Hansard

Neil Findlay has just demonstrated why he will be a major loss to this place. I hope that we can welcome him back. I hope that he does not mind me saying so, but, despite our different constitutional views, I hope that we can welcome him back to an independent Scottish Parliament. He would be an asset in an independent Parliament, for sure. I wish him good luck in the future.

My friend and colleague Maureen Watt made a wonderful and emotional speech, and she will be a great loss to this place. I thank her for her years of service. I will be in the chamber for Jenny Marra’s final speech, which I look forward to. I thank them all for their contributions to our national endeavour.

I want to contribute to the debate because I see it as an opportunity to move the political debate on our drugs death crisis to a place where it will become a national endeavour for us all. The debate is on a national mission to reduce drug deaths and harms. I do not suggest that, in doing so, we should somehow ease up the scrutiny of the Scottish Government—quite the reverse. It has been acknowledged, rightly, by the First Minister that we should have done more to tackle the drugs death crisis. It is right that we acknowledge that as a mark of shame on the nation, and the way forward for us all would be to plot that way together.

There is now consensus that there needs to be significant additional access to residential rehabilitation across Scotland. I acknowledge that there will be a significant expansion of such beds. I had called for that for some time, as had Opposition parties. It will now happen, and can happen at speed—we heard the minister say that, in just two months, with a £3 million investment, 150 more people have benefited from residential rehabilitation. That is a remarkable achievement in such a small period of time, albeit that it is not anywhere near enough. I am interested in knowing more about the timeline for progress in expanding it further, and about how we will monitor outcomes. By that, I mean the impacts on how we can save lives and improve the quality of life not just of those who are living with addiction, but of their families, given the scarring effects on those families.

I think that the minister said that MAT standards would be embedded around April 2021; I must find out more about them. National standards for accessing a range of supports and treatments—including, of course, residential rehabilitation—would be incredibly welcome.

Some who have been designing and delivering services for some time have not always seen residential rehabilitation as a priority. That is self-evident; why else would ADPs have reduced the commissioning and delivery of such beds so dramatically? However, we have to come together, irrespective of our previous positions, and make things work. ADPs can rise to that challenge. They can embrace a rejuvenated investment in such beds; they can also embrace grass-roots organisations, which have authenticity and lived experience, and help to fund and empower them to do their great work in communities. For example, Sisco—Sustainable Interventions Supporting Change Outside—which the minister has met with me, is a strategic partner of Glasgow’s ADP, and I hope that it will secure funding via the Corra Foundation for its excellent work in prisons. Following other funding initiatives that were announced today, I very much hope that it will get additional funds in the future for its work in the community. It advocates for those who are living with or have been scarred by addiction.

Those who are striving for recovery often feel that their treatment choices are simply denied to them. I am thinking of a constituent who came to me just a few weeks ago with mental health issues. They had been trying to get themselves off methadone by reducing their dose themselves. They were really struggling and wanted prescription benzodiazepines—diazepam—to support and stabilise them. They were refused a prescription for that, so their only option was to increase their dosage. That was not what they wanted. Where were the treatment choice, options and empowerment for that person? We have to empower people along the way in their treatment.

In the brief time that I have left, I will mention a good friend of mine, the Rev Brian Casey, minister of Springburn parish church, who talks about truth and reconciliation and about helping communities. I will very briefly quote him. He talks about South Africa; that is why I mentioned truth and reconciliation. One of the things that helped the healing process to begin there was the truth and reconciliation commission headed by Archbishop Tutu. The families of the murdered and the brutalised came face to face with those in the security forces who had committed the crime.

Testimony, documented evidence and hearing their story repeated can be just as powerful for those who have their lives scarred and destroyed by drug addiction in our communities. Mr Casey thinks that we should be documenting that narrative and capturing those stories. I agree with him. We have to find a way not just for getting those who are living with addiction into recovery, but for the recovery of communities who have been so scarred by addiction.

I know that the minister’s diary will not let her meet Mr Casey during this session of Parliament. However, it will not surprise you, Presiding Officer, that I hope that Angela Constance will be in the same post in just a few weeks, and I look forward with hope to meeting her with Mr Casey to talk about his ideas about that national reconciliation—the truth and reconciliation that can help our communities to recover.