunity to speak in this stage 1 debate on the Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill. As the Parliament will be aware, the committee published its stage 1 report on the bill on 23 September. The report is the culmination of an extensive and far-reaching programme of scrutiny, and I draw members’ attention to the evidence and the recommendations that it sets out.
Before I speak to the substance of the report, I thank those individuals, organisations and wider stakeholders who engaged with the committee during its scrutiny and, in particular, those who had the courage to share their lived experience of accessing support services for harm from drug and alcohol use. The committee’s informal engagement and call for evidence, the latter of which received 129 responses, were critical in providing an evidence base for the report and they gave committee members a tremendous insight into not just the potential impact of the provisions in the bill, but the wider issues that are involved in tackling alcohol and drug harms across Scotland.
The extent of the committee’s consultation and its lengthy programme of oral evidence reflect how seriously it took its role in scrutinising the bill. As is highlighted in the concluding recommendations on the general principles of the bill, the report acknowledges the overwhelming amount of evidence that we heard of a high level of dissatisfaction with the current availability of, and access to, drug and alcohol support services across the country. I assure the Parliament and all those who engaged with the committee that our members are acutely aware that more needs to be done in that area.
Scotland has long-standing and serious issues associated with drug and alcohol harms. Although I commend the good work that is being done at every level to tackle those issues, it remains the case that every single drug death is a tragedy. It is our duty as representatives to ensure that we explore all avenues that we can to improve the current public health situation in Scotland and, ultimately, save lives.
That said, it is also incumbent on the lead committee in any scrutiny process to be forensic in its analysis of the provisions in the bill that is before it. I believe that I speak for all members of the committee when I say that I commend any policy that is intended to improve public health outcomes for the people of Scotland, but it would be remiss of any committee not to consider whether, in practice, the bill that it is scrutinising is capable of delivering its intended aims. Having considered all the evidence, and noting the member in charge of the bill’s recognition of the need for the bill to be substantially amended were it to progress to stage 2, a majority of the committee members concluded that they are unable to recommend that the general principles of the bill be agreed to. That decision was not taken lightly, but it reflects the many concerns that the committee heard about the bill’s focus and scope during its stage 1 scrutiny.
The report identifies various provisions in the bill that the committee concluded would require significant amendment in order to be workable. I will highlight to the Parliament some of the key practical challenges that are associated with implementation of the bill as drafted. They include the requirement for individuals to have received a diagnosis of addiction to be able to exercise the right to recovery that would be established by the bill, the requirement for individuals to attend in-person appointments, and the proposed maximum timescales for accessing treatment.
Many contributors to our scrutiny of the bill raised concerns about the bill’s lack of recognition of the role of the wider multidisciplinary team and the importance of trauma-informed approaches and a whole-family approach, as well as some of the language and terminology used in the bill. The evidence that was submitted to the committee—
I am grateful to the committee convener for taking an intervention. I ask this in a genuinely non-partisan way. She is speaking about the evidence that the committee received. Does she accept that, on balance, the witnesses that the committee heard from were largely against the bill, whereas the public support was 80 per cent in favour of the bill?
I remind Mr Ross that the committee looks at the evidence that it receives in its entirety—that includes written evidence as well as oral evidence—and that the witnesses who came to the committee were agreed on a cross-party basis by the committee.
That is how the committee chooses the people and organisations that come before it to give evidence. Although I accept what Mr Ross said, there was some support for the bill from the organisations that we heard from, but they also criticised elements of it.
Evidence that was submitted raised particular concerns that certain aspects of the bill’s provisions would exacerbate stigma for those who are experiencing harm from drug and alcohol use and would risk creating additional barriers to their accessing treatment. The committee also heard concerns about how the bill might interact with existing legal frameworks and strategies that are aimed at tackling drug and alcohol harms. More fundamentally, many of those who gave evidence raised concerns that, in a context of finite resources, establishing a legal right to treatment could create a significant risk of litigation and might set an unhelpful legal precedent for the creation of similar rights to the treatment of other conditions.
There was a general consensus among witnesses, particularly those working on the ground in front-line services, that the bill places too much emphasis on abstinence-based treatment over harm reduction. We also heard evidence that abstinence-based treatment pathways will not suit everyone and that, depending on where they are in their treatment and recovery journey, many individuals benefit more from harm-reduction interventions.
I thank Clare Haughey for taking an intervention. Would she not concede that, right now, the Scottish Government’s focus is on harm reduction and that there is not enough focus on providing the rehabilitation and recovery that the bill would allow us to provide?
I remind Ms Webber that I am speaking on behalf of the committee—not on behalf of my party and not on behalf of the Scottish Government. However, in her opening speech, the minister set out some of the work that the Government is doing, which includes increasing the number of rehabilitation beds and services.
The committee heard about the significant strain that those working in drug and alcohol services are currently under, and related concerns about the knock-on impact that staffing requirements associated with the bill might have on the workforce, including on recruitment to multidisciplinary roles.
My committee fully recognises the need for concerted action to address the public health crisis that the country continues to face in relation to drug and alcohol harms. However, after careful and considered scrutiny, a majority of members have been unable to recommend that the general principles of the bill be agreed to.
This is a serious topic that requires careful and considered policy approaches to save lives. It is incumbent on those in the chamber to ensure that any legislation that it considers in the area makes a real difference and does not inadvertently create additional barriers to treatment and recovery for service users or place additional unnecessary strain on service providers.
However the chamber decides to vote today, I welcome the robust debate that Douglas Ross’s bill has prompted, and I look forward to continuing to work collaboratively and constructively with colleagues to help tackle the on-going public health crisis that has plagued our communities for far too long.
The next speaker is Annie Wells, who joins us remotely to open on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives.
15:23
Once again, I send my apologies for not being in the chamber in person today. Nine years ago, in my maiden speech, I spoke about Scotland’s drug crisis—about the lives lost, the families broken and the communities left behind. When I addressed the chamber back in 2016, the number of drug deaths annually was 868, but in 2024 the number was 1,017. Nine years on, I stand here again, heartbroken that the situation has drastically worsened.
For me, this is not just policy; it is personal. I lost a friend to drugs when I was very young. I remember standing at her funeral on Christmas Eve, when my son was still little and thinking, “How can this be happening? How can someone so full of life and so loved be gone so soon?”. Over the years, I have lost family members, too. My neighbours have also lost loved ones, and unfortunately, many people in Glasgow can relate to that experience.
When I speak to people in the community, they ask me the same question over and over again: why do we not do something to get them into recovery? Instead, what we see is a Government that is content to manage addiction rather than help them live again.
Right now, it feels as though we are putting a plaster over a wound that needs surgery. We are treating people as lost causes instead of fighting for their futures.
In Calton, where I went to school, people feel forgotten. Residents who have spoken to me have cited that the Thistle centre’s presence has brought more drug dealers into the area. One man, an addict, who spoke to the media, said that he desperately wants to be in recovery but putting the Thistle centre there has made things worse for him. He said:
“There’s no hope. I have tried to get treatment and I just get sent away, put on methadone or on to an extra script.”
He, like many others, is asking:
“Why am I being left behind?”
That question should haunt members.
A few months ago, I put in a freedom of information request to the Thistle, and the answer that I got was devastating. Not one single person has been put into recovery from the Thistle—not one. Last week in committee, I hoped that things might have changed, but again I was told that not a single person has been put on to a recovery pathway. I was then told that that is not one of the measures of the Thistle’s success. How can we accept that? How can a so-called safer consumption space be called a success and how can we consider rolling it out to other cities if it does not get anyone into recovery?
I was told that not everyone’s recovery journey is the same, and I absolutely agree with that, but more than 460 people have used the Thistle, and if everyone’s journey is not the same, why is nobody’s journey leading to recovery?
When the Parliament voted to support the Thistle, it was under the impression that it would help more people into recovery—I voted for that. That was a promise, but the people of Calton and the people of the rest of Scotland feel as if it was just for show.
A grandma whose family has lived in Calton for more than 150 years says that she does not let her grandkids play outside anymore, and residents feel as though heroin has been decriminalised in Calton. It breaks my heart to hear that, because that community has already faced a lot of hardship, and it deserves better than to be treated as a testing ground.
I see the same pattern where I live in Springburn—the same thing that I spoke about nine years ago. I see the faces of the same people walking down the road to get the same national health service-prescribed methadone that they have been on for 30 years. That is 30 years of the same cycle and 30 years without real support to get better. That is why this bill matters so deeply. It says to those people, to the ones who believe that they have been written off, that we have not forgotten them. It says that recovery is not a privilege but a right, and it says that every person deserves the chance to get well and not to be parked on methadone for decades or ushered into a facility.
