Seòmar agus comataidhean

There will be opportunities in a £64 billion budget to find savings. If you want me to go away and research that, I will do so. I do not want to give you a figure and say that this or that saving would cover half of the £38 million, but then find that the figure is wrong, because—knowing your background as an accountant, Mr Mason—you will have the figures at your fingertips. I do not. I am quite happy to write to you after the meeting with £38 million of savings from the current budget, and we can scrutinise that, going forward. I am saying, however, that they will be my savings—they might not be the savings that my party colleagues Ms Smith or Mr Hoy might make. If you are asking me to find savings of £38 million in the budget, I will do so for you.

Thank you, convener, and good morning. It is a real pleasure to be in front of you today—I hope that I am still saying that at the end of your scrutiny. For me, it marks another significant step forward for the bill, which I have been working on for some time. I know that the scrutiny of your committee and that of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, which begins its evidence taking next week, will be important.

The latest statistics show that the number of annual drug deaths continues to rise and has more than doubled in the past 10 years. Scotland’s drug death rate is more than twice as high as the rate in Wales and almost three times higher than the rate in England and Northern Ireland. Drug deaths are 15 times more likely to occur in our most deprived areas than in our least deprived areas, with areas in Glasgow and Dundee that are represented by members of this committee being particularly badly affected.

However, it is not just an issue with large urban areas. Despite having relatively low figures, my own area of Moray has seen big percentage increases. Between 2020 and 2021, a 70 per cent increase in drug deaths in Moray represented the highest increase anywhere in the country.

The bill covers alcohol addiction as well as drug addiction. The number of alcohol-specific deaths is at its highest level since 2008—again, the highest anywhere in the United Kingdom—and it is four times as high in our most deprived areas as in our least deprived communities. I do not believe that it is an exaggeration to say that that is a national scandal.

Every four hours, on average, a Scot will die because of drugs or alcohol. They will die a needless and avoidable death because they were not given the right care and support at the right time. This is a national emergency and it deserves to be treated as such.

When the Parliament was reconstituted, the late Donald Dewar said that it should deliver Scottish solutions to Scottish problems. I genuinely believe that there can be no better issue to make that statement true than the drug and alcohol emergency that we are facing. I say that not to make a political point but simply to reinforce to the committee the gravity of the situation and the motivation for introducing the Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill.

I take the opportunity to thank all those who have been involved in the formation of the bill to this point. As a member who has never sought to introduce a bill, I had not previously been involved in the work of the non-Government bills unit, but it has done a huge amount behind the scenes to bring us to this point today. I also thank the front-line experts who have been crucial in forming the bill and getting us to this stage. In particular, I would like to mention Stephen Wishart, Annemarie Ward and Faces & Voices of Recovery UK—FAVOR UK—who have been the real driving forces behind the bill.

To give a brief overview, the Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill gives every person who has been diagnosed as having a drug or alcohol addiction the right to be informed about the appropriate treatment for their addiction and to be provided with that treatment. The bill sets out a procedure for health professionals to follow in determining treatment, including explaining the treatment options to the patient and encouraging them to participate in the decision-making process as much as possible. It also sets out a process and a right to a second opinion when treatment is deemed to be inappropriate or when no treatment is deemed to be appropriate. The bill requires that treatment that is identified be made available as soon as is reasonably possible and no later than three weeks after the determination is made.

The bill also requires that Scottish ministers publish and lay an annual report on the progress that has been made towards providing the treatments for drug and alcohol recovery. Finally, the bill requires Scottish ministers to prepare a code of practice that sets out how the duty to fulfil the right to treatment will be carried out by health boards and others, such as integration joint boards.

As this is the Finance and Public Administration Committee, I expect that many of the questions will be on the financial implications of the bill. I will not pre-empt what members might ask, but I will make one point, if I may. The figures that are included in the financial memorandum represent the best estimate of costs using the data that was available to us. However, as Audit Scotland said in its 2022 report on alcohol and drug services,

“it is still difficult to track spending and how it is being distributed and monitored.”

Further, Alcohol Focus Scotland said in its submission to the committee:

“we believe that the financial working that has been done exposes a significant and worrying gap in the available data”.

Also, in his letter to members of this committee and the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care said:

“it is extremely challenging to estimate demand and unmet need.”

In the light of those challenges, although I understand the view that those numbers are at the lower end of the expectations, they are the best figures that can be produced with the data that we have at the moment.

As Dame Carol Black said,

“£1 spent on treatment will save £4 from reduced demands on health, prison, law enforcement and emergency services.”

Therefore, although there are significant spending commitments in relation to the bill, there are also savings to be made—and I think that we can all agree that the biggest saving is the lives that will be saved by people getting the help and support that they need when they need it.

I know that there will be some who are just as passionate about wanting to tackle our shameful drug and alcohol death rate as I am but who disagree with the approach in the bill. To those individuals and organisations—and, indeed, to this committee—I say work with me to get this right. We are at the beginning of the process and there will be time for amendments, which I will look at in good faith—but do not let the perfect stand in the way of the good.

