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That was when our status was stable but concerning for a number of months through the end of last year and the beginning of this year. Over the past few weeks, a rapid spike has increased the pressures.
The then Minister for Drugs and Alcohol Policy committed to conducting a rapid review of each health board to ascertain the extent of issues relating to controlled drug licences across Scotland.
We are all aware that we continue to feel the impact of the rapid decline that was inflicted on many of our heavy industries, particularly in the 1980s.
It is more of a picture of continuing declines in smoking but quite rapid increases in vaping, which exceed smoking prevalence and mean that there is an overall increase in nicotine use.
In that environment, they were able to arrange the Glider service, for example—that is a tram-like rapid bus transit service—and they were able to deliver feeder services into that.
You will be familiar with the fact that, during the pandemic, rapid work was done to bring together trade unions, employers and the Government on a sectoral basis in order to get the country back to work after lockdown.
If we had had a 10 to 15 per cent increase without the rapid cost inflation that we have seen over the past 12 months or so, that might have been slightly easier to integrate, but this is a further addition on top.