This is what I want Scotland to be. I want to see a Scotland where we invest in residential rehab, community-based recovery, aftercare, jobs and purpose. That is what changes lives.
I think back to my friend’s funeral all those years ago, and I wonder, if she had been offered real recovery, would she still be here today? That is a question that drives me. It is a question that should drive every single one of us in the chamber. Behind every statistic is a name, a face and a family. If we truly believe in compassion, in dignity and in second chances, we need to act like it.
I urge the minister yet again to look at this issue in a different light and to think about what we can do at stage 2. How can we get this bill to the point that we can have a further discussion?
People do not just deserve to survive; they deserve to live. In yesterday’s debate, the cabinet secretary Màiri McAllan said on the subject of illegal migration:
“we are talking about people ... with hopes, people with aspirations, people who have suffered and human beings who should be treated with dignity and respect.”—[Official Report, 8 October 2025; c 26.]
I agree with her, but I must ask the Scottish National Party Government why it cannot extend the same compassion, respect and human dignity to those suffering from addiction. If we are honest, this consumption facility is not a pathway to hope; it is a deferral of tragedy.
It is a waiting room for inevitability, where human beings are allowed to remain trapped in addiction for years without any real chance of recovery. Scotland does not need more managed misery; it needs meaningful recovery. It needs a Government that is brave enough to say that people deserve more than survival—they deserve to live.
I urge everyone in the chamber to listen to the message from Faces and Voices of Recovery UK:
“You keep talking, we keep dying.”
Let us do the right thing by taking action now and backing this bill.
15:30
At the heart of this bill is a simple principle: if someone who is battling an alcohol or drug addiction asks for help, they should get it, and that help should not be tokenistic but transformative. It should be a pathway towards a life free from toxic substances that includes a right to residential rehab, if needed. As the First Minister said earlier, there is already a charter that reflects that, but the fact that we are now debating this bill underlines its total inadequacy.
Here is what we know. Six years on from the SNP declaring a drugs death emergency, too many people are still dying. Although there was a small drop last year, which of course is to be welcomed, the provisional figures for the first six months of this year suggest that numbers will increase. We still have the worst drug deaths figures in the whole of Europe, and there are simply not enough rehab beds. The medication-assisted treatment standards are still not being met, including the provision of mental healthcare and trauma-informed care.
Let me turn to rehabilitation beds. The SNP’s definition of a rehab bed is quite wide ranging. It talks of placement, although some might be a crisis bed for one night. One cannot help but be cynical about whether that redefinition is about meeting its target rather than creating real provision. Colleagues will recall that, in 2021, the SNP pledged to increase the number of rehab beds to 650 by March 2026, which is an extra 225 beds. The First Minister told us the latest figures but, meanwhile, recovery services such as River Garden Auchincruive in Ayrshire and CrossReach in Dundee have faced funding crises.
We know that beds across Scotland are lying empty due to a lack of referrals because there is no money, so let us do the maths. We know that 28,000 Scots receive long-term opioid substitution therapy, but there are only around 500 residential rehabilitation beds. Around 140 of those are publicly provided, and the rest are in the charity and private sector. In 2022-23, the last year for which there are figures, fewer than a thousand people started a publicly funded residential rehab placement.
The charity Faces and Voices of Recovery estimates that, for Scotland to match European rates of rehab, there would need to be 2,700 placements a year, but we are nowhere near that. Figures last week showed that the Thistle centre has been used 7,165 times since January, but only 50 people have been referred to some kind of care and not a single one of those was sent to rehab. In the most recent survey of alcohol and drug partnerships, every single one of them reported barriers to residential rehab, most of it funding related.
Then there are the stories of people such as Stephanie Ritchie, who faced the amputation of her leg due to drug use yet was initially refused rehab. As the recovery charity who helped her said at the time:
“You could be at the end of your life and about to lose a limb like Stephanie and we would still have to fight to get you a place in rehab.”
Stephanie, who first became addicted aged 11 in a children’s home, asked for help. She should have received it.
The SNP, and the Greens, who I believe are voting with the SNP this evening, should be ashamed that they are standing in the way of that principle becoming law.
I would be the first to agree that the bill is not the finished article, with all due respect to Douglas Ross. There is a need to amend it at stage 2 to improve it and make it more robust and more deliverable. It also needs to consider the role of families, scope out the costs and be a bit more pragmatic about the three-week timescale. All that is doable, so it is beyond strange that the SNP is unwilling to do that.
The Parliament spends an inordinate amount of time amending Government legislation. Do I need to remind ministers of the 400 amendments to the recent Housing (Scotland) Bill, or the dog’s breakfast that was the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill, which had to be completely rewritten? This is not a game: it is about rehabilitation for alcohol and drug addicts who might otherwise die. The bill is about empowering vulnerable people who are in the grip of a condition that is so overwhelming that they are unable to advocate for themselves. The concern about resources is understandable, but it is a distraction. If the Scottish Government was delivering on its pledges to invest in rehabilitation, a large proportion of the money should be accounted for anyway. In public policy terms, we should not be forced to choose between harm reduction and recovery: both are essential if we are to solve this crisis.
With deadly synthetic opioids sweeping our streets, we do not have time for half measures. We are told that recovery is available to all, but it is not. There is a postcode lottery and, in some cases, it is determined by people’s ability to pay. The bill would end the postcode lottery because, if we can pass legislation to give rights in housing, education, mental health and beyond, we can make recovery a right, too. Scotland does not lack compassion; the Scottish Government lacks courage. Courage is what the bill asks of us.
15:36
I begin by acknowledging the work that Douglas Ross has put into lodging the bill in the Parliament. Any member’s bill, whether it is consensual or controversial and whatever the topic, takes a significant amount of work, which we should acknowledge. I also acknowledge the work of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee. I joined the committee part-way through the scrutiny process, so I acknowledge the work that was done before I joined it. I took the time to watch and read the evidence that I had not been present for and I express my thanks to all the witnesses who contributed to and enriched the scrutiny process.
We should also all recognise the shared commitment to the issue. Respectfully, I disagree with Douglas Ross’s point about optics. Whether we pass a bill on one subject and do not pass a bill on another does not tell us how much we care or do not care about a topic. The Parliament has a responsibility to pass what we believe is good legislation. I do not think that it is about sending signals.
If the member does not agree with my point about the optics of passing stage 1 of a dog theft bill versus a bill that is trying to save people’s lives, does he agree with my point about shutting down further debate on an issue? That is what the Greens and the SNP will be doing at decision time. They could vote against the bill at stage 3; they should at least give the bill time to be improved. If the bill cannot be improved to the satisfaction of Patrick Harvie and the Greens, they should vote it down at stage 3, not shut down the opportunity to keep on talking about the issue and improving the bill.
I will come to the detailed reasons as to why I will not take that path and why I do not think that it would be the right decision.
In opening, I also want to express the hope and the confidence that Jackie Baillie was not intending to imply that anyone treats the topic as a game. We all take it with extreme seriousness, and recognise that Scotland has a wildly unacceptable number of drug deaths and that there is a significant degree of frustration about the pace of change. Even though there is broad support for the direction of travel of the Government’s policy of investing in services and innovating, there is frustration about the pace at which that is happening. We know that those things take time.
With a small number of passionate exceptions, most of the evidence that was heard at stage 1 was broadly critical of the bill. A long list of concerns has been raised. Absolutely nobody has been in denial of the problem, but many have argued that the bill is the wrong answer to it. A number of changes would need to be made to the bill if it were to progress: it would need to be made consistent with the current policy and legal framework, rather than being in conflict with it. The current framework is regarded as being more collaborative and less medicalised. The bill would need to address the concern that the legal right to treatment in some areas would result in the deprioritisation of investment in prevention and early intervention.
There is a concern that the bill will create a precedent for the creation of legal rights to treatment in specific health areas. I do not think that it takes much imagination to think where we could get to in a relatively short space of time if the allocation of resources in healthcare were determined not by clinical need but by whether individual bills had passed through Parliament.
It was suggested that the bill needs to give more clarity on how the support that is given by carers, family members and others could be brought into the process. It is unclear how or whether that could be addressed at stage 2. It has been argued that the bill does not embed a trauma-informed approach and that, although that needs to be addressed, there is a lack of clarity about what changes could possibly achieve that.
The bill’s requirement for a medical practitioner to make the treatment determination risks overmedicalising the process, and it fails to recognise that other routes to accessing services are often hugely important. There is a concern that the costs, including for staff training, would go far beyond those estimated in the financial memorandum, and that that, in itself, would have a detrimental impact on the provision of services.
