Chamber and committees

Encouraging innovation and incentivising specific techniques and gear requires investment. Based on the European maritime and fisheries fund budget for 2021 to 2027 and on Scotland’s sea area, our funding share should have been about £62 million per annum, but our fishers were short changed by the UK Tory Government. Has the cabinet secretary had any indication that the new UK Government will rectify the situation, or will it be more of the same from lacklustre Labour for Scotland’s fishers, i.e. no positive change?

How is the Scottish Government supporting local areas to use community wealth building as a golden thread that runs through everything, including planning, economic development, procurement, further education, local development and community place plans?

How is it ensuring that community wealth building is a practical place-focused model that sees a shift in the balance of power to communities, thereby enabling a greater stake for how local economies function for the benefit of all?

I thank the minister for highlighting the excellent example of partnership working between Mossgiel farm and East Ayrshire Council in my constituency, which demonstrates what is possible when we look at public procurement in a different way. That has been operating for a long time in East Ayrshire, where local procurement for school meals proves what is the art of the possible. I thank the minister for highlighting that.

I thank colleagues from across the Parliament for supporting my motion, which has enabled me to bring to the Parliament’s attention the recent report “Alcohol (In)justice—Position on people with an alcohol use disorder in the justice system” by Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems. I welcome representatives from SHAAP to the chamber.

The play on words in the title of this critical report is in itself a lightning rod that we should all be coalescing around. Alcohol is a recurring feature in our justice system and the link between alcohol and crime is well understood. That, in turn, highlights the injustice that is faced by many when alcohol use disorder impacts on the individual, the family and their community.

Inequality is at the heart of the issue, and the human cost is staggering, but it goes wider than that—it impacts on all public services, and the cost to the public purse is considerable. Repeated interaction with the criminal justice system, driven and exacerbated by alcohol use, creates impacts that ripple through every area of life, such as repeated contact with police and courts, repeat periods of incarceration, repeat homelessness, social work interventions, loss of employment or employment opportunities and poor health that results in increased need for national health service interventions, including costly unscheduled care.

I believe that the case for change that is set out in the report is clear. The number of people with alcohol use disorders in our Scottish justice system is disproportionately high compared with the figure for the population at large and, although we are working hard on our imprisonment rate, we still have the highest rate in western Europe. We know that 63 per cent of people in prison have an alcohol use disorder, with 31 per cent of those individuals possibly being alcohol dependent. The risk of death from alcohol causes is three times higher in men who have been in prison, and a staggering nine times higher for women who have been in prison, than it is for the rest of the general population.

If we consider adverse childhood experiences and trauma, we find that 25 per cent of people in Scottish prisons are care experienced, 47 per cent have experienced physical abuse in childhood, and around a third lived with someone who was a problematic drinker during childhood. Inequality and disadvantage are pervasive in the justice system. I saw that over and over again when I worked in front-line homelessness services.

If we think in resourcing terms, we find that the overall estimate for the yearly cost to public services of alcohol-specific and alcohol-related offences is between £462.5 million and £991.7 million, with a midpoint of £721.1 million. It is important to note that those figures have not been re-estimated since 2007-08 and that the true figure is likely to be much higher.

The SHAAP report calls for a system that truly integrates health and justice; that provides treatment options and community disposals instead of incarceration, where appropriate; and that offers support at every stage of an individual’s journey, from arrest to sentencing and beyond. That is not just a humane approach—it is an effective one.

We know that addressing the root cause of problematic alcohol use through targeted interventions can reduce offending and lead to better outcomes for individuals and for society as a whole. However, the reality is that the 2019 Scottish prisoners survey showed that

“only 22% of participants reported that they had been given the chance to receive treatment for an alcohol use disorder during their sentence.”

The survey also revealed that

“40% of prisoners involved reported being drunk at the time of their offence”

and that nearly

“one fifth ... of prisoners who took part in the survey were worried alcohol would be a problem ... when they got out.”

Encouragingly, however,

“Forty one percent of participants said that if they were offered help for their alcohol use disorder (both inside and outside of prison) ... they would take it.”

The key recommendations from SHAAP that are outlined in the report are that, at each stage of a person’s interaction with the justice system, alcohol issues should be recognised, properly assessed and acted on, with key agencies having accountability. Accountability is key. In police custody centres,

“There should be a standard in place for the identification and treatment of people with an alcohol use disorder ... for the police and NHS ... staff.”

That would include referral to healthcare or addiction services, appropriate tools being used for alcohol use screening and appropriate actions being taken, including alcohol brief interventions or arrest referral for alcohol treatment and support.

The report says that, for alcohol brief interventions in justice settings,

“delivery sits at about 29% in prison and 3% in police custody”.

