Chamber and committees

Amendment 9 is again about firework control zones. It relates to who can make representations in order to apply a control zone. I am concerned about situations in which a local authority chooses not to apply a control zone. There is other legislation—for example, on rent pressure zones—in which local authorities are the only bodies that can decide to apply a zone. People might be asking for a zone, but there is nothing that they can do about it. In this case, I think that ordinary people should be able to make representations to their local authority that a control zone is needed. Of course, it will ultimately be for the local authority to decide, but it is in tune with the notion of community empowerment that people should have a say, and the bill does not currently allow for that.

I am very keen for community bodies that are not already covered by the bill to have a right to put the matter in front of the local authority. I am seeking to find more than one route to a control zone, with a route other than the local authority being the sole initiator, if you like. The local authority will be the arbitrator in making a final decision as to whether a zone is justified. However, given the nature of the bill, the widespread public interest in it and people’s concerns about fireworks in their communities, it makes sense for individuals to be able to make representations.

I move amendment 9.

In summary, I am disappointed that one of the reasons for the minister not supporting my amendment is that it would place a resource burden on local authorities. I would argue that we must strike a balance in what is a serious piece of much-needed legislation. Of course some burden will be placed on local authorities.

Unfortunately for back-bench members, because we had to lodge amendments in a very short timescale, there may well be flaws in our amendments that might not exist in the Government’s amendments. However, I do not think that that is a good enough reason for the minister to reject amendment 9. I accept that it might not be drafted perfectly, but its purpose is clear.

I feel really strongly about the issue. If we were to pass the bill such that only local authorities, and not communities, could initiate the designation of a firework control zone, that would go against the grain of what we are trying to do.

I would be happy if ministers would consider reducing the scope of the amendment to include only a relevant person acting on behalf of a community body. As I understand it, under the bill, only local authorities can decide whether to take forward the designation of a firework control zone. No one else can put the matter in front of a local authority. If Glasgow City Council decides not to designate an area as a firework control zone, the Pollokshields community—

I just want to make one point. Amendment 44 all makes sense, but subsection (4) says

“A party may lead evidence for the purpose of rebutting the presumption only if the party has given notice of the intention to do so to the other parties”.

My reading of that is that the use of the words “only if” means that if someone does not provide notice they cannot present evidence to the court. I am asking about that because in some legislation there are provisions that say that, on “cause shown”, someone can rebut again. I am happy to support the amendment, but I wanted to put that on the record.

Amendment 44 agreed to.

Section 42—Certificates as to proof of having fireworks licence

Amendment 45 moved—[Ash Regan]—and agreed to.

Section 42, as amended, agreed to.

Sections 43 and 44 agreed to.

After section 44

I have the floor; Mr Findlay can intervene.

I am sympathetic to that but I wanted some clarification. The Emergency Workers (Scotland) Act 2005 is designed to highlight the fact that an attack on an emergency worker should already be seen as a specific crime. In a sense, it is an indirect aggravation because it applies to the police, workers in hospital accident and emergency departments and ambulance workers.

I am sympathetic to the amendment because of some of the evidence that we have heard about attacks involving fireworks. Some of it is on the extreme end of the spectrum of unacceptable and violent attacks against our emergency workers. There is other legislation that can be used in prosecution, so I wanted to ask about that.

To summarise a letter from Police Scotland to the Criminal Justice Committee about the impact of recent changes to pension computations, it says that the result could be up to 1,300 of our police officers taking advantage of those changes. I know that the cabinet secretary is aware of that, but is he also aware that the Scottish Police Federation is saying explicitly that that is not the reason why so many police officers plan to leave? It says that its members are overworked and undervalued and that the constant disruption of rest days and cancellation of annual leave is taking a toll on police officers physically and mentally. Will the cabinet secretary acknowledge that he is aware of that letter? Surely that is the most critical issue that is facing the police service. What is he thinking about doing to address it?

Can the minister respond, now or later, to this question: does the Government have any policy on how we can move the situation on? There are barriers to clinical trials. As Alex Cole-Hamilton and I have said, we raised the issue many years ago, but we do not seem to be making any progress on it. Doctors need confidence. I understand that it is Government policy to be in favour of what is advocated, but can the minister be specific about how the Government will unblock some of the ways in which people are being prevented from getting the products in question on the NHS?

