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I thank the witnesses for that insight—it really helps to inform us.

It is interesting to reflect on the interface with the previous theme that we discussed, on supply chains. Throughout the 1990s, the national health service routinely prescribed benzodiazepines, and then there was a sudden pivot point in the early 2000s. Prescribing has since been restricted, thus seeding an illicit supply chain, which has caused significant problems, as you will be aware, and has driven the issues with drug-related deaths.

The June figures demonstrated that a third of alcohol and drug partnerships have failed to implement the first five MAT standards and we have covered some of the broad reasons for that. Does the overdose prevention pilot in Glasgow present a potentially novel interface for looking at how to improve MAT standards and provide an integrated interface for people to access care? It is about people transitioning from street-bought drugs into a more controlled MAT environment and so not relying on dangerous drugs that are supplied by organised criminals.

Thanks for that. Are there any other thoughts on that and about the initial stages of the initiative?

I noted that the initial heroin-assisted treatment pilot in Glasgow was a capital spend of £1.2 million, which suggests that it was not scalable beyond a very limited network. In contrast, there are 45 needle exchanges in Glasgow, which might show the potential scale that we can move towards.

Are there any other thoughts on where this could evolve to?

There will be co-location with the heroin-assisted treatment service. What will the interface for that be like? One of the big challenges with street injection is the purchasing of uncontrolled substances of unknown toxicity, dosage and so on. Will there be an effort to encourage people to substitute street-bought drugs with a prescribed alternative that is safer and more controlled?

That is very helpful. I have one more question. Wez Steele mentioned Canada as an interesting model to look at as a benchmark. I understand that there are around 147 overdose prevention sites globally, in 91 communities in 16 countries. Do other witnesses have thoughts on potential benchmarks that the committee might want to look at—places where it is performing relatively well, based on your experience?

Is a big institutional culture change still needed in Scotland? I know, for example, that when the unofficial overdose prevention pilot ran in Glasgow, the dean of the medical school at the University of Glasgow wrote to the students who were volunteering on it and said, “You’re jeopardising your GMC registration as doctors. Desist from doing this.” People were threatened with losing their jobs with third sector providers for volunteering and participating in those activities. Is there still an instinctive risk aversion from a lot of third sector and public sector bodies about engaging in MAT provision?

The number of people seeking asylum in the country at any one time varies, but it is broadly around 6,000. We have done some rough cost estimates and there is a very marginal cost to the public, given the wider benefits that this proposal would realise for people’s wellbeing, social interaction and so on. It is a very small percentage of the cost of the existing concessionary travel scheme. It is quite a marginal increase in the overall provision. I think that the Government mentioned in its correspondence that around a third of people seeking asylum currently would qualify under the existing schemes for young people, disabled people and over-60s, so we are really just filling in that gap of people of working age.

It is a pleasure to be back in the committee and I am just here to commend and echo what my colleague Mr Ruskell said in this petition to you.

The genesis of the petition came from discussions with people seeking asylum in Glasgow over a number of years about some of the practical challenges that they face living in the city, particularly in the wake of the pandemic. There was a particularly harrowing anecdote that one of the gentlemen related about having an abscess in his gum. He had to get emergency dental treatment, but he could not afford the bus fare into town, so he had to walk 10 miles in the pouring rain in severe pain to go to get emergency dental treatment, because of his financial position as an asylum seeker. That struck me as a quite shocking scenario in a country such as ours. That moved me to ask them what would practically help make a difference and that is where the idea of extending the concessionary travel scheme came from, which subsequently led to a launch of our campaign in December 2021, in conjunction with the VOICES network and the Maryhill Integration Network.

The campaign has since attracted widespread support from across the asylum sector and continues to be championed by third sector colleagues, including those from Maryhill Integration Network, the Scottish Refugee Council, Friends of Scottish Settlers, JustRight Scotland and Grampian Regional Equality Council. People seeking asylum do not have the right to work—that is the critical issue—and they instead rely on a financial allowance from the Home Office to cover the basic costs of living. That allowance is not inflation proofed and amounts to around £6 per day, and for those living in hotel accommodation, which is an increasing number, it can be as little as £1.36 a day, so they have very limited freedom to move and undertake any real life.

