Chamber and committees

I thank Jamie Greene and Collette Stevenson for their amendments, which are critical. They all align with the committee’s stage 1 report, in which we all expressed a lot of concerns about the bill.

On Jamie Greene’s amendments 129 and 90, the biggest weakness in the bill for me is the licensing scheme and the lack of detail on it, given that a lot will be done through statutory instruments. That seems to warrant a review of the scheme.

I was concerned about the letter from the British Firework Association that Jamie Greene referred to and which we got only a couple of days ago. I presume that the minister has had the opportunity to read it, but it says:

“In respect of the licensing requirements, the Minister stated that a delivery driver would have a legal obligation to check for a licence, as they do with other age restricted products. Delivery drivers have a duty to check for age verification on age restricted products, not a licence. Notwithstanding this, the way to circumvent this (and we see already) is to send the product in plain packaging.”

It also says:

“for the record, the Minister states that Fireworks can only be delivered by specialist couriers. This is incorrect, fireworks (under ADR regulations) can be delivered in limited quantities (up to 500kg ... )”.

That alludes to the knock-on effect of people not using the licensing scheme. We do not know yet whether people will see the scheme as onerous or not, and that is where the whole debate about the black market comes in. It all ties together.

Whether the issue can be tied up at stage 3 with amendments on a review of the legislation, I do not know. For me, a specific review of the licensing scheme is important, given my concerns about whether such a scheme is the best way of controlling fireworks. I would like to hear from the minister, but I welcome and intend to vote for both pairs of amendments.

The most important point is that people should understand on which days they can use fireworks and on which days they cannot. I am less concerned about the choosing of festivals. I might need to be more informed about this, but I have attended many Eid celebrations and none involved fireworks. Personally, I did not see that that is the division that the minister is choosing. If it is, there will be more problems.

My primary concern relates to the point that the 57 days can be added to, and I agree with Jamie Greene in that regard. If ministers felt that they had to add other periods, the number of days would expand beyond 57, which would somewhat undermine the response to the concerns that the public might have about the days on which fireworks can be set off.

I know that we will have a discussion about information, but it is important that someone at home who hears fireworks going off knows whether they can lift the phone because it is an offence. We need to tie things together so that people know when they are entitled to phone the police to say, “Fireworks are going off on a day on which that is not permitted—please take action.” It is important that that is addressed so that this can work.

My biggest concern is that, if the 57 days become 67 days, we will get to a place where fireworks will be permitted for a substantial part of the year.

I would have thought that there will have been organised displays for a lot of the festivals and dates that have been mentioned. I have been to Diwali and Vaisakhi displays, and they tend to be organised. In my mind, organised displays should be encouraged for larger groups. I do not see that the bill’s purpose is to try to regulate what religious organisations or communities such as the Chinese community are doing. I do not think that that is what the bill was designed to do, and the discussion is getting a bit confusing at times. I will leave it there.

I am listening carefully to everything that you are saying. I am trying to formulate an opinion that makes sense to me, and I want to probe the issue of why we would permit members of the public to let off fireworks on 10 November. Given that bonfire night is on 5 November, does that proposal make sense? Are we not encouraging people to think, “Oh, there’s a big period when you can set off fireworks legally”? We all agree that the setting off of fireworks causes a certain nuisance to communities. I totally acknowledge your point about the need to strike a balance between reducing the negative effects and allowing people to enjoy fireworks—I am with you on that—but I think that the period when they can be used seems really long.

I welcome what the minister has just said about being willing to work with me at stage 3. I am genuinely pleased about that, because I want to outline why it is necessary to have something about the issue in the bill.

I acknowledge that it is for every local authority to decide individually on the application of a firework control zone as issues arise, but I would have thought that every local authority also has the duty to provide information so that everyone is clear about when a control zone is being applied. Local authorities already do lots of things to give information to the public—for example, they give information about bin collections. I am not suggesting that that is how prescriptive we would want to be, but such information helps a lot of people, particularly if they are not online. I think that the minister has acknowledged that.

There should be some reference to the issue in the bill to ensure that we cover all of that. As Jamie Greene rightly said, it is very important that people know about the application of a firework control zone.

Firework control zones are a critical and very useful part of the bill. I have spoken about some of the issues in my local area in Glasgow, where fireworks are a very serious issue. I hope that Glasgow City Council will use the powers to apply firework control zones in places such as Pollokshields. The zones are an extremely useful aspect of the bill but, in fairness, it is important that those who live in a zone are absolutely crystal clear. I acknowledge that the minister said that there will be some co-design.

I am sure the minister will appreciate that the reason for lodging the amendments was to give some variety. Amendment 6 says that, if a designated area is amended or revoked, the public should be made aware of that. Amendment 7 looks for clarity for people who live and work in the area. I appreciate that amendment 8 is much more extensive; its approach is my preferred one. It says that the boundaries of zones, the date from which the designation is to have effect, and the date on which the designation ceases to have effect should be stated.

It is also important that the public are aware of the offence. We need to be clear with local authorities. They must tell people who reside in those areas that it is an offence to let off a firework in the same way that it would be an offence to let a firework off if that is not on a designated date.

I welcome what has been said, and I intend not to move my amendments on that basis.

In response to Rona Mackay, I note that, in my amendments, I was seeking to probe the need to have 57 days and to reduce that to include only what I see as the seasons of fireworks. I have a similar concern in that, whatever days we choose by regulation, we could end up with even more days, which would be of concern to everyone.

I have a question for Jamie Greene, specifically about the emergency workers legislation and not about any other legislation. I can sometimes see the need for legislation that might be symbolic or send a message. We have a huge problem and I am sympathetic to that. Are you concerned that the courts would not treat that as an aggravating factor at the moment? Are you concerned that a sheriff looking at the circumstances would not, of their own volition, see that there are aggravating factors or add an additional element to the sentence because of the nature of the problem?

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.

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?

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.