We cannot miss this opportunity to put the need to take action against this national scandal on a legal footing. It is right that the bill and the issue be given the time to be debated and considered by this committee and this Parliament. I believe that people with drug and alcohol dependencies, their families and those who have tragically lost loved ones deserve no less.

The money should come from the wider Scottish Government budget. We could spend all morning discussing where it could come from—undoubtedly, my priorities would be different from yours, Mr Mason. However, it is important. For far too long, that group of people has not had support from the Parliament or multiple Governments. How often have we stood up—annually, when we get the figures—and said that this is Scotland’s national shame and that something must be done about it, but without anything ever changing?

The only thing that changes is that the figures get worse and worse. Sometimes we get a slight dip, but then the numbers go back up again. We cannot continue doing the same thing time and again and expect different results. Therefore, I think that putting the provisions into law and giving people the reassurance that the treatment that has been deemed as being right to provide them with will be helpful not just to the individuals involved but to Scotland. As a country, we are shamed by our annual figures for the number of our fellow Scots who die needlessly from drugs and alcohol.

Yes, absolutely. As I said, the main aim of the bill is to save lives, but if improved data can better inform the decisions of the Government and the Parliament, that will also be a benefit of the legislation. That is why the proposals that are included in the bill about reporting to the Parliament and the costs that are associated with that in the financial memorandum are important to improve that data set.

On raising awareness, the bill has continued to shine a light on the appalling tragedies that we see in Scotland every year from drug and alcohol deaths, and we should continue to do that during the process of the bill and until we get those figures down.

The fact that we are still not just the worst in the United Kingdom for drug and alcohol deaths but the worst of many countries across Europe—for drug deaths, we are certainly the worst across Europe—shows us that this is a problem that we must tackle. In my view, it should have been tackled some time ago, but we are where we are. In 2025, we can send a very strong signal by passing this legislation, putting it into law and starting to save lives by ensuring that people get the treatment that is right for them.

That is a very good question. Indeed, it was one of the questions that I was asked quite often when the bill was formally launched last May. We already have targets on, for example, cancer treatment times, but what happens if we do not meet them?

The annual reporting to the Parliament will, I think, put greater onus on ministers. They will have to be accountable to the chamber and to representatives, and therefore, if the bill goes through, it will be for members in the next session of the Parliament, whoever they might be, to hold Government ministers to account. Some, depending on who is in Government and who is in Opposition, might demand that ministers resign over that. I am not in any way saying that that should happen—I am just saying that we have put in the bill an opportunity for the Parliament to scrutinise delivery against its aims, and I think that that will be an important role for the Parliament, as we move forward.

Yes, I believe that we can say that with some certainty. As I said in my opening statement, the number of drug deaths is 15 times higher in our most deprived areas than it is in our least deprived areas, and the number of alcohol deaths is almost four times higher in our most deprived areas than it is in our least deprived areas. The legislation will make the biggest impact in those communities.

We have spoken about the hard-to-reach areas and the unmet demand. I hope that people will come forward to get the help and support that they need, because we can see that theirs are the communities that suffer the most from drugs and alcohol, so they are the communities that can benefit the most from the proposed legislation.

I cannot do that with the bill. As I said to the convener, non-Government bills must sometimes be quite narrow in focus. There are issues that we have not touched on yet, although we probably will with the lead committee, around housing and homelessness and suchlike, which are very often associated with addiction issues, which we cannot get into with this legislation, despite many of the front-line experts being keen that we are able to do so. I do not think that we can extend the scope of the bill. It will be for others to look at that, and I encourage them to do so.

The bill deals with people who are diagnosed with an addiction, but I understand that that is not everyone who suffers from alcohol misuse. However, by stipulating a diagnosis of addiction, we can get the required medical intervention and the treatment that is needed to deal with that addiction. That is why that is stipulated so clearly in the bill.

With that caveat—that is, in the manner that we are proposing—my answer would be no. That is my understanding. We have looked at that, and we have also—

I have learned a lot from Ms Smith’s bill and the discussions that Mr Greer, Mr Mason and I have had on our committee in that respect. It is important that we look at alternatives.

Going back to Mr Hoy’s point, I think that the bill continues to raise awareness of this issue. Indeed, we have seen the submissions that you and the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee have received and which shine a light on a number of these areas.

Moreover, as I said in my opening remarks, I think that what we have come up with—and I have specifically mentioned the non-Government bills unit, Stephen Wishart and Annemarie Ward—is very good. I also like the fact that the cabinet secretary, in his letter in response to your call for evidence, has said that he agrees with

“the intended outcomes of the Bill”.

However, I am also willing to look at and accept any amendments that are lodged.

Ultimately, though, I do not want to say that I would accept far less than the bill, because that would allow ministers and others to aim for that something far less rather than what is in the bill, which I think is crucial. We need more availability of rehab beds and forms of treatment that can help and support people with addiction issues. That will require further commitments from the Government, which is why we have put in an increased budget. The Government needs to continue to prioritise the area and back it up with the funding that is required.

This has been my first committee appearance on the bill. It has been useful to tease out some financial and data issues at this point. I am sure that those will also be considered by the lead committee. I take on board the points that members have raised and will seek to come back to you with that additional information.