Affordable housing is particularly important in Edinburgh, where the average house price has now surpassed £300,000 for the first time. However, affordable housing statistics that were published last week show that only 822 affordable homes were completed in Edinburgh in 2020-21. That is a drop of more than 35 per cent on the previous year.

Homes for Scotland has warned of flaws in the City of Edinburgh Council’s proposed city plan 2030 and says that it will not be able to meet the housing demand in the coming years. Will the Government step up investment in affordable housing? Will the cabinet secretary guarantee that councils such as the City of Edinburgh Council will be able to access the grant funding that they need to meet local housing demand?

Thank you, cabinet secretary, for coming along today, albeit virtually. We hear at length from everyone about how much pressure everyone is under with their workloads, so I am hoping that you might be able to help. Do you get a sense that the framework will reduce duplication in the likes of the scientific advisory and expert groups that we have across the four nations? Also, are there any plans to develop greater consistency in how data is collected, analysed and presented across the UK?

We have heard, at length, that there is a challenge in accessing services because of the scale of the issue, as well as the challenges that our young people are facing. We have received evidence that

“The number of referrals continues to rise year on year”,

which resonates with what the witnesses have said this morning. Why do you think that more children and young people require specialist services for their mental health? Dr Stark has just intimated that poverty might be one of the key factors, but is there anything else that might be driving that?

Shelley Buckley stated that we look at everything through an adult lens; specifically, she was talking about looked-after children. Bearing that in mind, I declare an interest as a corporate parent and councillor in the City of Edinburgh Council.

Last night, we met a lot of young people who were in care or were looked-after children. We were talking earlier about a single point of access to services, but many of them struggle because they do not have a parent behind them, pushing. What could and should be done to inform children, young people and their parents and carers of the services that are available to them and to make those services easier to navigate? I can see Shelley Buckley nodding, but I will ask Sam March that question first, given his position with South Lanarkshire Council.

The convener and I were on the same breakout group last night. It was very insightful with regard to today’s session.

My question is predominantly for Lucy Hughes. What actions could help the higher-than-average rate of prescriptions and hospitalisations for care-experienced children and young people? What actions could help to reduce the number of care-experienced children who are hospitalised because of injuries, drug poisoning and other external causes? There is a lot to cover in that, but it is all part of a similar theme.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you.

I put it to Dr Stark first, as I referenced her previous statement.

I thank the minister for her intervention, but surely the SNP should be doing everything possible, and taking any approach possible, to tackle our national crisis, rather than playing party politics, yet again, and refusing to engage with Westminster. That is tiresome and unnecessary, when we all know that we must work together to save lives.

Across the country, alcohol and drug partnership meetings have taken on a more upbeat and positive feel for the first time in years. More funding has helped, as they strive to have the new MAT standards embedded within their areas by April 2022. However, that is where things start to go wrong. April 2022 is only four months away, yet ADPs across the country are starting from very different places. Some have already admitted that they will not be able to establish and embed all the standards by that timeline, including Edinburgh Alcohol and Drugs Partnership, which has an established pre-existing service that includes many of the standards.

Half of the ADPs that did not respond to the Public Health Scotland survey said that they had yet to set up a pathway to residential rehabilitation. When it comes to other reasons for ADPs not responding to the survey on residential rehabilitation, 42 per cent said that it was because no referrals were received, and 8 per cent said that no staff were available to complete the template. That is astounding. Such a variation in services across the country underpins the inequalities that we face. We need to wake up.

It is for that very reason that people need the right to recovery, as it is clear that the SNP has failed to support residential rehabilitation. The SNP Government funded only 13 per cent of residential rehab places in Scotland in 2019-20. Furthermore, the number of Government-funded places in residential rehabilitation declined throughout 2021, from 47 placements in March to 36 in September. That is a long way from reaching that figure of 1,000.

I will take time to acknowledge the invaluable work that is going on across my city of Edinburgh. The violent offender watch—VOW—project is led by Police Scotland and consists of four police officers and three peer mentors.?It aims to empower young people who are involved in the criminal justice system to break the cycle of offending, by providing support to people who are deemed to be at significant risk of drug-related harm in the community. That assertive outreach relies on the unique experiences of the peer mentors, who have lived experience, and on the police officers, who offer access to a wide professional network of contacts who can provide opportunities for training and employment.? There is no doubt that the project has saved lives, but funding is an issue.

Tackling drug-related deaths should always be a priority, which is why the Scottish Conservatives launched our right to recovery bill. There has been criticism. Some say that there are flaws in the bill, but those working with us have hit back. Annemarie Ward, the chief executive officer of Favor, said today:

“enshrining people’s rights in the law will ensure access and choice to a plethora of services over and over again ... it is nothing short of incredible.”

She continued:

“This legislation is a starting point to people being able to access services that at the moment are not even available.”

I hope that the Parliament continues to demonstrate consensus and collaboration in tackling the complex issues involved in drug-related deaths. It is our national shame. We should all support the proposed right to recovery bill, making a recovery a legislative certainty—that is the very least these people deserve.

I move amendment S6M-02761.2, to insert at end:

“; acknowledges the valiant efforts of the third sector in ensuring that targeted funds successfully reach frontline service users; believes that it is vital that a right to recovery is legislated for, in order to safeguard the future of funding and focus beyond the current parliamentary session, and calls for the next phase to also include preventative policies that ensure those who are helped with their recovery are not replaced by more people who fall into the cycle of addiction.”

There are a number of people in hospital who have missed their vaccination appointments. In her answer to my colleague, Rachael Hamilton, the First Minister stated that that was for clinical reasons. Could the First Minister investigate the possibility of reviewing the policy and protocols in acute hospital settings in order to give those patients—and anyone else who wants it—an in-patient vaccination?