Hansard

I hope that none of your comments affects matters that have appeared in party manifestos over a number of years, Presiding Officer. Today's subject for debate, for example, appeared in the Scottish National Party's manifesto 18 months ago, in the run-up to the Scottish parliamentary elections.

After all this morning's coverage in the press and on the airwaves, the speech that I am about to make could probably just be handed to the new deputy minister so that he could make the speech as well. There might be a little repetition this morning, but I make no apology for having raised the subject. It is only because the SNP has insisted on having the debate in Parliament that we have heard an unequivocal statement from the Executive, which we hoped for for a number of years, but which was not forthcoming.

Like some other members, I was in the chamber for most of yesterday afternoon. When I got back to the SNP's offices, a little buzz of excitement was awaiting me, because the Executive had spent the afternoon briefing the media that it accepted, in principle, the idea of drugs courts as outlined in the SNP motion. That could be seen as something of a victory for the SNP. The former Deputy Minister for Justice already gave a helpful hint that the Executive accepted the idea in his briefing to the Sunday Herald. I wish that every SNP motion had that effect. However, the outgoing deputy minister's hint was a little surprising, given the tenor of some of his other remarks.

In recent months the Executive has been at sixes and sevens on the matter. Clarification of the Executive's position would be useful, although I am not certain that we will get it today. The Executive amendment in effect removes all mention of drugs courts from the motion. That seems surprising, given the heavy briefing that it gave that it would accept in principle the idea of drugs courts.

Members may call me naive, but I think that if the Executive truly accepts the principle of the motion, it should be gracious enough to reflect that in its amendment. Although I would not necessarily expect the Executive to accept the slightly mischievous reference to the SNP's manifesto, it is surprising that the Executive should attempt to amend the motion to remove any mention of the thing that it claims to support in principle.

We have a new Deputy Minister for Justice. I welcome him and congratulate him on his appointment to his new post. I also offer sympathy for the fact that he must be on his feet so soon after moving to a new department. I hope that we will have the same cordial and generally constructive relationship that I enjoyed with his predecessor. However, I am rather worried that today's debate will produce unobjectionable words from the new minister, but no concrete proposals, time scales or any indication of when the Executive might turn principles into practice. I sought a constructive debate about specifics—I hope that that is what we will have.

We should not have to rehearse the problems that are posed for society by the misuse of drugs—the cost, as we all know, is enormous. There is the cost to families of a disrupted and chaotic home life that impacts on every family member, regardless of whether they take drugs. We know about the devastating effects on society as a whole and on the health service in particular. The total cost is measured in blighted lives in Scotland. We all agree about the extent of the problem, just as we agree that what we have been doing until now has not worked. The problem seems to be getting worse, rather than better.

Despite the fact that drug legislation is a reserved matter, we know that an enormous amount of work can be done and that effective change can take place in Scotland. I hope that Scotland can be an example to the rest of the United Kingdom, rather than continually looking over its shoulder and blindly copying what Westminster does. The drugs courts proposal centres on the criminal justice process. It cannot stand in isolation—it is an initiative that would impact most directly on that system. That is what I want to talk about this morning.

We know that the criminal justice system in Scotland is overloaded with work that can be directly related to the use of drugs. The police cost of tackling drug crime and the criminal effects of drug abuse was, at the most recent estimate, £120 million per year. The Scottish Parliament reference centre research note on drug misuse that was issued earlier this year said:

"In 1997, drugs-related crimes accounted for 14% of all convictions in the Scottish courts."

That figure represents only cases where drug-related crime was the main offence and in which that offence was possession, intent to supply or whatever. That figure does not include convictions for crimes in which the underlying problem was drug misuse, such as theft, housebreaking and other convictions—the list can go on for page after page. Many members have seen schedules of previous convictions, most of which are a direct result of drug use, although they are not drug offences. Most evidence suggests that about 60 per cent to 70 per cent of offences that result in court appearances can be traced to a drug use problem. That is a colossal resource problem for the criminal justice system. I do not know whether the existing cost figures factor all those elements into the equation—they are the tip of the iceberg that lurks beneath the surface.

We must also remember the number of young offenders who are implicated in those colossal figures. The recent report of the advisory group on youth crime is a commendable document. Equally commendable is the fact that the Executive accepted all the group's recommendations. Many of those recommendations could have been commended if they had been made for adult offenders. The drugs courts concept fits very well into the ethos of that report.

