Chamber and committees

Will the cabinet secretary take an intervention?

Will the cabinet secretary take an intervention?

Will the minister give way?

Will the minister take an intervention on that point?

That does not feel fair at all.

I am pleased to have the chance to speak in this afternoon’s debate. I was lucky enough to attend one of the people’s panel sessions last year.

Let us remember that, as Annie Wells outlined in her opening remarks, under the SNP, Scotland has had the worst drug deaths rate in Europe for the sixth year in a row. Our country’s drug death rate is 2.7 times higher than the rate in England and Northern Ireland, and it is 2.1 times higher than the rate in Wales. The number of drug deaths has increased by 158 per cent since the SNP came to power—there were 455 drug deaths in 2007, compared with 1,172 in 2023. Every life lost is a tragedy, and those figures are truly unacceptable.

Despite that, the SNP Government has cut the alcohol and drugs policy budget for 2025-26 by almost £1 million in real terms. It is little wonder that alcohol and drugs partnerships, which tackle drug misuse at the local level, say that they are underfunded and have no confidence in the SNP Government’s leadership. Seventy-two per cent of ADPs say that the amount of funding that they receive is not enough to deliver the national mission.

The SNP must listen to the people’s panel. It must take responsibility and finally act with urgency to stop Scotland’s national shame. The panel was clear that the Government has not acted, despite being aware of the evidence. It said that the same conversations keep happening without any change in results.

Having attended one of the panel’s sessions, I agree with two things in particular that it said in its report. The panel was

“shocked to learn about the lack of urgency and implementation, given the scale of the crisis”,

and it said that

“the same conversations keep happening, with the same actions being agreed but not ... implemented”.

The panel was concerned that

“the evidence they have heard has been previously presented by experts yet has not been acted upon by the Government. There is no stability for service providers and users and no consistency of approach.”

Carol Mochan also made those points in her opening speech.

As I listened during the panel’s session, one of my main concerns was that the people who stood up and presented were the same voices as usual, but no action was being taken on those issues. We need to hear new voices—those who are involved directly and who have lived experience of the recovery community.

That was clearly reflected in the people’s panel’s findings. There was very little talk of doing something more, different or innovative, despite a culture change and the requirement for “brave and bold” action to tackle the “public health emergency” that has been created by drug use in Scotland.

As a Conservative MSP, I say that that action should include passing the Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill, which has been backed by front-line experts and would enshrine in law the right to receive life-saving drug addiction treatment.

We do not support the decriminalisation of drugs, and none of the report’s recommendations advocates that. Decriminalising class A drugs will not help to tackle Scotland’s drug deaths and could make it more difficult for the police to stop the supply of drugs getting to our streets. Instead of investing in recovery, the SNP continues to advocate decriminalisation, which will only flood our communities with more drugs.

The SNP Government’s priority continues to be harm reduction, but let us remember that harm reduction alone does not reduce addiction. Relapse rates remain high, and interventions such as supervised consumption rooms aim to prevent immediate harm but do not provide a pathway to recovery.

Last week, 70 passengers were evacuated from a ScotRail intercity train, and trains between Edinburgh and Aberdeen were suspended, after a power car caught fire near the Tay rail bridge, which caused disruption for hours. In the light of that, what actions are being undertaken to foster resilience in the ScotRail fleet, particularly at a time when key routes often rely on older trains? Will the cabinet secretary provide a timeline for when the new inter7city fleet will be procured?

I am afraid that I cannot take the intervention—I am in my dying seconds.

If the Scottish Government is serious about improving the statistics and the lives of those who are affected by drugs, it needs to be bold and innovative and to act on every one of the people’s panel’s recommendations.

I thank the minister for that response, but we are at risk of losing the valuable and productive economic sector of self-catering accommodation businesses. These small local businesses are under attack, and they are being forced out of the sector by demands for planning applications from local authorities, most notably here, in the city of Edinburgh. Shockingly, that is despite judicial rulings that the permissions are not mandatory for self-catering operators that were in business before September 2022. The practices contradict judicial rulings and appear to be arbitrary, with inconsistency between local authorities. Lord Braid has rightly described them as “oppressive and disproportionate”. What immediate steps will the Scottish Government take to ensure that local authorities abide by the law and end the unjust imposition of planning requirements on self-catering operators that the courts have already ruled to be lawful?

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions economy ministers have had with ministerial colleagues regarding what steps it is taking to improve regulatory clarity and reduce compliance costs for self-catering accommodation businesses. (S6O-04382)

I, too, thank Carol Mochan for bringing the debate to the chamber. Alcohol-related brain damage is a serious issue, and one that is perhaps not as widely recognised as it should be. Carol Mochan clearly outlined the symptoms and how they directly impact those with ARBD, and referred to the role of diet and vitamin B1, or thiamine.

In 2023, 1,277 people tragically lost their lives to alcohol. That is a 15-year high, and it is quite shocking. That is 1,277 people who have lived with years of poor health and who have left behind families and friends; the effects are felt by so many. The number of people accessing alcohol services is now 40 per cent lower than it was a decade ago. When people do access those services, they are much older and, as a result, have increasingly complex problems. Again, Carol Mochan spoke about the lack of expertise and specialists in this clinical field. In Edinburgh, however, we are fortunate in having a specialist ARBD service.

I have raised issues surrounding ARBD in the chamber several times, and I have written to the Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health, Jenni Minto, specifically regarding issues with the NHS Lothian alcohol-related brain damage unit in Edinburgh. In September, I questioned the Scottish Government about its response to

“Dr Stephen Smith’s evaluation of the alcohol-related brain damage residential rehabilitation service in Edinburgh”.

The minister replied to say that the SNP Government was “reviewing the evaluation”.

Earlier, in an intervention, Paul Sweeney mentioned the Penumbra service in the west of Scotland. The ARBD unit that is run by Penumbra at Milestone house in Edinburgh saves lives, yet it is facing the withdrawal of funding. Given that the service reduces the number of hospital bed days in NHS Lothian by nearly 2,000 a year, it is clear that there would be a very negative impact if the service was to close.

I know that decisions on funding and service provision are made at a local level by NHS Lothian but, in responding further to my question, the minister said that the Scottish Government was

“working with members of our expert residential rehabilitation development working group to assess whether the ARBD unit meets the”

correct definition of what counts as “residential rehabilitation”, and stated that it would

“provide an update ... in due course”.—[Official Report, 11 September 2025; c 13-14.]

In October, I raised the issue in the chamber once again, after the decision to close the ARBD unit in Edinburgh was paused while options were being assessed. However, there is no other ARBD-specific residential rehab unit in Scotland, and evidence shows that treatment for people with ARBD in non-specialist units is often unsatisfactory.

I am still waiting for an update from the Scottish Government on whether that vital life-saving unit in Edinburgh will remain open. It is disappointing that the issue has dragged on for so long without any further updates.

Given the pressures that our services are under—in particular, the blocked beds and delayed discharges in acute hospital settings—I hope that the Scottish Government will provide the clarity and support that are needed to keep the ARBD unit in Edinburgh open.