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I heard that evidence, and it is a point that Mr Harvie’s colleague Gillian Mackay raised a number of times, including last week. I am sorry to labour the point, but it bears repeating: the bill would not stop any of that multidisciplinary working, and it would not prevent any of the good working between the third sector and a number of different organisations. It would add treatment options in the narrow area of drug and alcohol addiction, but it would not prevent, stop or in any way diminish the work done by others; I hope that it would work in collaboration with it. It would simply add tools to the toolkit, so that people could seek the support and help that they were looking for.

It goes back to what people are seeking from recovery services and what they are not receiving from them. The largest proportion of the cases that I hear about involve people who have addiction issues with drugs and alcohol, so that is the bill’s priority. That does not mean that we cannot look at Mr Harvie’s point. Perhaps the Government or other members could consider introducing a bill that looks specifically at those issues.

Yes, there is a very strong indication of that. I welcome the fact that the Government has remained neutral on the bill. It has not said that, because of the assumptions in the financial memorandum, the bill is simply unaffordable. It has waited to see your consideration and it has considered the Finance and Public Administration Committee’s report, so it still has open eyes and ears about what the bill seeks to do and the costs of that.

It was important to get the bill to stage 1 to allow further consideration and tease out the details that all the members of this committee have raised. Some of those details have been in support of the bill, some have challenged it and some are about things that will have to fundamentally change. If we were to shut off the debate now, that would send a worrying and alarming signal—to people who seek to use these services today and in the future and, indeed, to wider society—that we have reached the peak of our ambitions to tackle drug and alcohol misuse in Scotland.

Obviously, some training is available, because people are currently doing those assessments, but there would have to be further training to increase the cohort of people who are able to do them, because demand would increase. We know that many people seek help and support through the various treatment options and do not get it—they are already assessed as being appropriate for the treatments that are listed in the bill, but they are not getting them. One element of that is the capital costs and such like. Hopefully, others will be encouraged by the bill.

I am sorry, but I cannot remember who—it might have been Ms Wells—talked earlier about people in our most deprived communities becoming aware of what is in the bill and their legal right. I will see it as a success if we improve that awareness and if there is more demand on our hard-pressed health professionals because more people feel comfortable about coming forward to discuss the recovery journey that they want to take to overcome their addiction issues. I hope that that is backed up by adequate support in the financial memorandum.

If people have a right to action in the courts and qualify for assistance, it is only right and proper that justice should be allowed to take its course. Enshrining that in law allows people to take it to the next level. I know that, in submissions or oral evidence, people were concerned about the costs of judicial review, and I accept that going to the lengths of a judicial review is extremely complex and financially burdensome, but other areas and avenues, such as legal aid support, would be available. As I have said, if people have the right to that assistance and qualify for it, they should be able to use it.

What I am saying is that the bill does not tie the hands of future Governments, because, if it is passed, the Government can pass legislation to remove it from the statute. Sorry—I probably did not explain that well.

I want to speak about stigma first, because Ms Harper has spoken about that issue quite a bit, particularly in relation to people in rural areas. We will probably come on to talk about that, but the issue was also mentioned in the Audit Scotland report “Alcohol and drug services”, which was published in October. I hope that the bill will be passed by the Parliament, but Audit Scotland and the Auditor General for Scotland were already speaking about stigma in relation to drug and alcohol services, so we already have a problem to overcome.

I agree with the cabinet secretary’s comments last week about our making positive strides to destigmatise those who are suffering from drug and alcohol misuse. I also agree with people who have commented on the bill that the very fact that the Parliament is looking at the Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill means that we are shining a light on an area that has not had enough attention in the past.

I do not agree that the bill’s provisions would be exclusionary. As I said, they would not take away from any existing services; they would simply add to the available treatment options. The bill looks only at a particular element of drug and alcohol misuse—the treatment element—and does not take anything away from any of the other great services that operate in Scotland or services that could be provided in the future, because it provides for a number of opportunities for Government ministers to add to elements of the bill, whether those are treatment options or other services.

Yes.

I am saying that I do not believe that the bill is inconsistent with that judgment, and I will try to explain that if I can.

The Law Society has an opinion, which I have looked at with those supporting me. I do not believe that the bill is inconsistent, but I understand why the Law Society raised the issue. I think that the Law Society was raising a potential concern instead of guaranteeing that the bill would fall foul of that.

The Supreme Court decision sets out a specific scheme for people seeking help with drug and alcohol addiction. Under the bill, a health professional would be responsible for providing an explanation of each of the treatments listed and of any other areas that they considered appropriate, along with an explanation as to their suitability. The decision as to suitability would still rest with the clinician, so the bill would not require a health professional to say that a treatment would be suitable, nor to recommend a treatment as being the appropriate one. The Supreme Court decision basically looked at the question whether the doctor was negligent in failing to discuss an alternative treatment that she did not consider to be reasonable.

No, it would not prevent that. That is a good point, because we often worry about provisions in legislation being timed out and things moving on rapidly. There is provision in the bill for Scottish Government ministers to add treatments to a number of different sections of the bill as they wish. The code of practice, which would be discussed, debated and agreed in the Parliament, can also be refreshed.

It is important that there are opportunities for the Government to add to what is in the bill, because the situation in 2025 will not be the situation in a couple of years’ time or at the end of the next parliamentary session. Things will have moved on, both medically and, I hope, in the communities where there are drug and alcohol deaths. If the bill is passed, I would hope to see the number of deaths reduce, though the problem will sadly not be eliminated. There will be further challenges that the Parliament and the next Government will have to grapple with.