There is also a concern that, by creating a legal right to treatment within a fixed timeframe, when capacity in services takes time to expand and be developed—
Will the member take an intervention?
Will the member take an intervention?
—the bill creates significant risk of litigation, and that that would generate additional financial costs to service providers at the expense of investment in services.
Will the member take an intervention?
I will give way if there is time in hand, Presiding Officer.
We have very limited time in hand, but enough. Which member are you taking an intervention from?
I saw Mr Whittle first.
Mr Harvie talks about the issues with creating time directives. Does he not recognise that we already have a time directive, which is that people are supposed to receive treatment in the NHS within 12 weeks, and that that directive has been broken? Why can we not have the directive that is in the bill?
The bill seeks to create a legal right to treatment within three weeks of a treatment determination that would be actionable and challengeable, at a time when we all agree that we should expand the provision of services. I worry that money would end up being spent on lawyers’ fees instead of providing services.
The requirement for a medical diagnosis has also been mentioned. Many people require support but do not have a clinical diagnosis of addiction, and they would face additional barriers.
I am aware of time, so I will finish by saying that recovery means different things to different people. In the debate today, we have already heard a member conflating recovery with residential rehab leading to abstinence. That is one route to recovery for some people, but it is not going to be the path that everyone takes or that everyone is ready for.
There is a real risk that the bill would see resources shift away from other services that work well to reduce harm and prevent deaths. Scotland is investing to expand the services that are needed and to innovate with new provision such as the safer consumption facility, which is already saving lives. We also need the reform of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, which is wildly out of date and inhibits such innovation, making it harder to provide services.
Continuing that work is the way to make progress in cutting drug deaths, reducing harm and giving people the support that they need on their own terms. That is the direction of travel that Scotland should continue taking, and we should all continue to put pressure on the Government to do that at pace. However, I do not believe that the bill would help us do that.
15:43
I congratulate Douglas Ross, not least on the work that he and his staff have done alongside the non-governmental bills unit, but on the work that he has done across the chamber to bring us to a space where the Liberal Democrats will offer our cautious support for the principles of the bill at stage 1. This is the last opportunity before this Parliament rises for the election for us to use our legislative framework to deal with one of the worst crises in our public services and way of life.
I listened with interest to what I thought was a compelling speech from the minister, who very bravely took us through some personal examples of addiction in her family, for which I commend her. However, I fundamentally disagree that rehabilitation and harm reduction are in any way mutually exclusive. I fundamentally believe, as Liberals do, that harm reduction is something that we need to have everywhere. We do not. We have called for the Thistle pilot to be expanded across the country, not least to our metropolitan areas, but also to those areas of rurality where harm reduction is so badly needed.
Rehab has its place, too, however, and people deserve a right to rehab. Therefore we will support the bill, because we cannot turn our backs or close the book on the last opportunity in this session of Parliament to make meaningful change in this area, before a new Government, potentially, is sworn in next spring.
We owe it to every family who has lost a loved one to addiction to explore every possible solution, because this is a crisis and a scandal that can blight every part of life’s journey. I have talked many times about my experience in my journey to Parliament through organisations that provided addiction services, not least to babies who were born addicted to substances and have to go through withdrawal in their first days of life. I was proud of the Liberal Democrat influence on the Scottish budget that allowed an increase in the budget for Aberlour Children’s Charity for its provision of services for babies experiencing neonatal abstinence syndrome.
The bill’s aim is to give everybody the right to timely person-centred treatment. We should all be able to get behind that. I do not understand why people are fixated on the gravity of where the bill is now, as opposed to where we could get it to. That is why we are not going to give up on it today.
Too many people who are seeking help are still turned away, told to wait and sometimes simply lost in the system. The bill creates a legal right for people who are diagnosed with addiction to receive a treatment determination and to begin treatment within three weeks.
I have concerns about bringing in a guarantee to be covered by the funding envelope that we currently provide for drug and alcohol services in this country. I am concerned that such a legal imperative will lead to alcohol and drug partnerships, social care partnerships and health boards diverting resources away from crucial trauma-informed and harm reduction services in order to meet that guarantee. However, that need not be the end of the story. I have had discussions on the issue with Douglas Ross—I am grateful for his time—and I believe that he supports an expansion of that funding envelope so that we can accommodate both types of services, because they should not be mutually exclusive.
I am also concerned that, at current workforce levels, we do not have enough people working in addiction services to make the bill’s proposals a reality. That does not mean that we should not try. It does not mean that we should not seek to expand that workforce, because whatever Parliament decides this afternoon, we should expand the number of people who join addiction services and help others to stabilise their lives and get clean of substances.
That statement of intent for the bill is powerful, but, without that capacity, it is, potentially, not realistic. I look forward to working with the member in charge, if Parliament passes the bill at stage 1 today, to get it to a place where we can answer those criticisms and, by so doing, respond to committee’s reflections on the financial memorandum and the deficiencies that it sees therein, of which we heard from Clare Haughey.
The bill might be far from perfect, and I am not entirely convinced that it provides all the answers to this crisis—in fact, I know that it does not. We need to recognise that, often, substance use is a response to unresolved childhood trauma. In every measure that we deploy—whether it is a right to rehab, stabilisation or harm reduction in the corridors of the Thistle or in centres like it, which I hope will be rolled out across the country—we have to recognise that trauma-informed practices are key to not just helping people to conquer their addictions at that moment in time, but to addressing and resolving the underlying trauma that led them to that space in the first place. We need to wrap around a range of additional services, once people are stabilised, to help them to conquer problems in their lives that are unrelated to substance use but that underpin that use in the first place. That includes providing access to a safe, warm and stable home; ensuring that they have a trajectory and purpose in life, through education, training or employment; and understanding, at every stage, the trauma that underpins the decisions that they have taken up to this point.
I do not believe that the concerns about staffing or capacity are good enough reason to reject the bill. It is up to the Scottish Government to work with parliamentarians to say that, if it is the will of Parliament—and I believe that it should be the will of Parliament—we will make a funding envelope around the bill that accommodates the needs of the services that now exist for harm reduction and stabilisation, but that also offers the crucial right to recovery and rehabilitation that Douglas Ross has rightly put in his bill.
For those reasons, the Liberal Democrats will support the bill’s general principles at decision time. Every life lost to addiction is one too many. We cannot afford to let the conversation pass us by and close the book on legislative change for the rest of this parliamentary session. Therefore, we will support the bill at decision time.
We move to the open debate.
15:50
I recognise the hard work on which Mr Ross has embarked while introducing his member’s bill. Having taken a member’s bill through the Parliament in the previous session, I know how much hard work it is for a member and their team, and how much support from the excellent non-Government bills unit is involved.
I also understand and acknowledge the principles that lie behind the bill. The minister already described the wider approach and policy measures on housing, employment and healthcare that are necessary to address recovery from addiction.
Will Emma Harper give way?
I would like to make a couple of pages of progress.
Every life that is lost due to alcohol and drugs has a devastating, heartbreaking and tragic effect on families and communities.
For the debate, I will keep my comments focused on the evidence that we took, as I am a member of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee. I will also focus on the stage 1 report.
Does Emma Harper not believe that it was a privilege for her to introduce the Dogs (Protection of Livestock) (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill? She was granted the time and the effort to take it to fruition even though there have been only a couple of situations in which somebody was found guilty of livestock worrying under that legislation. Should the SNP not afford Douglas Ross and all the people who are losing their lives the time to progress, and the courtesy of progressing, the bill, considering that it did that for you?
Always speak through the chair.
A lot of time and consideration was given to my member’s bill, and we took months of evidence on Douglas Ross’s bill at the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee.
I will focus on the evidence that we took at the committee. We need to ensure that our policies are effective to help to support some of the most vulnerable people in society. Our committee heard directly from individuals and organisations and conducted an open consultation for anyone to give their views on the bill. The responses were many and varied, so I will pick up just a few.
The Highland alcohol and drugs partnership said:
“The Bill, as it is currently drafted, is unlikely to bring the transformative change that is urgently needed”.
The Scottish Association of Social Work submitted:
“We also have reservations about the current requirement to be abstinent before accessing some medical interventions. We believe that this represents a barrier to early help and for some people may be one that they cannot overcome.”
Aberlour said:
“we believe the Bill is too narrow in its idea of the treatment that should be available. The focus appears to be on residential rehabilitation that is abstinence based.”
I will cover a few points from the stage 1 report, including points made in the executive summary. Committee members have already referred to a number of clear points.
