5. To ask the First Minister, in light of the Scottish Government’s plans to open the first safe drug consumption room in Glasgow later this year, what assurances he can provide that other areas of drugs policy, including spaces for residential rehabilitation, will not be deprioritised. (S6F-02748)

Those areas absolutely will not be deprioritised. Drug deaths are a public health emergency, and we remain absolutely committed to investing an additional £250 million in our national mission to reduce harm and deaths caused by drugs. We will continue to take a person-centred approach to address the wider needs of some of our most vulnerable people.

We have been clear in our commitment to support the establishment of a safer drug consumption facility in Scotland. To give Annie Wells a sense of reassurance—I hope—I note that funding was earmarked in the national mission budget in the knowledge that Glasgow might need to proceed quickly, following the Lord Advocate’s position, so no existing drug and alcohol services will be affected in order to fund the pilot.

We remain committed to expanding residential rehabilitation capacity by 50 per cent by the end of the current session of Parliament. That includes the expansion of Beechwood house in Inverness, which, I am pleased to say, broke ground this week. That will add much-needed capacity in the Highlands when it opens in October.

Residential rehabilitation is a vital way to help drug users not just to beat addiction but to get their lives back, yet the most recent figures show that the numbers of people starting at places in those facilities fell to their lowest in more than two years. We know that there are not fewer people addicted to drugs, so why have the numbers of those receiving that type of help reduced?

Can the First Minister assure those vulnerable people that his Government will not oversee a further reduction in places?

The First Minister:

First, we have maintained the drugs budget for 2024-25, in the face of significant cuts to our resource budget over the past couple of years.

With regard to the expansion of residential rehab, investment in 77 capacity projects combined will provide an increase of 172 beds by 2025-26, boosting the current rehab capacity in Scotland from 425 to 597. Far from being a cut, therefore, there is an increase of more than 40 per cent.

As I said, we have progressed work on safer drug consumption facilities. We are continuing to widen access to life-saving naloxone, and we continue to drive the implementation of the medication assisted treatment standards.

With regard to the safer drug consumption facility that Annie Wells mentioned in her first question, I am pleased that we have got to the current position. However, it would have been far easier, and far quicker, if the United Kingdom Government had approved the facility in the first place.

The safe consumption pilot in Glasgow is a critical part of our effort to tackle the drug deaths crisis in our country, but we need many complementary tools in the toolkit in order to address the crisis effectively. The Turning Point Scotland 218 centre in Glasgow, which supports women in the justice system with a number of critical issues such as problematic drug use, is set to close next month as a result of funding cuts. How can the First Minister say that other drug policy interventions are not being compromised when his Government is allowing a well-established and effective lifeline service in Glasgow to close?

The First Minister:

As I said in response to a question from Pauline McNeill, either last week or a couple of weeks ago, I know that Turning Point 218 is an excellent service. Decisions about funding it are, of course, made locally. In our discussions with Glasgow City Council, the council has made it clear that, if the service has to close, it is already ensuring that there is appropriate service provision available for the women who would be impacted