I give sincere thanks to Collette Stevenson for hosting the first ever debate on medicinal cannabis. She should be proud of that. I also thank Rona Mackay, my co-convener of the first ever cross-party group on medicinal cannabis; Anna Ross, the secretary to the group, who is in the gallery; and Kate Spence and Rona’s staff, who have supported the setting-up of the group. Having a forum for the big issues is making a huge difference to cannabis patients. The question now is whether we are making enough progress.

Cannabis is the oldest recorded medicine in history; it is not a new medicine. Lots of people get relief from it. However, there are so many barriers to what should be a basic and fundamental right of access to a treatment that gives people relief from pain and the ability to do things in their life that they previously could not do. Some people get incredible relief from that.

Even though the UK legalised access to cannabis in late 2018, it is prescribed only as a last-line treatment, when all other treatment options have failed. We need to work to change that. We have heard that cannabis has changed the lives of some people—especially children, such as Cole Thomson. It is frustrating to see parents such as Lisa Quarrell in financial peril—in Lisa’s case, trying month after month to access Bedrolite for Cole’s epilepsy, whereas Dutch patients can access it at a not-for-profit cost at a Dutch pharmacy. The seizures that accompany types of drug-resistant epilepsy can be life threatening. It is important to note that many young children are in that situation.

Rona Mackay and I are due to meet Police Scotland to get clarity on a number of cases in which patients who have legally-prescribed cannabis still face court action because of a lack of understanding on the front line. I am sure that we can get that resolved. It is really important.

In a situation similar to that of Lisa and Cole, Tannine Montgomery’s six-year-old daughter Indie-Rose has drug-resistant epilepsy. Tannine has said that the family flew to the Netherlands to obtain medication from a Dutch doctor, using a private UK prescription, because the NHS refused to pay for it, and that she has spent £34,000 and broken the law to keep her daughter alive. We certainly cannot expect families to continue to take such risks—frankly, it is immoral.

As others have said, there is evidence that medicinal cannabis helps to relieve MS-related spasticity—the muscle spasms or stiffness that affect up to 80 per cent of people who have MS. Sativex is the main product that is available in England and Wales for that. As Rona Mackay said, the NICE guidelines recommend offering a four-week trial of Sativex to treat adults with MS. In Scotland, the issue has been that the manufacturer did not make a submission to the Medicines Consortium, so Sativex is not routinely available. However, it is due to be considered later this year.

The MS Society produced a report into that, and found that 22 per cent of those living with MS had accessed illegal forms of cannabis to treat their symptoms. That just seems very wrong. As I have previously said in the Parliament, one of the reasons why I set up the cross-party group is that my own father, who had acute pain from arthritis, said that, if cannabis ever became legalised, he would use it. It is a testament to him that I have championed this cause.

As is the case with many other cannabis-based medicines, although Sativex can be accessed via private prescription, doctors are often hesitant to prescribe it without SMC approval. There is a big issue about doctors’ confidence, and some confusion about who can and who cannot prescribe. Medicines can be legally prescribed by specialist doctors on the GMC specialist register, if there is a special clinical need, but GPs cannot prescribe unlicensed cannabis-based products for medicinal use under the current rules. I believe that changes are needed.

It is time for a serious change to the policy on, and the delivery of, access to medicinal cannabis. We need to make sure that trials are appropriate for such a use. We raised the issue three years ago with the chief pharmaceutical officer, but we have made very little progress. We should empower doctors—and patients, who need this because it changes their lives. I look forward to the minister’s reply.

It is important that the Scottish Government as a whole acknowledges that it has failed to tackle Scotland’s outrageous and tragic level of drug deaths, so that we can assess our approach to this scandalous state of affairs, which has dire human consequences, as Stuart McMillan just outlined in his useful and important contribution.

However, as Michael Marra and others said, we still have no answer as to why Scotland in particular has such high figures—as Claire Baker said, they are the worst in Europe. She also said that we are not alone in facing this challenge, but it is important that we keep on trying to get an answer to that question; otherwise we will not be sure that we are heading in the right direction.