The families and carers of individuals who are experiencing harm from drug or alcohol use expressed disappointment that the bill makes no reference to the crucial role that family and carers play in supporting an individual through their treatment and recovery. However, I note that Mr Ross is prepared to re-examine that if the bill progresses.
Our report calls on Douglas Ross to consider further how trauma-informal practices can be properly reflected in the bill.
We heard evidence regarding the use of language and definitions. I feel it myself, as I have raised the issue of stigmatising language on numerous occasions in debates and questions in the chamber. There should be a minimum requirement for education to be provided to any health professional, as anyone in healthcare could come into contact with a person who is experiencing harm from substance misuse.
Will Emma Harper give way?
I would like to continue, if Mr Findlay does not mind.
Indeed, two members have already used stigmatising language in the debate. I agree with the comment in the report that some of the language in the bill can be considered stigmatising. The requirement to have a diagnosis of
“‘addiction’ ... risks creating stigma”,
which might discourage
“individuals from putting themselves forward for treatment.”
An example of repairing the language would be to change the word “addiction” to “substance use disorder”, or “addict” to “a person with a problem with problematic drug use”. It is really important that we help to support people and take the stigma out of this. That is backed up elsewhere in the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders”, which reflects what I am saying about stigmatising language.
As a member who represents a rural region, I will highlight the requirement in the bill for a right to an in-person appointment. That would disadvantage people who are resident in remote and rural areas.
Will the member take an intervention on that point?
No, I will continue speaking, because I have a couple of pages left of my speech that I would like to finish on.
During and since the Covid pandemic, we have seen the advances of Near Me appointments and video consultations—they should be taken into consideration should the bill progress. Video or remote consultations suit people in rural areas for a number of reasons, such as those relating to travel, transport, time and privacy.
The committee also heard concerns about the three-week timescales for individuals to commence treatment that are proposed in the bill, which might cause challenges in the quality and choice of treatment and could, again, lead to restrictions of treatment.
I am conscious of time, Presiding Officer. As can be seen throughout the report and heard from speakers across the chamber, there are many calls for changes to be made, and so many proposed alterations would require additional scrutiny and additional time. Some of the requested changes are not insignificant and would leave the bill significantly different from the original bill that was proposed. For that reason, I cannot support the bill at stage 1.
15:56
I thank my colleague Douglas Ross, the non-Government bills unit, Annemarie Ward, Stevie Wishart and all the other groups and individuals who have helped to bring the bill before the Parliament today. I give a call-out to Annemarie and Stevie for, during the short period when I was the shadow minister for drugs and alcohol policy, steering me through some of the landscape that I was unfamiliar with.
Under the SNP, drug-related deaths have spiralled out of control; the number of drug deaths in Scotland has more than doubled since it came to power. The current strategies to help those who are struggling with addiction have failed and are still failing. It is not about language; it is about saving lives. Even Nicola Sturgeon has admitted that the SNP took its “eye off the ball” on drug deaths and that, as a Government, it got things wrong.
We can all agree that each and every drug or alcohol death is a tragedy, and there can be no doubt that our drug deaths crisis is an emergency—I will not be able to speak with the emotion that Annie Wells has shown this afternoon. Scotland still, for the seventh year in a row, has the highest drug deaths rate in Europe. During that time, more than 8,300 people have lost their lives, leaving behind grieving families and friends. The most recent UK-wide data available shows that Scotland’s drug death rate is nearly three times that in England and Northern Ireland, and 1.9 times higher than that in Wales. People in the most deprived areas of Scotland are 12 times more likely to die of drug misuse than people in the least deprived areas. That is an utter shame. In 2020 alone, 602 children lost a parent or a parental figure because of a drug death. The number of alcohol-specific deaths, having increased by 16 per cent since 2019, is above 1,000 for the 12th year in a row.
Kirsten Horsburgh, the chief executive officer of the Scottish Drugs Forum, blamed the SNP’s cuts for increasing drug deaths. Alcohol and drug partnerships, which tackle drug and alcohol misuse at the local level, say that they are underfunded and have no confidence in the SNP Government’s leadership—I agree. Seventy-two per cent of ADPs said that they do not receive enough funding to deliver the national mission of reducing the number of drug deaths. Audit Scotland said that an 8 per cent real-terms reduction in funding over the past two years means that ADPs are having to find ways to do more with fewer resources. Only one in three ADPs agree that the Scottish Government is showing effective leadership on the national mission.
The SNP Government has failed to make a serious dent in the appalling drug death toll. Its solution—its silver bullet—was the Thistle, a drug consumption room in Glasgow. That was used for years as a constitutional excuse for the number of drug deaths being so high in Scotland. A reported 7,000 people have been using the drug consumption room—Jackie Baillie spoke about the statistics in more detail. That room has cost £2.3 million, but not one person has been signposted to a rehabilitation service. We were promised that people would be, which was one of the reasons why the Conservatives supported the pilot. We were misled. To say that I have reservations about the effectiveness of drug consumption rooms would be an understatement, and I, for one, do not want to see them spread across the country in any way, shape or form—certainly not in the capital city of Edinburgh.
I wonder whether you could explain the situation a wee bit more to me. The people you and I speak to surely just want their family members or loved ones to get the help and support that they need to be better. So, is the Thistle delivering or not?
Always speak through the chair.
I do not think that the Thistle is delivering. Indeed, Annemarie Ward from FAVOR has said that the safe consumption rooms—
Will Sue Webber take an intervention?
I do not think that I can, Mr Cole-Hamilton, as I have very limited time. I am not sure.
There is limited time. It is up to the member.
I want services to be underpinned by prescription programmes, detoxification and rehabilitation services. That is what is laid out in the Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill, and that is what needs to be part of the solution.
Another hard truth is that Scotland has a far lower number of residential rehabilitation treatment spaces than the European Union average. Ms Baillie gave us the statistics on that today. The latest data shows that there are still only 513 such beds in Scotland. From experience, I know that, later on, someone in the chamber will say that we have another 150 rehabilitation beds, which we should be celebrating. The Scottish Government says that those beds will treat 1,000 people. However, the reality is that, for those 150 beds to treat 1,000 people, they can be used by each individual only for six weeks, yet, time and again, I remind members that six weeks does not provide rehabilitation—six weeks is needed for detoxification and stabilisation alone. It is not the solution. That is the harsh reality, so members must support the bill today and, if they cannot, they must ask themselves why.
Instead of investing in recovery, the SNP continues to advocate decriminalisation. We heard more of that from Patrick Harvie, too.
The bill has been drawn up alongside people with lived experience and experts in the field of addiction. It would be a game changer if the members in the chamber who do not plan to back it would wake up. We must learn one thing this afternoon: by not voting to support Douglas Ross’s bill, the Government is standing in the way of saving lives, and I am absolutely devastated that that is the position that it is choosing to take.
16:02
I draw members’ attention to my entry in the register of members’ interests. I was previously employed by Dundee’s Leverhulme research centre for forensic science, which is involved in the development of drug-checking services.
I acknowledge the work of Douglas Ross, his colleagues, stakeholders and campaigners, many of whom have lived experience, who have contributed to the bill and given their views on it, often by reliving trauma and discussing difficult situations in their lives. For many people, such conversations do not come up without cost. I know that everyone who is engaged in the work is motivated by a deep desire to save lives and protect people from the harm that addiction causes for individuals, families and communities. No one who has engaged in this most serious of issues and met people with lived experience would argue against giving people a route out of addiction and a pathway to recovery.
There has to be respect for the individual and recognition that a one-size-fits-all approach simply does not work. Where practical abstinence measures work for people, they should be available, but abstinence is not the only possibility or the only pathway to recovery. As Jackie Baillie said, there should not be a policy choice between harm reduction and residential rehabilitation—that cannot be allowed to be the case. However, I am afraid that parts of the debate are turning on a balance between the two, so, at times, the debate moves from the practical towards the philosophical. The pragmatic solution that is set out in the Labour position is that we will support what works.
My home city of Dundee is in the top three areas in Scotland for drug deaths, and the city and the community bear the scars of that crisis. The number of drug deaths in Dundee in 2024 was nearly double the number in 2010. That is nothing short of scandalous, and it always bears repeating. Those lives were needlessly lost while inadequate services were left to decline, and necessary interventions to save lives were ignored.
There has clearly been service failure in Dundee, as was laid out in the Dundee drugs commission report, and many lives have been lost as a result. That failure was characterised by a system that was overly clinical and medicalised but that was punitive in nature and lacked flexibility for the individual. If services are to have any chance of achieving lasting change, they have to meet people where they are. Far too often, that does not happen. The pace of change that people have experienced with the services in Dundee has been glacial.