In Glasgow, the cost of an all-day bus ticket is £5. In effect, that means that not just recreational activity or social activity but travel to essential medical, social, legal or Home Office appointments, which often come at short notice, is simply not an option for many people seeking asylum in Glasgow and elsewhere in Scotland, unless they forgo food or other essentials, which has severe impacts. I have had testimony from mothers caring for young children, for example, who have gone without food to make sure that their child got basic nutrition because they had to attend a Home Office appointment under threat of deportation. There are severe psychological implications there as well.

Due to the cost pressures, asylum accommodation is often situated in isolated, peripheral parts of the city and an unaffordable public transport system, which does not function, is ultimately compounding that isolation for many people seeking asylum in Scotland today.

Free bus travel is one relatively small practical intervention that we could make that would allow people to integrate, explore their new surroundings, their new communities and their new country, and I have been proud to amplify this proposal in partnership with constituents and colleagues in the third sector.

I have mentioned previously some of the organisations working with people seeking asylum that have spearheaded this campaign since its launch in 2021, but it is important also to reference that this policy has support from across civil society. Indeed, all faith leaders in the Scottish religious leaders forum have signed an open letter in support of the proposal, and it has also been recommended by the Mental Health Foundation Scotland and the Poverty Alliance.

From a parliamentary perspective, it has been fantastic to work with cross-party colleagues such as Mr Ruskell and Mr Doris, the MSP for Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn, to engage with the Scottish Government on this ask, both in writing and in meetings with successive transport ministers and Transport Scotland.

I have also met Shona Robison MSP in her previous role as Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government and Neil Gray MSP in his previous role as Minister for Culture, Europe and International Development with special responsibility for refugees, both of whom saw merit in the proposals and undertook to explore them further. To that end, in the programme for government 2022-23 the Government committed to work with third sector partners and councils across Scotland to consider how best to provide free bus travel for people seeking asylum. Since then, a pilot has been run in Glasgow, but there has not really been any further update or any mention of further work or extrapolation of that pilot in this year’s programme for government. That is extremely disappointing to those of us who have worked on this project for almost two years.

To that end, I encourage colleagues on the committee to keep the petition open and to invite witnesses who are affected by this—those personally seeking asylum—to speak to the impact that this policy would have on their lives and their current situations. That could inform future correspondence from the committee to the Government regarding this proposal and perhaps create greater impetus to move forward with it. Thank you very much.

The issue has been raised in the House of Commons and the Scottish Parliament over the years, but it has not had any serious focus. That has been most frustrating, and a number of parliamentarians across parties have expressed concern about that.

The creation of a space to look at the issue in greater depth would be fantastic, and this committee has a good opportunity to free that space for wider consideration. Stakeholders up and down the Clyde could be considered. I know that colleagues have suggested some stakeholder groups in the estuary and the Firth of Clyde area. Perhaps it would be helpful to consider submissions from the greater Glasgow city region councils and major industrial companies on the Clyde, such as BAE Systems and the Malin Group, which are looking to develop infrastructure on the Clyde, as well as Ferguson Marine and other parties that have industrial operations on the Clyde.

It might also be worth speaking to Maritime UK and other trade bodies that look at port development, to get some analysis of the longer-term growth of the Clyde as a port relative to competitor ports in the UK, and to start to establish a base of evidence on what is going on.

It would also be good if Peel Ports Group responded. It is important that it justifies its position and sets out its plans for investment on the Clyde. No one is against the group per se; what we are concerned about is the lack of clear operational ambition for the Clyde as an asset. I think that, if the group were to rise to that challenge, people would be more relaxed about its stewardship of the river.

What we are looking for is an extension under a statutory instrument to the existing concessionary travel scheme. That would be the simplest and neatest solution. Certainly, rough and ready cost estimates suggest that it would cost around £500,000 per annum, so we are not talking about a substantial sum of money in the grand scheme of the Scottish Government’s fiscal position. There is plenty of headroom to deliver this policy, but it has perhaps been confused with some of the pilots being done through third sector partners. Maybe the cleanest and neatest solution is to simply go with the statutory instrument.