I do not deny that some elements of what might be found in a drugs court are already in place in some parts of Scotland. Drug treatment and testing orders were introduced in 1998, but are available only in certain areas of Scotland. They give the power to impose drug treatment—including random drug testing—with the consent of the offender, but they tend to be used only in high-tariff cases. As I understand it, only a small number of DTTOs have been made, which suggests a rather conservative approach to their use.

There are also arrest referral schemes. It was my good fortune to speak last Friday at the launch of the Perth and Kinross arrest referral scheme. The scheme enables arrested persons to make contact with relevant agencies while their court case proceeds. There are several partners in the scheme, including the police, Perth and Kinross criminal justice social work department, Perth drug and alcohol team, and NCH Scotland.

All the partners in that scheme think that it is the first of its kind in Scotland. The Scottish Executive health department thinks that there is another in Clackmannan and that there might be schemes in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Tayside. Without clear guidance on what constitutes such a scheme, however, the actual number cannot be confirmed. There is unnecessary confusion, but it is clear that such schemes are largely self-starting, that they are not overseen and that no targets have been made for setting them up in Scotland. Both the initiatives have been welcomed by the SNP, but surely it would be better to ingather such schemes and set them up under a single, coherent framework—drugs courts. We seem to be inching toward that, but with no overall strategic direction. It is time that we tackled the issue head on.

I raised the issue of drugs courts with the Deputy Minister for Justice's predecessor—Angus MacKay—and with his predecessor, who is now the First Minister. What are drugs courts? They are distinctive environments that are set aside with clear rules. Participants' performance is immediately and directly communicated to a judge, who rewards progress or penalises non-compliance. There are sentencing concessions, but they are made only in response to successful participation and treatment. Such courts deal with users, but not dealers. They should be mainly about diversion from custody. That fits in with another aim, which is to reduce the prison population—an aim that the SNP shares with the Executive.

The aim of drugs courts is to provide a treatment-led response to drugs and drug-related crime that builds on partnership between all relevant agencies. They bridge the gap between punishment and treatment for the user and the discipline that is imposed on the offender is challenging. I would term it an aggressive intervention at the point of maximum impact, when the first jail term is likely.

In practice, such courts would work as follows. On being charged with an offence, or after agreeing to plead guilty, an offender would be assessed for drugs court suitability and brought before the nearest drugs court—or the most likely one—as soon as possible. The drugs court works as a team. It would be non-adversarial and offenders would have to attend court regularly for review. The important point is that offenders would see the same people every time they came before the court.

The proposal already has considerable support in Scotland. The Scottish Drugs Forum, the Scottish Police Federation, the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland, and the director of Scotland Against Drugs would all welcome drugs courts. In the past, ministers have not wanted to dismiss the idea completely, but the former Deputy Minister for Justice was on the record as saying that drugs courts would not fit in to Scotland's court system. I am not sure why he would think that and I can only assume that there has been a major change of heart about the issue since the end of August, when that reason was last advanced by the outgoing Deputy Minister for Justice. In truth, Scotland's sheriff court structure does provide opportunities for the development of drugs courts. Equally, the children's panel system offers a culture of non-adversarial proceedings that could be extended to such courts.

Drugs courts—or, at least, the model that is beginning to appear in the spread of countries that I listed—are essentially methods by which we can divert from custody those individuals for whom custody is the next most likely disposal option for a judge. They allow a relationship to be built with the individual and have shown a degree of success. They are not the complete answer, but they may be part of it. Drugs courts require investment in the infrastructure of rehab and through care to work properly. Scotland is not a model of such provision, so I concede that at this stage it might be reasonable simply to develop a drugs court model that is appropriate for Scotland's justice system and pilot it in an area where the provision of back-up services is at least adequate. Let us not hang about, however.

There is already extensive international experience to call upon. At the time of the Irish commission in February 1998, there were 238 drugs courts in operation in the USA, with two or more about to start and 147 more planned. Goodness knows what the number is now. There are pilots schemes in Wakefield and Pontefract and one is about to start in Dublin. Let us get moving—let us turn the undoubted agreement in principle into practice and let us do so quickly.

I move,

That the Parliament recognises the complex nature of the drugs problem in Scotland; accepts that addressing the problem requires effective law enforcement working in partnership with well resourced rehabilitation and treatment strategies; acknowledges the role that a system of specialist drugs courts could play in dealing with drug-related crime; notes that the Scottish Drugs Forum and CoSLA support the establishment of drugs courts, and calls upon the Scottish Executive to develop an appropriate pilot scheme with a view to moving towards the establishment of drugs courts in areas of Scotland where adequate rehabilitation and treatment resources exist, as proposed in the Scottish National Party's 1999 Election Manifesto.