I remain deeply sceptical about the assessment of the MAT standards. The green rating that has been attributed to many of the services in Dundee does not reflect the experience of service users—or of service providers—of the availability of those services.
There also remains a significant data issue. If we are to do what works, we need to know what works. We need proper live data. There have been clear improvements in the RADAR system in relation to warnings about the kinds of drug mixes that are on our streets and that are a risk to people daily. However, we need to shorten the timescales for forensic toxicology, so that we give policy makers the information that we need while simultaneously protecting people from harm as best we can.
We also need drug-checking services as a priority. The minister knows that I want the Dundee facility to be operational as soon as possible. In the past week, I have been in conversation with the University of Dundee to see how that might be progressed at greater pace, and I know that the minister shares that aspiration—she said as much at the joint committee meeting last week.
It is crucial that we get services right at moments of potential change for individuals. The often neglected area of transition and stabilisation services is critical to that. Done properly, those services can help people to get to a place where they can take the necessary steps from chaotic drug use to accessing residential rehabilitation where it is—as it should be—available. That can support them to beat addiction and to get their lives back on track.
At present, in far too many areas, stabilisation and transition services simply do not exist at all. Beyond committing the funds, the Government must work at pace to make sure that those services are available on the ground, because I am led to believe that some funds in the Scottish Government budget remain unspent because there are no options for spending the money.
Each of the measures that I have set out would help people on the path to recovery and would save lives. In the context of the bill, which Douglas Ross has introduced with the support of his colleagues, we must recognise that there is no one path or solution for this most serious of crises. The Government should be doing everything that it can and exploring every avenue to address the issue. It cannot shut down one priority ahead of another. If this is genuinely a crisis, the Government and service providers should be using every tool at their disposal to save lives as part of that national mission—to use the language of religion that we have heard from the Government.
The explosion in drug deaths in this country is unique in character and was preventable—it should have been prevented. It is the Government’s single biggest categoric failure in public health, for which the previous First Minister has admitted culpability. No genuine solutions have been brought to the table. The numbers remain far too high. Every year, my constituents pay with their lives. It is my sincere hope that the bill will pass stage 1 today and that the debate surrounding it can be a catalyst for much-needed change in my city and in the rest of the country.
16:08
Everyone in the chamber understands the urgency and gravity of the drugs crisis in Scotland. The scourge of addiction has been with us for too long and far too many people have died. Too many people have had their lives blighted by this desperate health issue.
As we have heard from the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee convener and other members, sadly, this bill is not the answer. It is flawed to the point of being beyond repair and could not work. The committee’s excellent stage 1 report presents a balanced but realistic view of what the member is proposing, which is well intentioned, of course, but, I believe, unworkable.
It is clear that there is widespread concern about the bill from stakeholders as well as from the committee. Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems pointed out that, if the bill were to be progressed,
“it would need to be extended significantly to ensure all people who would benefit from alcohol services and treatment have a right to treatment, not just people who are diagnosed as ‘addicted’ or dependent.”
Who would set the bar for who should receive treatment?
Quality of care is not currently addressed in the bill. Surely that is crucial. In addition, the timescales for starting treatment might be unsuitable for certain patients. Every patient has individual needs that must be tailored to them to give them the best chance of recovery.
A further issue is the limited idea of recovery in the bill. Beyond medical treatment, it does not address the psychosocial and practical life support that is necessary in recovery, nor does it acknowledge the structural drivers of harmful substance use. Instead, it positions the person as the problem and treatment as the solution.
That leads me on to stigmatisation, which my colleague Emma Harper spoke about. Disappointingly, I think that the bill reinforces stigma through its language and by perpetuating the idea that alcohol and drug use is the individual’s fault. That is not acceptable when addressing a public health issue.
The Royal College of Physicians believes that mandating a clinical pathway would create challenges and that it usually results, paradoxically, in poorer condition management, as assessment and review stages are created to support only mandated pathways. For instance, staff might be moved from one health setting to another to provide mandated treatments, but they might lack the skills that are required if they have not had specialist training.
The Scottish Government’s national mission on drugs has already been carefully designed by people with lived and living experience. The bill’s blanket, one-size-fits-all approach for people who are recovering from addiction does not work, as there is no one perfect route. Everyone’s recovery is different, as other members have said.
It is entirely unclear whether Douglas Ross’s estimated costs for providing the proposed treatment are accurate and realistic. Crucially, it is also unclear how the right, as it stands in the bill, would be enforceable.
The Scottish Government’s forthcoming national service specification represents an opportunity to set out what services should be available. There is a risk that the bill could detract from that work by taking funding away from current essential services.
I am pleased that the minister has confirmed that £2 million will be provided for an additional placement fund for alcohol and drug partnerships. That funding relates to residential rehab in Scotland, which is much needed. Its provision is one of a range of actions that the Government has taken through its £250 million national mission on drugs.
The opening of a safer drug consumption facility in Glasgow was groundbreaking, and it is already estimated that the facility has saved hundreds of lives. Credit must go to the late and greatly respected Peter Krykant for all his work and determination in making that a reality. Of course, the widening of access to life-saving naloxone is also crucially important. I would advocate for a wider public awareness campaign on naloxone, due to its proven effectiveness.
I really regret having to vote against the bill. I agree with its overall ambition of supporting people’s recovery from alcohol and drug addiction but, sadly, the mechanisms that it proposes simply do not work. The Scottish Government is working hard within its powers to reduce drug deaths, but I must make it clear that our public health approach is at odds with the Westminster legislation that we must operate within, and I wish that that was not the case.
Will the member take an intervention?
No.
I hope that, through the work that is in progress, and with a clear vision of how to prevent future generations from succumbing to the dangers of drugs and alcohol, we can prevent or, at least, reduce the shocking number of deaths. It sounds trite to say that every life lost to addiction is a tragedy, but be assured that the Scottish Government is absolutely committed to implementing evidence-based approaches that will save lives.
I call Graham Simpson, who has up to six minutes.
16:13
Many thanks indeed. I will not take six minutes, because I normally get two minutes these days, but I will take interventions—including from Mr Findlay, if he wishes to make one, because I was not able to take one from him yesterday.
I thank Douglas Ross for bringing the bill to this point. A lot of work goes into bringing a member’s bill to stage 1. Douglas has worked with the very impressive Annemarie Ward, who is at the back of the chamber. We should congratulate her, too.
Will Graham Simpson take an intervention?
I would be delighted to.
The boss of an anti-drugs charity once told me that a recent anti-drugs campaign run by the Scottish Government was a very negative vibe and that we should use more positive images of drug taking. That bizarre and naive view says much about Scotland’s harm reduction lobby. Does the member accept that it is the dominance of that lobby and its ideology that is influencing and directing the SNP’s shameful vote today?
I do not know whether that is true, but I take the point. The member might be on to something, because it is strange that the SNP is set to vote against the bill. All that we are voting for today are the general principles. It is the same as with any bill. If a bill needs to be changed, that is what stages 2 and 3 are for.
Before I get into the meat of my speech, I want to say how powerful Annie Wells’s speech was. It was probably the best speech that I have heard from Annie Wells among a number of very powerful speeches that she has given. That was her best.
Drugs deaths are Scotland’s shame and today could be a day of shame for the Parliament if we vote the bill down at this point, because it is about something that the public believe should exist. If someone asks for help with addiction, they should get it, but right now that is not how our system works. That is why we have the worst drug deaths record in Europe.
We have around 500 rehab beds in Scotland, but only 140 are funded and accessible. The rest belong to charities or private providers, and they are shared with people who are seeking help for alcohol. Meanwhile, 28,600 people are on long-term methadone or buprenorphine, so that is one publicly funded rehab bed for every 200 people on methadone, never mind people with an alcohol addiction or an addiction to other non-opiate drugs.
We have already heard mention of the Thistle drug consumption facility, and the question was raised whether anyone has actually recovered through going to that facility. I think that the answer is no, but I will tell you what we have nearby. I saw shocking scenes on social media—
Will the member give way?
Allow me to finish this. I saw on social media shocking scenes near that facility just the other day, with needles scattered everywhere and a tree with needles stuck in it. We will call it the needle tree. It is a monument to despair and death, and that is shocking. I will take the intervention.
I am grateful to the member for giving way, but he will be aware that we were not pioneers in opening the Thistle centre. It is built on international evidence. There is evidence that the Thistle centre has already saved lives and is continuing to do so. Rather than castigating those people who are working valiantly at the front line of the drug deaths crisis, we need interventions such as the Thistle to be rolled out right across Scotland.
I have not seen any evidence that it is helping people to recover, and surely that is what we need to be doing.
