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Convener, I will start on your question around children entering the criminal justice system. Given my justice portfolio, I am the lead cabinet secretary for the bill, while the minister is coming from the children and care perspective. The bill that is before the committee is very much about that intersection between how we meet the care needs and uphold the rights of children, and the context of the demands and expectations in and around our justice system.

If we—as a Government and, indeed, a country—are absolutely focused on reducing risk and reoffending among young people, it is imperative that we start by addressing their care needs because, unless their individual needs are addressed, that will be a barrier to addressing and managing risk. If we do not address and manage risk, we will not reduce reoffending. Therefore, it is imperative that the children’s hearings system and, in particular, the courts system have the widest range of disposals available to them.

With regard to barriers—which you specifically mentioned, convener—right now, children below the age of 18 can be placed in secure accommodation if they have been convicted of an offence, but there are existing legal barriers. For the purposes of the bill, and in accordance with the Promise and the UNCRC, the definition of a child is a person who is under the age of 18. The purpose of the bill is to ensure that all children, irrespective of their deeds, should be able to be placed in secure accommodation, notwithstanding that, when those children come of age, they can transfer to a young offenders institute and, depending on the length of their sentence, progress into the adult system.

Ms McNeill raised important pragmatic issues. After having put £10 million into the implementation of MAT standards, we have closely monitored recruitment. It is a mixed picture—some areas have done very well with recruitment and others have struggled more.

We have always provided continuity of funding and I have continuity in my budget. People can apply for multiyear funds through the Corra Foundation. Some of that resource has been accessed by services as well as by the third sector. We give alcohol and drug partnerships clarity and continuity.

I understand the argument for simplifying funding routes. We may get to that point if we have a simpler, whole-system approach. However, I wrestle with the need to ensure that investment that has been earmarked and allocated to support families has gone to support families, or that money that I have earmarked and allocated to improve access to residential rehabilitation is being spent on residential rehabilitation and after care.

I am not unsympathetic to that point about a simpler process, but the position that I have arrived at is that, in order to tackle the drug deaths crisis here and now, I have to follow the money and ensure that resources get to where they are needed. I appreciate that that will require a level of monitoring and that we will need some bureaucracy to scrutinise that. We may be able to change that when we get to wider reforms, perhaps of the ways in which alcohol and drug partnerships, or wider drug and alcohol services, function. At the moment, I am absolutely following the money and will not apologise for that.

With regard to the whole-family approach, there very much is a presumption in the MAT standards that family involvement is, by and large, a good thing. Of course, individuals will have different circumstances in which that might not be appropriate, or it might not be what the individual who is in treatment or recovery desires.

However, even in cases such as, for argument’s sake, that of a son who does not want his mother fully informed, there are actually reasons for some involvement, and some residential establishments do that very well. The Lothians and Edinburgh abstinence programme, which is led by Dr David McCartney in Edinburgh, has a families group. On a week-by-week basis, the staff do not necessarily go into the care of individual loved-ones but they will say, “This is the shape of the programme—this is what we are doing this week and this is what you might expect.” There are always ways to engage and be helpful and support a family member, even if consent has been withdrawn to share private medical information. Scottish Families Affected by Alcohol and Drugs is also doing some work just now, which is much more focused on models of care and service delivery and standards in and around that. I think that that will be very important moving forward.

As I indicated in my last update to Parliament on MAT standards, we are on a journey to really bear down on people to get the standards, as they stand, implemented. However, at some point, we need to come to the question of how MAT standards evolve. MAT standards will need to be more explicit about treatment in and around different substances, and they could be more explicit around things such as leadership, how we better support women and how we work better with families, because working with families is core. It should be core not only to what we do in drug policy but to what we do in the early years, education and housing support. That is not a nice extra—it has to be our core business, and we have to get the core and the foundations right.

On your point about the evidence around heroin-assisted treatment, I should say that it is used more frequently in other countries—in Switzerland, for example, about 8 per cent of people with problem drug use receive it—and there are different models elsewhere that, arguably, are more cost effective. We have a very high-threshold model, partly because of Home Office regulations.

With regard to the national mission, I have been absolutely crystal clear about residential rehabilitation. It is not for everyone but, under my stewardship, we will invest £100 million in residential rehabilitation and aftercare and in improving pathways to accessing it.

The statistics—the evidence—show that more and more people are being publicly funded to access residential care. For me, it has always been a balanced ticket. We need to be serious about abstinence-based recovery and the option of residential rehabilitation, but we must also be fearless about harm reduction.

Accountability is important—I have never made an appearance in Parliament or in front of a committee without talking about accountability. It is probably the thing that I have spoken about most in my current role. I never walk away from my own accountability, and I am always open to scrutiny. We need accountability at each and every level. Families and service users are right to point out where it is not working, because, through our work on residential rehab and MAT standards, we now have more information than ever before about what is and is not working. As we progress with the national mission, we will sort what needs to be sorted.

I will talk about evaluation and the monitoring of resources, but first and foremost, I want to say, as a point of principle, that I do not hear many, if any, debates and discussions about the cost of treatment for other health conditions. It always seems to me that we have more in-depth discussions—or, if I can put it this way, more concerns are raised—about the cost of treating people with drug and alcohol problems. We have to move beyond that, because part of our problem relates to stigma and the perception that exists sometimes in our society that some people are deserving and others less so.

