In Parliament

I am pleased to be the final speaker in the open debate on the people’s panel report on reducing drug harm and deaths in Scotland. The panel was commissioned by the Criminal Justice Committee, the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and the Social Justice and Social Security Committee, on which I sit.

The panel has done us a clear public service by considering and reporting on the question,

“What does Scotland need to do differently to reduce drug-related harms?”

By and large, it looked for consensus and it set a very high bar for accepting recommendations. At least 87 per cent of the panel had to agree to a recommendation, which meant that 20 of the 23 members had to be in agreement. If only we had that level of consensus in the Parliament.

It was also a representative panel, and not just demographically or in terms of income groups and so on. Significantly, the recruitment process aimed to ensure that the views of the people who made up the panel had a similar distribution to broader public opinion. Quite frankly, if they could get together outside the Parliament and get a consensus, we can get a consensus in here without the party politicking.

I will now discuss some of the recommendations. Recommendation 2 states:

I absolutely agree. The panel said that that would reduce stigma and offer role models in statutory services. We all know from our work in our constituencies the credibility that lived and living experience can bring.

I also welcome the Scottish Government’s response to that recommendation, which notes that

spoke about

It also mentions the imminent publication of

on employment support, as well as a toolkit and a £480,000 fund.

Although the response is welcome, I am not left with total clarity on how it will all be taken forward, and I also wonder how it will be monitored. I want an assurance that a pathway into the statutory workforce would not stagnate but would be a real progression pathway. I note that recommendation 4 mentions that, as well. I am keen to understand what cultural benefits could arise from refreshing the statutory workforce in that way. I also want to make sure that increasing the number of statutory staff with lived and living experience would not undermine such provision in the third sector.

Recommendation 10 states that

retain staff and reduce uncertainty in provision. I absolutely agree. I note that there has been some progress in relation to that, and I give Shirley-Anne Somerville a special mention for the work that she has done in partnership with the Social Justice and Social Security Committee. There are now 45 organisations in a pilot scheme in relation to getting longer-term funding. I say to the cabinet secretary that it would be good to see that working on a cross-sector basis in order to make sure that more organisations in the field get longer-term funding.

I was hoping to squeeze in a comment on recommendation 17, which identifies the need to support people in relation to key aspects of their lives, such as

and

However, as I have only 30 seconds left, I will talk only about temporary accommodation.

We have to ask how we can prevent people who are living with addiction from being in temporary accommodation in the first place, given that 19 per cent of the 435,000 people who were assessed as being homeless in the 15 years up to 2016 showed evidence of substance abuse. The Housing (Scotland) Bill, which is going through the Scottish Parliament, contains ask and act provisions. If we think that someone is at risk of becoming homeless, we should act to prevent that. Perhaps we can do something in the live legislation that is going through the Parliament to meet some of the aspirations of the people’s panel, which in my final few seconds I commend.