Eighty per cent of consultation respondents backed the bill, but the committee chose to hear mainly from those who oppose it, and they are the very institutions whose policies have failed.
Here is the question: are we going to stand with failing systems or with the people who still believe that recovery is possible? If the bill needs to be refined—and Douglas Ross accepts that it needs refining—we do that at stage 2, even if it needs massive change. That is what the process is for.
Recovery should be not a privilege but a right. If we can make housing and education legal rights, we can make recovery a legal right. I say to the members who are being instructed to vote no today that they should show some backbone, give people a fighting chance and support the bill at stage 1. Do the right thing.
We move to the closing speeches. Maggie Chapman will close on behalf of the Scottish Greens.
16:19
I begin by saying clearly that no one should suffer or die because they cannot access the support that they need to recover from addiction. Every life lost to drugs or alcohol is a tragedy and a reflection not of individual failure but of collective neglect.
That is why we in the Scottish Greens whole-heartedly share the motivation behind the bill, which is driven by compassion and a desire to ensure that people who are in the grip of addiction are not abandoned by the systems that are meant to help them. We absolutely agree with that goal, but, regrettably, given the evidence that the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee heard, much of which has been rehearsed today, we are concerned that the bill will not and cannot achieve what it promises. What is perhaps more troubling for us is that, according to experts in the field, the bill risks doing real harm along the way.
The question is not about whether people should have a right to recovery—of course they should. The question is about whether this particular bill would make that right real, and the evidence before us says that it would not.
The Scottish Drugs Forum has been clear that the bill would not confer any meaningful new rights. People already have the right to assessment and treatment; what they often lack is access to good-quality, trauma-informed, person-centred support. That access is blocked not by law but by capacity, workforce pressures, stigma and a lack of properly funded services.
Maggie Chapman is articulating what a lot of the vested interests say. Why does she believe that she knows more than the front-line experts who tell us that the bill is required?
A lot of the front-line experts have told us the exact opposite and said that the bill threatens to cause real harm.
As the committee found, and as Rona Mackay stressed earlier, the bill risks entrenching a narrow, medicalised model of treatment. It gives decision-making power solely to health professionals, when we know that real recovery depends on relationships, trust and communities and on support that meets people where they are. As the minister articulated earlier, by focusing so heavily on a clinical diagnosis and prescribed treatments, the bill ignores the wider psychological, social and economic roots of addiction.
The committee’s report highlights deep concerns that that approach could undermine the progress that is already being made through the national mission on drugs, the medication assisted treatment standards and the charter of rights for people affected by substance use. Those frameworks are built on human rights, empowerment and lived experience. They aim to shift power towards people in recovery, while the bill risks shifting power back to institutions.
I echo the concerns expressed by Patrick Harvie and Alex Cole-Hamilton about the bill’s three-week statutory deadline for treatment. It sounds good, but it would be unworkable in practice and could backfire, by pressuring services to tick boxes rather than provide meaningful support. As the SDF has warned, we have seen before how targets can distort behaviour instead of improving outcomes. People could end up in preparatory sessions that are counted as treatment, rather than getting the care that they need. That is not compassion; that is bureaucracy.
The committee also heard that the bill’s language, which is centred on “addiction” and “diagnosis”, could deepen stigma. Emma Harper eloquently highlighted that. In addition to what she outlined, many people harmed by substance use would not fit the definition and might therefore be excluded, which would run directly counter to the inclusive, trauma-informed approach that Scottish Greens believe must underpin all public health work.
There would be risks in creating legally enforceable rights that the NHS could not deliver on. If people turned to the courts because services were overstretched, we would spend precious resources and time on litigation rather than on care. None of us wants that.
Addiction is not just a medical condition; it is a social justice issue. Poverty, trauma, inequality and isolation are its soil. We must nurture recovery not only through treatment but through housing, mental health support, community connection and dignity.
That is why the Scottish Greens call for continued investment in holistic, community-based services; for trauma-informed care that recognises the person before the patient; for harm reduction measures that save lives today, such as safer drug consumption facilities, access to naloxone, and housing first; and for ending the stigma that too often drives people away from support.
We do need legislation, but it must be constructed in ways that mean that it can actually achieve its aims. We do not have that in the bill. The changes that are required to it would result in a very different piece of legislation.
We know that we need legislative reform, some of which is not in our gift. It is clear that Westminster legislation hampers rather than supports the approach that we seek to take in Scotland.
[Made a request to intervene.]
Will the member take an intervention?
The member is about to conclude.
Some members who are arguing in support of the bill today say that this is the last opportunity to do anything about addiction in the current session of Parliament. That is simply not true, and we know that legislation is never the whole solution. The national collaborative’s charter of rights offers a strong foundation, and it includes the voices and experiences of the people it is meant to serve. It gives voice, agency and dignity to those who are most affected. We should strengthen that framework and not supplant it.
With respect for the intention behind the bill, but with deep regret and concern about its consequences, we cannot support the bill today. However, our rejection of the bill is not a rejection of recovery. It is a call for better services, better understanding and better compassion, because everyone deserves the chance to recover, not through legal wording but through a society that truly cares. We reiterate our commitment to play our full part to ensure that we create that caring society.
Paul Sweeney will close on behalf of Scottish Labour.
16:26
I extend to Mr Ross my compliments on his work to develop the bill in concert with, in particular, Annemarie Ward and Stephen Wishart. They have worked very hard on it over a number of years in the current parliamentary session.
Soon after I was elected to the UK Parliament in 2017, we had a debate on this very issue in the House of Commons. At that time, there was division about the efficacy of certain interventions, but over time we have learned—in a school of negative learning in Scotland, unfortunately—what we need to do to make a positive difference, to save people’s lives and to preserve and enhance life.
Today, many speakers have described personal experience of addiction and the pernicious effects that it has on families. For people from working-class families in the west of Scotland, the impacts run deep, and they have affected my family. I have had relatives who have suffered premature death because of alcohol addiction and tobacco addiction, and other members have spoken powerfully about their personal experiences.
However, even I, after my election to represent the north-east of Glasgow in 2017, could not comprehend the sheer scale of the drug deaths emergency that confronted my constituents at that time. That happened in the context of the Government having cut £50 million from addiction services in this country over the previous five years, before I was elected, and having compounded it by almost prohibiting the routine prescribing of benzodiazepines through primary care practitioners. That combination was catastrophic. It structurally shifted Scotland’s profile of drug-related deaths to be the worst in Europe, and that has been a persistent structural catastrophe for this country over the past decade. Last year, there were still 1,017 drug-related deaths. Since the Government announced the national emergency, we have had more than 6,000 preventable deaths.
It is incumbent on us all to understand what we can do together, with a unified purpose, to stop drug deaths as much as we can. Every circumstance will be different, but circumstances are often related. I remember meeting Annemarie Ward for the first time, in the Possilpoint community centre in 2019, along with Peter Krykant, who I also met for the first time at that event. We discussed the catastrophic drug-related deaths in the city and what needed to be done. It was clear that everything needed to be done—everything that would be useful and was backed by evidence. At that time, I resolved with Mr Krykant to support his work to open an unsanctioned overdose prevention centre in Glasgow.
That work helped to save nine people’s lives; nine overdoses were reversed and 900 injections were supervised. During that period, I was able to build consensus with Mr Ross and others in the chamber about the need to at least test the efficacy of the programme. So far, the official pilot has encountered 60 medical emergencies and has demonstrated that its operation results in lives being preserved.
It is one thing to preserve lives, but it is another to allow people to have a reason to live. Often, encounters can be instrumental. That is why it is important that we stay unified. There is a role for harm reduction measures, but they have to be augmented and reinforced by a pathway to recovery. It is in no one’s interest to sustain addiction for a minute longer than is necessary. We must provide a way out of addiction for people who are able and have the capacity to take it. However, first and foremost, we need to preserve lives.
I respect Paul Sweeney for what he is saying and for the work that he has done, but does he agree that, if we do not get one person to recovery from the Thistle, we are not doing enough? I understand that everyone’s journey is not the same, but surely there should be one person on a recovery path from the Thistle centre.
Ms Wells’s point is important, and it reflects the point that Michael Marra, my colleague from Dundee, made, which was that we must meet people where they are, without judgment and without setting tests that they are doomed to fail, because too often the system becomes more important than the person’s needs. We need to build a system that reflects the needs of individuals and does not set tests that they are doomed to fail.
