Chamber and committees

I, too, place on record my thanks to all those in our health service who participated in delivering the vaccination programme. It has clearly saved lives and will continue to do so.

Today’s Audit Scotland report on the vaccination programme states that the programme

“has so far been reliant on temporary staff and volunteers.”

The report notes:

“Work is currently taking place to establish the size of the workforce needed.”

I notice that there is reference to that in the deployment plan. The cabinet secretary is—

Right. The cabinet secretary has acknowledged those pressures. How many members of staff does he envisage will be required to sustain not only the Covid vaccination programme but the flu one?

Last week, the SNP announced that it was effectively decriminalising all class A drugs, including heroin, meth and crack cocaine. The possession of class A drugs is a serious offence, and that is the biggest shift in drugs policy in years, as my colleagues have said today. Normally, the Scottish Government is quick to consult and we cannot move for consultations, but on that, there was nothing—no debate until today and no stakeholder involvement.

Now that the member is part of the Government, can she tell us how many more residential rehab beds will be made available this year?

That was quite a question, given that I have only four minutes. Although drug deaths are rising, the number of people who are convicted of drug offences has continued to decline, so I will carry on with my speech.

Rather than just softening the rules for drug dealers, the SNP should focus on guaranteeing treatment for anyone who needs it. Decriminalising class A drugs by the back door will help only drug dealers, who are ruining our communities, and that extreme move by the SNP will do nothing to save lives.

The answer to our drug deaths crisis is complex, and increasing the treatment that is available to those who need it should be at the heart of it. Anne-Marie Ward, chief executive of Faces & Voices of Recovery, has said that we have to be very clear

“not to view this as a silver bullet. This move will help but ultimately, it will not help people to get well on its own. It will not save lives on its own. It has to be accompanied by increasing access to treatment and rehabilitation or nothing will change.”

This week, I met Jay Haston from the WAVE Trust. He is a former drug addict and he said that the decriminalisation of drugs will not fix the root cause of Scotland’s drug deaths problem, because all that it does is put yet another

“plaster on top of an already bleeding plaster”,

and that, now,

“everybody is having a party in the street”,

because people from all walks of life are no longer scared to carry drugs.

On Monday, I visited Waverley Care. As Stuart McMillan said, we need more funding for third sector organisations that directly help people in such situations. In Glasgow, Waverley Care is helping vulnerable women, often victims of domestic abuse, who are caught in a cycle of drug use and broader health harm. It is a person-centred service, which is flexible in responding to an individual’s needs and enables them to escape the harm that is caused by drugs. We need more of that.

I urge everyone to back the Scottish Conservatives’ right to recovery bill, which would guarantee treatment or rehabilitation for anyone who needs it. Today, all we are asking for is time to be set aside to debate the matter in full.

Scotland’s drug crisis is the SNP’s shame. We need to see access to rehabilitation, not dangerous drug decriminalisation. Former Strathclyde Police Chief Superintendent, Tom Buchan, said:

“Talk about abject surrender … it should worry everyone. It shames us as a country.”

I support the Conservative motion from my colleague Sandesh Gulhane.

In January, Professor Griffin from the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh called for roads and pavements to be gritted properly, because icy conditions would lead to accidents that the NHS does not have capacity to deal with. Although that was in the context of reducing admissions to hospitals to prevent Covid infections, the same case can now be made in order to reduce emergency admissions, given the current pressures that we face.

Scotland’s NHS is in crisis; today the cabinet secretary extended the state of emergency in the NHS until March 2022. Can he guarantee that all council areas across Scotland will be provided with resources to ensure that roads and pavements are properly gritted this winter, in order to prevent further strain being placed on our NHS?

I apologise, convener.

I want to try to bring everything together into one question and contextualise what I am asking about with something that was in the press over the weekend and which I think highlights the need to promote preventative support, collaboration and the integration of new and more innovative solutions such as the West Lothian Food Train, which I have visited.

I suppose that my question is for Derek Feeley and Judith Proctor, given that Mr Feeley’s comment that there are things that we should be doing now and Ms Proctor’s role in representing all IJBs. At the weekend, we heard about a 90-year-old woman who starved to death. It is the first time that that has happened for decades. Age Scotland called it “desperately sad”, saying that it highlighted the scale of pensioner malnutrition around Scotland, and it also mentioned “harrowing stories” from pensioners who talk about empty cupboards and problems with grocery deliveries, particularly people who are not online. While we are waiting for what we are discussing to happen, what can we do with the legislation that we have to repurpose these services and stop such things happening now? What can we do with, say, commissioning and procurement?

I asked Leigh Johnston to respond, although I do not know whether she wants to.

Let us ask the King’s Fund. I am sorry—my lenses have gone, and I cannot see anyone’s faces.