As Claire Baker said, the Government is already being slow in meeting its commitments on MAT standards. It is therefore all the more important that Opposition parties work with it, as we have all committed to do, but also push it to deliver on what it has promised, especially in relation to treatment programmes and MAT standards.

I do not envy Angela Constance in her ministerial job, and she has my full support in her endeavours. I welcome the commitment that she has made to increase the number of drug treatment facilities by 300 per cent by the end of the parliamentary session, but I must interrogate that commitment. It will be meaningless unless reports can tell us what that looks like in a year, in two years and in the year after that. We need to see what progress we will make in the preceding years.

There have been some excellent contributions. Gillian Martin was the first of many members to point out the link between drug deaths and deprivation. That is even more worrying, given that, unfortunately, the worst cost of living crisis in living memory is likely to create more deprivation and will make the Government’s job even harder.

Although drug misuse is now, I hope, recognised primarily as a public health issue rather than a criminal justice issue, as Katy Clark said, we need to go a lot further in reducing the stigma of addiction, as Emma Harper outlined. Fundamentally, drug addicts are people in mental and physical pain. Usually, some sort of past tragedy develops into trauma, and drugs are used to numb some of the difficulties that manifest in daily life. I pay tribute to the courage of Collette Stevenson, who talked about her family’s experience and her brother. That must have been hard to talk about, so I commend her for doing so. Darren McGarvey, whose series on Scotland’s problems with addiction recently aired on the BBC, said that alcoholics and drug addicts “need our love”. I believe that to be true.

However, if the Government wants our constructive support, it needs to focus on what we can do now. We have two separate proposals—one from Douglas Ross and one from Paul Sweeney—which exist because of the vacuum in Government policy on preventing drug deaths. Both proposals are worthy of consideration, and I will say more on that later.

As we have heard, there were nearly five times as many drug deaths in Scotland in 2020 as there were in 2000. We should probably reflect on how outrageous that statistic is. That is why we ask those with power and influence, such as the Lord Advocate, to consider what can be done within the law to change that situation.

Portugal is often highlighted as a success story. Drug rates there were similar to the European Union average, but, in 2001, it changed its policy to a health-led approach. Since then, the drug-related death rate has remained below the EU average. There is no reason why Scotland cannot turn things around in a similar way, but we need to ask whether we are on track to do that. As Claire Baker said in her opening speech, we cannot allow the Government to backtrack on the swift implementation of medically assisted treatment standards, because, until they are implemented, lives will unnecessarily be lost.

I will talk a little bit about drug consumption rooms and naloxone, as other members have done. As we have said on many occasions, the well-known Peter Krykant ran a drug consumption facility in a minibus for more than a year. Over 10 months, the facility supervised more than 800 injections. David Liddell from the Scottish Drugs Forum said:

“there was no public interest in prosecuting him for the drug consumption room that he ran, and no prosecution followed. It is a ridiculous state of affairs that he can run such a service and not be prosecuted, but NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde cannot run one, although it wants to.”—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Committee, 27 October 2021; c 31.]

I do not think that there is a lot of disagreement on the issue, but we need to sort out public policy on it very soon, because it seems to be a bit of a mess.

As I have argued many times in the chamber, drug consumption rooms are one small part of what needs to be done, but it is important to make the point that they are a gateway to treatment for those who are seeking it, and the minister has committed to expanding treatment services. Drug consumption rooms exist in countries such as Australia, Canada, Switzerland and the Netherlands. The introduction of such facilities would clearly be a radical step to take, but it is important to acknowledge that there have been no deaths when consumption rooms have been used.

That is also acknowledged by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, which recommends safe drug consumption facilities as well as rolling out heroin-assisted treatment programmes in all major centres in Scotland. The college says that safe drug consumption facilities can prevent drug-related overdoses. That is only one way, but it is important to sort it out.

I await with real interest the report that the minister said will be published in June. I hope that, in that report, there will be signs that we are on the right track but, if we are not, it is important that ministers come to the chamber humbly and tell us that. If we are all serious about tackling the issue, we will acknowledge the situation and then put our heads together and work together to change the situation. We must do that, because far too many lives are at stake.