When I worked as a volunteer on the overdose prevention pilot, a young lady came to that service and overdosed. She was involved in exploitative sex work. She had fled from a care setting because she was suffering sexual abuse, and she was sleeping rough in the city. She was terrified of accessing services, but it was through the initial conversation—that small act of love and compassion of giving someone a warm drink and having some conversation—that her life was saved, even though she had overdosed. She resolved, because of conversation and interaction, to seek the help that she needed. She was referred into rehabilitation and she is now thriving. That is an example of what we can achieve. There have already been some referrals from the Thistle, but it is certainly early days for that pilot. I would like to see a much more robust approach.
In the most recent survey of alcohol and drug partnerships, every single one reported that there are barriers to residential rehab. It can be catastrophic and deadly if timely intervention is not available. I was in Copenhagen, where the overdose prevention facilities operate in concert, in the same neighbourhood, with residential rehabilitation. People can be referred into residential rehab within five minutes of expressing that it is an appropriate course of action. We do not have such a facility in Glasgow right now. Although we are taking steps in the right direction, we need to go so much further.
That is why I urge the Government to at least give the bill a hearing at stage 2, to allow us to work in concert and sustain unity of purpose to try to improve the bill. I believe that there is a role for every aspect of these interventions in our society, which can stem the catastrophic flow of preventable death in our communities.
We must act as one. We cannot afford to split on this issue. I urge the Government to maintain some unity as we go through the legislative process.
16:33
Before I get into the main body of my closing speech, on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives, I have to say that I, too, sit on the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and I am concerned that some members have skewed the committee report to fit a Scottish Government narrative. Although many of the witnesses had reservations—as do many members in the chamber—not one said that we should reject the bill at stage 1.
When we talk about this issue, I am acutely aware that we are speaking for the thousands who have died, the thousands who remain trapped in addiction and the countless family members who are sharing that crisis or mourning those whom we have lost.
Presiding Officer, “You keep talking, we keep dying” is a powerful phrase. I have lost count of how many times those damning words have been repeated to me by the people who are dealing with this tragedy every day. I have used the phrase the chamber. It has lost none of its resonance, and it should embarrass us all that so many years have passed since it was first uttered.
My final debate in the previous session of Parliament was about the drug deaths crisis. That day, the Scottish Conservatives supported a Government motion that included agreeing to trial a safe drug consumption room. We did so despite our considerable reservations about the effectiveness of such a scheme. We chose to do so because we understood that we needed to try something new. We needed to break out of the endless cycle of rising drug deaths, blame, promises and nothing ever really changing. We chose to take the uncertain path because we needed to try something—anything and everything that we could—to maybe, just maybe, put an end to Scotland’s greatest shame.
To this day, I and many of my fellow MSPs still have huge concerns about safer consumption rooms and are yet to be convinced about their effectiveness, but few if any of us regret making the choice to try. We were prepared to set aside our politics and our concerns because there was more in the motion that we agreed with. We decided that the risks of going forward were outweighed by the damage that is caused by standing still.
Today, it is not clear how far forward we have come. Drug deaths and levels of addiction remain stubbornly high, and the limited data coming from the Thistle is hardly transformational. What the Scottish Government has done—what this Parliament has pushed for so far—has fallen way short.
That brings us to the Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill, which says that if someone is brave enough to ask for help—that is a brave thing to do—they will get the help that they need when they need it. I can only imagine the feeling of summoning up the courage, strength and humility to ask for help only to be told that it is not there, or that it will not be there for weeks, months or longer. How must that wait feel? How must it feel for a person to be desperate for help but to know that, by the time that it arrives, they might no longer be ready or able to accept it? If that happens to someone once, how likely is it that they will be willing to ask for help ever again?
I appreciate that there are strongly held views across the chamber on the merits of my colleague Douglas Ross’s bill in its current form. I know that it does not appeal to everyone as an approach, but to reject it now, before MSPs and organisations have had an opportunity to properly consider it and before they have had a chance to change it, feels, at best, short sighted and, at worst, politically motivated.
With the best will in the world, I cannot remember many bills that have gone through the stage 1 process and led to a committee report that shows quite so many extensive changes being required. [Interruption.] If members will permit me, I will continue. Does the member accept that, if those changes were made at stage 2, we would arrive at the final day of stage 3 with a bill that was so fundamentally different that it would be a piece of legislation that had not been consulted on and on which witnesses had not had the opportunity to comment?
Does the member mean bills such as the Care Reform (Scotland) Bill, which had two thirds of it chopped away at stage 2? This is hardly the first time that members have radically altered a bill after stage 1. That bill was so thoroughly and comprehensively altered from its original form that it had to be renamed before it could be passed into law. Voting for the principles of the Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill today binds members to absolutely nothing, except to agree that they will keep every option on the table.
I began my contribution with a call to arms for those dealing with the consequences of drug addiction, when I used the phrase, “You keep talking, we keep dying.” That is a plea for action, but what happens if even the talking stops? What happens if we shut down discussion on an issue that continually highlights not only the Scottish Government’s failure but this Parliament’s failure? Does falling silent and moving on do more to help?
There are certainly other conversations that the Parliament seems all too willing to have. We have spent days debating hundreds of amendments to the Housing (Scotland) Bill that will not build any houses; there have been three separate members’ bills about the welfare of dogs; and, after the October recess, we return to late nights of amendments to the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill. Those are all issues of importance to the people of Scotland, but perhaps they are not of equal importance.
That said, we can debate serious and profoundly significant issues. As a Parliament, we quite rightly voted to let the debate on assisted dying continue. Despite my misgivings about the legislation in its current form, I was one of the members who backed the bill at stage 1. I did that because, although I am far from convinced that I can back the final bill, I am not opposed to the principles behind it. More than that, I want the opportunity to discuss and debate it further. Like members from across the chamber, I want to keep that conversation going. Bluntly, Presiding Officer, what does it say if members will overcome their discomfort and uncertainty to continue the debate on a bill about helping people to die but cannot bring themselves to do the same on a bill that is trying to help people who are dealing with addiction to live?
My plea to colleagues across the chamber is a simple one: if they believe in giving people who are dealing with addiction the help that they need when they need it, the bill must continue. Do not slam the door on a chance for Parliament and organisations to discuss, debate and build the bill into something better than it is today. I am looking directly at the Scottish Government’s front-bench members—they should give themselves the opportunity to make the bill one that they can support. They should lodge the amendments that they think need to make a difference, and argue their points. Please support the principles of the bill at decision time. It commits them to nothing except continued consideration of resolutions to this persistent crisis; then, when the bill returns at stage 3, if they cannot vote for it, at least they will know that they tried.
16:40
In closing, I thank all the members who contributed to the debate, and I reiterate my thanks to the many stakeholders who have made important and constructive contributions throughout the stage 1 scrutiny of the bill. I will begin by recognising the intention behind the Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill. Improving access to treatment and recovery services is a shared goal that reflects the urgency and importance of tackling the harms that are caused by substance use in Scotland. However, as the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee’s stage 1 report makes clear, good intentions alone are not enough. Legislation must be workable, evidence based and capable of delivering real and lasting change.
Treatment is not a single intervention. Recovery is not a linear journey. A compassionate, person-centred approach recognises that recovery involves rebuilding lives, not just stopping substance use. It involves renewing hope and self-respect, fostering meaningful connections and enabling individuals to take charge of their own lives.
The minister says that there is not one pathway, but does she agree that if somebody comes forward and says, “Please help me to recover,” they should get that recovery?
We say about our MAT standards that when people come forward, they should get access to treatment immediately. In standard 1, we say that they should get same-day access to prescribing. We are absolutely aware of the issue that the member raises, and we are determined to rise and meet it.
I joined more than 2,000 people on the Scottish Recovery Consortium’s recovery walk a couple of weeks ago. I will quote Natalie, who opened the event with a powerful, heart-rending testament to Peter Krykant, an activist who sadly passed away earlier this year. She said:
“Recovery, real recovery—what I call righteous recovery—is about reducing harm. It’s about creating the conditions where people can heal. It’s about building bridges, not just keeping people alive, but helping them to truly live.”
The Scottish Government is committed to a multifaceted, rights-based approach. Our investment is delivering real change. The post-2026 strategic plan will expand the MAT standards to cover all drugs and alcohol and ensure that residential rehab is available to everyone who needs it, when they need it and wherever they live, for however long they need it.
Despite a 13 per cent reduction in drug deaths, the figures remain unacceptably high. We are developing a new alcohol and drug strategic plan, informed by lived experience and key reports, including those by Changing Lives, Audit Scotland and the people’s panel. The plan will prioritise prevention and early intervention—areas that the committee rightly warned could be deprioritised under the bill.
