Chamber and committees

It was reported three weeks ago that the Scottish Government had agreed a price with Peel Ports for the sale of Ardrossan harbour. However, what analysis has the cabinet secretary undertaken to gauge how much additional investment will be required after the sale goes through to modernise the harbour to ensure that ferries can—finally—sail from Ardrossan again?

Will the member take an intervention?

Mr Simpson, will you comment on the provisions that now make it clear that councillors should give up their allowances when they are in those dual roles? Could you also refer to and comment on your position?

We have known about these issues for more than a year. In August 2024, new mother Louise Williamson spoke about her “horrific” labour after she was “repeatedly ignored”.

In December, in a verbal briefing given to Lothian MSPs and MPs on women’s services concerns, NHS Lothian advised that action was under way. Further assurances on progress were given to the same group on 20 June 2025, yet, three days later, on 23 June, an unannounced HIS inspection confirmed that nothing had changed.

Women deserve to know that their maternity services are safe. Today, NHS Lothian told MSPs that the issues

“will take time to resolve.”

What confidence can families have that, this time, there will be real, tangible changes?

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 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 do not think that the Thistle is delivering. Indeed, Annemarie Ward from FAVOR has said that the safe consumption rooms—

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.

Will the minister take an intervention?

I do not think that I can, Mr Cole-Hamilton, as I have very limited time. I am not sure.