Hansard

I will be happy to move the amendment in the name of Brian Whittle, which I support and have signed.

I am grateful to be opening the debate for the Scottish Conservatives on this very important issue. Again, I welcome Angela Constance to her role as the Minister for Drugs Policy. I welcome her engagement with Opposition parties, and I acknowledge that she has met me individually.

The Scottish Conservatives look forward to working with all stakeholders as we continue to address the crisis. It is particularly poignant that this subject matter marks what will probably be my last contribution of this session of Parliament, given that my first question to the First Minister, back in October 2016, was on drug-related hospitalisations. At that point, the data showed that the number of acute general admissions was increasing and that about half of the patients who were admitted lived in the 20 per cent most deprived areas of Scotland.

Fast forward to 2021 and the latest data shows that the number of patients in hospital with drug-related conditions sits at a 20-year high. To put that into perspective, in 1998-99, the number of people who were hospitalised with a drug-related condition was 79 per 100,000. In 2018-19—the most recent year for which data is available—that number sat at 192 per 100,000. That is a staggering increase. It shows not only that Governments of all political stripes have comprehensively failed to address the high number of drug-related conditions, but that the problem has worsened since devolution.

Today, we are debating the way forward in order to reduce not only the number of drug-related hospitalisations but the number of drug deaths in Scotland. In its motion, the Scottish Government acknowledges that the high number of drug deaths in Scotland is

“a mark of shame on the nation”

and is

“a public health emergency requiring partnership working and concerted action at all levels of public life”.

I could not agree more.

Indeed, the number of drug deaths has increased from 455—recorded in 2007, when the Scottish National Party Government first took office—to 1,264 in 2019. Let me be clear: every death as a result of drugs is a tragedy; every death as a result of drugs is a lost family member; every death as a result of drugs is a loss to society. Although I do not want to make too many political points during the debate, it cannot be overlooked that this is a problem that has occurred mainly under the current Government’s watch.

In the year of the highest number of drug deaths in the devolution era, we saw underresourced rehabilitation services, long waiting lists for such services and a failure of public policy to get to grips with the issue. In 2019-20, the Scottish Government funded only 13 per cent of residential rehab places in Scotland; alcohol and drug partnerships, self-funding insurance and other means supported the rest. The Government’s own report on residential rehabilitation stated that

“the majority of facilities have a waiting list for their services, ranging from a few days to a year.”

It also stated that residential rehabilitation providers found that navigating ADP funding pathways was difficult and took a long time. More than a year after the former public health minister announced the creation of a drug deaths task force, the chief executive of the campaign group Favor said that

“The drug deaths task force insists on pursuing the same failed options that got us into this mess”

and that it needed

“the UK Government to come to the table to discuss sensible solutions, and ... the Scottish Government to start properly funding rehabilitation and recovery programmes.”

The Scottish Conservatives welcome the commitment from the Government to invest £20 million of funding per year for rehab facilities—we had long called for that investment, with the support of groups such as Favor. We equally agree that more funding is required across a range of areas to prevent drug use, provide more effective treatments and save more lives. I welcome that in the Government’s motion, too.

The Home Office has also called for widening the availability of medications such as naloxone, which is used to treat overdoses, and methadone, morphine and fentanyl. I know that the task force has made that call as well. We believe that we need to go further and explore and investigate other forms of treatment, including non-pharmaceutical and abstinence-based treatments, and that we should be open-minded about treatments that have been seen to be effective in other countries but might not be available in Scotland—neuroelectric therapy, for example.

We also need to take a radical approach to talking about drugs with young people and children so that we can tackle early drug use. I recently spoke to one Scottish business to provide interactive drug smell education cards to police forces across England and I have been eager to pilot those in Scotland too. It is clear that we need to be more broad-minded in our approach, given that current initiatives are simply not having the desired outcome. It is also evident that, where possible, we need a UK-wide approach to tackling the supply of drugs that come into the country. More needs to be invested in policing so that we can properly tackle the source of drug consumption.

I welcome the fact that, last year at the UK-wide drugs deaths summit in Glasgow, the UK Government brought together drug recovery experts, health professionals, Government ministers and senior police officers from across the UK, with the intention of boosting collaboration between all levels of Government. We need more, not less, of that cross-Government collaboration. I hope that the Scottish Government reconsiders whether it will sign up to project ADDER—which stands for addiction, diversion, disruption, enforcement and recovery—the UK-wide initiative to find extra resources to dismantle organised criminal gangs and tackle the supply of drugs, while investing money into drug treatment and recovery programmes. I hope that the Scottish Government will join the scheme as part of its wider domestic measures to tackle the drugs crisis.

To further reduce drug deaths in Scotland, we also need to consider how we reduce drug-related harms, too. According to the Hepatitis C Trust, 21,000 Scots are estimated to be chronically infected with hepatitis C, and around 90 per cent of new hepatitis C infections occur through sharing contaminated drug-injecting equipment, which is also partly responsible for the transmission of other blood-borne viruses. Again, we believe that early intervention can reduce transmission, and it is important that the Scottish Government works closely with charities such as the Hepatitis C Trust when developing effective policy.

This is a vital debate, and it is one that must continue into the next session of Parliament. As Neil Findlay said, we need robust and challenging voices when it comes to lived experience, rather than voices that just tick boxes. We need voices such as Neil Findlay’s—he is someone who has always challenged orthodoxy and whose voice will be much missed in the chamber. There are no short-term solutions to the drugs crisis that is gripping Scotland, and we must work collectively as one Parliament to tackle the problem head-on and save lives. It is clear that we need greater investment in prevention and treatment and braver and bolder policy that tackles the core causes of drug use.

Politicians from across the spectrum have failed to meet that challenge, as the figures starkly show. We have an opportunity to take Scotland in a new direction. Let us grasp that opportunity so that, in another 20 years’ time, we can look back and say that we all started a conversation, took action and led Scotland out of this crisis.

I move amendment S5M-24396.1, to insert at end:

“; welcomes the Scottish Government’s acknowledgement that more should have been done sooner to tackle Scotland’s tragic rate of drug deaths; notes the Scottish Government’s change in stance towards funding for residential rehabilitation and welcomes the additional £20 million of funding per year for facilities, which the Scottish Conservatives have repeatedly requested; believes that there needs to be more focus on long-term recovery programmes, including non-pharmaceutical and abstinence-based treatments, and calls for easier access to services and cross-portfolio working towards future prevention measures.”