The plan will also strengthen harm reduction and improve treatment pathways, underpinned by dignity, respect and agency. At its core, there will be a continued commitment to a human rights-based approach, ensuring that everyone who is affected by alcohol and drugs is treated with dignity, respect and compassion and has agency to drive their own treatment and recovery plan. Scotland continues to lead the way with a public health response to alcohol and drugs issues. We remain committed to learning from international evidence and from best practice. It is our intention that the funding will be maintained to support the delivery of the new strategic plan.
What would the minister say to the gentleman from Calton who said:
“There’s no hope. I’ve tried to get treatment, and I just get sent away, put on methadone or onto an extra script”.
Like so many others, he is asking why he is being left behind. Can the minister explain that to him?
I reiterate to him that, if residential rehab is what he is seeking, we have increased the level of residential rehab and have invested £38 million in building more facilities and in increasing the bed capacity nationally. We are on target for 1,000 funded places a year, and we are dramatically improving.
Just this week, I spoke about the additional placement fund, which Rona Mackay mentioned in her speech. It is a flexible pot of funding that supports ADPs, so that when they have exhausted their pot of money, they can access the fund to support the placement of individuals into residential rehab or extend their stay, should that be needed. That is absolutely how we need to progress; we need a flexible, person-centred, rights-based approach.
As we approach the end of the national mission, we continue to work with stakeholders, including those with lived and living experience, in order to develop our future strategy that is built on what works and responds to what is needed. I recognise there is strong support across the chamber for the general principles of the bill and that some members may question the Scottish Government’s position to oppose the legislation. I do not take the decision lightly. I recognise the strength of feeling across the chamber and the shared commitment to improving outcomes for people who are affected by substance use.
However, we have a responsibility to ensure that any legislative change is not only well intentioned but is workable, evidence based and capable of delivering real and lasting impact. That is the path that we are committed to. The Government remains laser focused on addressing the challenge of our unacceptably high drug and alcohol deaths rate. I am committed to working constructively with members across the chamber to ensure that we deliver on our mission.
Paul Sweeney rose—
I am on my last sentence.
Our approach offers a broader, more inclusive, more sustainable path forward that truly meets the needs of individuals, families and communities across Scotland.
16:48
It is a dark day for the Scottish Parliament. I cannot think of another way to sum up the debate.
It has been a depressing afternoon, but there have been small moments of pride. I could not have been more proud to sit on the Scottish Conservative benches and listen to Annie Wells, Sue Webber and Brian Whittle, who gave speeches that were impassioned, informed and caring about individuals in their constituencies and regions, because they want us to do better. Those were matched by the contributions of Jackie Baillie, Alex Cole-Hamilton, Michael Marra, Graham Simpson and Paul Sweeney.
In summing up a debate about a bill that could save lives, I cannot pick out a single speech from members on the SNP or Green benches that was positive in any way. I think that that is a shame. I also think that, in the days, weeks or perhaps years to come, SNP and Green members will look back on this debate and regret what they have done. They will regret toeing the party line over an issue as important as people’s lives.
Opportunities such as this one do not come along every day. Back benchers do not get many opportunities to take forward legislation that has overwhelming public support, is drafted by front-line experts and would save people’s lives. This afternoon, we have one opportunity to keep the discussion going.
I say to SNP and Green members that we have not pressed our voting buttons yet. There is still an opportunity for people, and even for those in the Government, to change their position and say that they have listened to the debate and that maybe this issue is one that is worth considering during the debate, rather than one where members come into the chamber with a pre-arranged decision—that this issue is one where we can show that the Parliament can be reflective of all voices and that this Government will listen to all sides and simply allow a slightly longer discussion of such an important issue.
I recognise the sincerity with which Douglas Ross speaks, but does he accept that the situation regarding the bill is not as simple as he presents it? Does he acknowledge, for example, that the submission that we have all received from Turning Point Scotland—front-line experts, to use his words—raises the possibility that not only does the bill require improvement but that it could have harmful, unintended consequences by increasing the risk of relapse?
When I speak about front-line experts, I mean the people who drafted the bill—the people who, day in and day out, see the problems in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Inverness and Dundee and want to see something happen about them. The ones that I am more suspicious of are those who are funded by the Scottish Government and whose jobs rely on funding from nationalist ministers. They will never be in favour of the bill, so, when they get invited to the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, they will give critical evidence and say that we should not progress it. However, it is up to us—the democratically elected MSPs in the chamber—to say that although we can consider those views, we need to listen more, debate more and discuss more.
Members should be in no doubt that, if they vote against the bill tonight, that will—contrary to what Maggie Chapman thinks—shut off the final legislative opportunity to deal with the issue in this session, which I believe that we must take. Drug deaths have more than doubled in 10 years and are 15 times higher in our most deprived communities than in our least.
Some SNP members have talked about not wanting to stigmatise drug addicts. We have heard that word a lot this afternoon. Does Douglas Ross agree that suffering from apparent stigma is preferable by far to being killed by drugs?
It is. People are dying. As I said in my opening remarks, while we have been sitting here today, six more Scots have died—six by the end of today; tomorrow, another six; and, over the weekend, a dozen. Do SNP and Green members not care about that?
The issues about stigma that Emma Harper mentioned were addressed at committee—she might not agree with what was said, but they were raised and addressed there. However, surely, the fundamental thing is to save lives, and we have the opportunity to do that today.
As I said, drug deaths have doubled in 10 years. Alcohol deaths are at their highest level since 2008, and are four times higher in our most deprived communities than in our least. For seven straight years, Scotland has been the drug deaths capital not just of the United Kingdom but of Europe. It is embarrassing, and it is time that something was done about it. This is the time—we have an opportunity to do something about it. This is a crisis that was made in Scotland, and it is one that can be fixed in Scotland, but not if we do not have willing participants in the Government.
I listened to Maree Todd’s opening and closing remarks. She said, “Get behind the Government. We will keep doing this. We will do that.” I am sorry, but this is a Government that took its “eye off the ball”—not my words, but those of a previous leader of that Government. This is a Government that has presided, year after year, over record drug and alcohol deaths. This is a Government that we should not be following. This is a Government that we have to change the course of, and that is what the bill seeks to do. We cannot continue to do the same things over and over again and expect different results.
This issue comes down to people—to real lives that are being lost and affected across Scotland. If I cannot convince SNP and Green members, maybe Debra can. Debra, 34, struggled with addiction for more than a decade. She was facing sentencing for shoplifting—a crime that she committed to pay for her addiction. At her drug treatment and testing order assessment, she begged to be put into rehab, as she did not want to continue with methadone treatment. Her lawyer argued for her request, but it was rejected as out of scope by her DTTO officer, and she was put back on methadone. Debra died of an overdose just a few months later. I ask any SNP and Green member to stand up and intervene if they think that Debra’s case does not deserve our consideration of the bill for a few weeks or months longer. Debra deserves more time. You know that; I know that; we all know that.
If not Debra, what about Liam? He was 21. He had a history of childhood trauma, homelessness and severe mental health issues. He asked for rehab after multiple arrests for drug offences, but was placed on a four-month waiting list and told to engage with community services. He was on that waiting list when he overdosed and died. I ask again: does any SNP or Green member want to intervene and say that they are correct to vote down the bill at this stage and that Liam’s case does not deserve or warrant further discussion?
If SNP and Green members do not want to do that, why would they vote for what the Government is asking them to vote for tonight? Why not give the bill a chance, for just a little bit longer? As Brian Whittle said, we might come back here at stage 3 and say no to the bill, because we have not made the changes, the bill has not been improved or there are still issues that stakeholders and front-line experts have issues with. Surely that is a better and a more defendable position than shutting the bill down today, here and now.
Will the member take an intervention?
I will give way to Paul Sweeney.
Mr Ross must begin to conclude.
I thank the member for making a very powerful speech. I note that the Law Society of Scotland’s recommendations pertain only to changes to sections 1, 2, 3 and 5 of the bill, but the bill has 11 sections. Surely it can be amended—it is eminently amendable—and there are ways to do that at the next stage.
In conclusion, Mr Ross.
In conclusion, the bill is entirely amendable, as Paul Sweeney says. That is the simple choice that we have. Do we want to give the bill a chance by making those amendments and then coming back to see whether we can agree on their terms?
When Parliament was reconstituted, the late Donald Dewar said that, in this building, the Parliament would deliver
“Scottish solutions to Scottish problems”.
We have a Scottish problem with drug and alcohol deaths, and we have a Scottish solution. I say to members that they should not let the perfect stand in the way of the good. Do not miss the opportunity to deal with the drug and alcohol crisis in Scotland. Please, please do not vote the bill down tonight. Give us a chance to keep going, keep discussing, keep debating and keep trying to keep people alive.
That concludes the debate on the Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill at stage 1.