Those figures urgently need to rise. Those who are identified as needing support should be flagged so that their support needs are known throughout their journey in the criminal justice system. If fulsome information was provided on the standard prosecution report, that would also help to support the procurator fiscal when looking at suitability for diversion from prosecution.

We know that referrals to drug and alcohol specialist treatment have fallen in Scottish prisons in recent years, and work is under way by Public Health Scotland to understand why that is the case. That is part of wider work on overall reductions in referrals to alcohol services in general. The Scottish Government is also working on a national service specification for alcohol and drugs. That represents an ideal opportunity to publish a clear specification for justice settings, as well as to develop standards for alcohol treatment and support at each stage of the justice system, which will help to embed treatment and recovery communities across the justice sector.

Recent broader approaches to justice, such as Public Health Scotland’s health and justice programme strategy and the Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Act 2023 demonstrate that there is a will to change, but the separation of powers and the independence of decision making between the organisations and bodies that are involved in the justice system can pose a challenge for the overall co-ordination of care and support. We need enforceable standards with clear lines of accountability so that those recommendations can be implemented and so that people do not continue to fall through the cracks.

Planning for release should happen when someone arrives in custody, so that we can ensure that they have been linked with recovery services and support as well as housing and welfare provision well ahead of their release. We should also seek to maximise the role of recovery communities and Alcoholics Anonymous, which can help people to work through those issues. Reports suggest that, with consistent access to AA meetings, attendees have reduced cravings, stronger coping strategies and improved engagement with other rehabilitative programmes. Participants who continue with AA after release credit it with helping them to secure employment, rebuild family relationships and remain sober in the community.

The same can be said when people are proactively linked into recovery communities once they have returned home. When I was a minister, I was privileged to visit the Glasgow drug and alcohol courts and watch them in action. I was mightily impressed by the problem-solving attitudes of those sheriffs and their shared desire to drive systems change. I also spoke to other sheriffs right across Scotland who shared the problem-solving ethos and a desire to understand what drives offending and what interventions, diversions and community justice disposals could deliver better outcomes.

That attitude must become the default if we want to sever the link between alcohol and crime. It is not soft justice—it is smart justice. I look forward to hearing from colleagues across the chamber and from the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs, who I know is as passionate about the issue as I am.

To clarify, do you mean that the reviews have been undertaken and are in draft form and they will actively feed into the IFMI programme?

My final question is about the consultation that you have out. People might not be able to digest the findings from the two reviews and respond to the consultation effectively if they do not understand what the reviews have brought to the table.

Some of the issues that I am going to ask about have already been covered a little bit, but I would like to explore them further.

There are on-going internal reviews of the fisheries management and conservation group and the regional inshore fisheries groups network, and I would like to understand what triggered the reviews. As a committee, we have heard evidence about possible operational difficulties, how the group and network feed into each other and how those have set policy and strategic direction. How were the reviews triggered? Have they been completed? What was their scope? How will those two pieces of work feed into the IFMI programme? It is quite important that they are completed and feed into the IFMI programme as much as possible. It would be good for us to understand a bit about that.

We know that the Scottish Government has a commitment to championing science-based approaches that are tailored to the needs of specific regions and ecosystems. How can that be incorporated into the regional model of inshore fisheries management that we are looking to achieve? The Clyde cod box and the closure issues there have already been mentioned, so we can see that ad hoc statutory instruments are being used in that way. How can we make sure that we have neutral and robust science, so that those local areas can have as much input into those decisions as possible?

Dr Needle mentioned wrasse, which is an emerging fishery. I am also thinking of the issue from the perspective of the ecosystem in that region. How can we make sure that the issues around the ecosystem in that space are reflected in the decisions that are being made? My question is about the fishers and the ecosystems that we need to protect. How can we ensure that there is a commitment to ensuring that local voices can feed into the decisions that are made in the process?

Another issue that I want to explore is whether your bill has taken into account the outputs of the Scott review with regard to taking a human rights-based approach to capacity issues—not just looking at whether someone has capacity or not, but having a supportive environment that allows someone to be able to express their will clearly. What account does the bill take of that approach?

The bill asks healthcare professionals to assess whether coercion is taking place as well as capacity. The committee has heard from some that coercion is very difficult to assess. What is your response to that?

I want to explore that further in relation to the definition of “mental disorder” that is included in the bill, which Dr Ward referred to. A mental disorder as defined in the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” could include learning disabilities and things such as neurodivergence, autism and so on. Is there potential for individuals who have such a mental disorder to have their capacity assessed through a human rights-based approach, so that it is not a case of saying that someone either has or does not have a mental disorder but so that the person has support to have that assessed?