My starting point in all of this is to ensure the right treatment for the right person at the right time. Different treatments cost different amounts of money. There is a difference between the cost of methadone and the cost of Buvidal; residential rehabilitation is considered expensive by some people, and I think that it is fair to say that heroin-assisted treatment is expensive, too. However, I am determined to get the right treatment for the right person at the right time.

The HAT project will, of course, be evaluated by Glasgow Caledonian University, and that evaluation will put all the facts in one place. Heroin-assisted treatment works for some people. Indeed, there is an international evidence base showing that, for people who have very long histories of using, in this case, heroin and other substances and for whom other treatment has not been successful, this treatment provides an opportunity to stabilise them, engage with them and have a discussion about other supports that they might need. The evidence also shows that such treatment reduces the use of street drugs. If, as I have done, you have ever met parents who have lost a child, you will well understand that the priority is not necessarily the cost of a particular treatment, but whether the treatment will work for a particular individual.

All of us are at one on that, I think. I do not need to repeat to this audience the worldwide evidence about safe drug consumption facilities, which is irrefutable. They are not a silver bullet but they save lives, and the scale of the challenge in Scotland is such that we need all solutions at our disposal.

There would have been an easier way to do it. I will happily answer questions on that, if required. However, I and my party made a commitment that we would leave no stone unturned.

It is not all in my gift. We have an operationally independent police force, and the Lord Advocate and the Crown Office are independent; nobody here needs me to give a lecture on why that is. However, it is encouraging that the proposal that was submitted to the Crown Office was supported by Police Scotland and Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership.

It will be for the Crown Office and the Procurator Fiscal service to take matters forward. They are continuing to work well with Police Scotland and it is important that they continue that work, which, as the committee will know, is around the policing of any facility, should it be required. It is imperative that clarity exists on that point for both the public and police officers.

I have done everything that I can up to this point. As everybody else here is doing, I am waiting on the conclusion of those vital discussions between the Crown Office and the police and on any forthcoming decision from the Lord Advocate. I will have to respond to that decision—whatever it is—in due course, and I give you my absolute commitment that I will do anything that I can within my gift, because safe drug consumption facilities work.

That is why we should not look at the whole-family approach in isolation. It is why our response to the task force came from Government as a whole, although individual work to tackle poverty and inequality is being led by Shona Robison and there is work to reform our justice system and an investment in housing. All those things are connected.

The idea that drug policy must not be seen in isolation lies at the heart of the national mission. The social determinants of good or poor health must be tackled. The cross-Government approach means that we are making commitments not just for this year but for future years.

Our equalities framework has six outcomes and six cross-cutting themes, one of which is recognising equality. That includes the particular needs of women but is also about how we can better reach the black and minority ethnic community.

As well as the Aberlour work that you outlined, and the work of Phoenix Futures at Harper house, which I will touch on in a moment, it is also really important to look at the perinatal mental health work that Kevin Stewart and Clare Haughey are involved in. There is substantial investment in refreshing and updating that work to support women who have mental health issues or use drugs. Much work has been done to change generic, universal and specific health services.

I had the great pleasure of visiting the first of Aberlour’s mother and child recovery houses in Dundee a month or so ago. It was quite an experience. The initiative is part of our work to keep the Promise. As a former social worker, I know the impact of families not being kept together.

We also know that, although significantly more men than women die, the rate of increase among women has been faster in recent years. Ten or 15 years ago, the ratio of deaths between men and women was wider; now, it has narrowed. To take, as you suggest, a gender-informed approach, there are many reasons for that, but at the heart of it are the trauma and grief that women experience when they lose their children. We need to work harder to keep families together—to keep mothers with their babies.

Aberlour will open another mother and child recovery house in the central belt. I await an update on that and I hope that we will have more to say on it in the not too distant future.

The work that Phoenix Futures is doing in Harper house will also be revolutionary. It is a national family service for mums, dads and children aged up to 11. Not just as a minister but as an MSP, I take very seriously my obligations to keep the Promise. Families should not be parted due to a lack of support and a lack of service. The evaluation on Harper house will inform us all for many years to come.

Sorry—would you repeat that?

My sense—it is just my sense—is that we are further away from the start of this journey and are now closer to a conclusion, although I appreciate that it is perhaps not the specificity for which Mr O’Kane and other colleagues are looking.

I will say, and I hope that this is reassuring for the committee to hear, that, given the journey that the task force underwent and the work in which the Crown Office and Police Scotland were involved, we have come to a point at which we as a country and with all our different partners understand what the evidence tells us.

The question that remains is ultimately one for the Lord Advocate, around what she can and cannot do within her powers around statements of public prosecution policy. Criminal Justice Committee members will remember the statement that the Lord Advocate made to the committee about the need for a “detailed and specific” proposition that the community and Police Scotland would buy into. That is what we have worked towards. I am not the arbitrator or the judge of that work—that duty lies with someone else—but, whatever the outcome of this journey, I will always look to get the right solutions in place.