To ask the Scottish Government what preparations it has conducted in advance of the planned opening of Glasgow city health and social care partnership’s safer drug consumption facility on 21 October. (S6O-03841)

The Scottish Government has provided £2 million funding for Glasgow’s safer drug consumption facility, and we have been working with groups leading on the implementation, necessary communications and evaluation of the project. We are also continuing to engage with the Crown Office and the police in the final stages in support of Glasgow city health and social care partnership, which is leading on the facility’s establishment.

Glasgow’s HSCP is continuing to work towards opening the service as near to the indicative date of 21 October as possible. However, that is subject to compliance with the national health service assure guidance and approvals, which are not yet concluded. Therefore, we have been advised that a date for the service to become operational has yet to be confirmed.

Real, workable, common-sense methods to fix our drug deaths crisis are needed and welcomed. Since 2007, drug deaths have nearly tripled and we now have the worst drug deaths rate in Europe. Tackling that issue through harm reduction is a commendable goal, but those people who work in recovery say that residential rehabilitation, too, must be a priority. The cabinet secretary has mentioned £2 million, but how much does he expect the funding to be annually for the facility and how much has the Scottish Government spent on residential rehab?

I recognise the long-standing interest that Annie Wells has shown in that area. She is right that there is no silver bullet—no one answer to our addressing the levels of drug deaths that we are seeing, which I acknowledge are far too high.

Annie Wells is also right that it is not only harm reduction that is important, but residential rehab. We are funding the facility in Glasgow for £2 million annually for the next few years and we have committed £100 million over the lifetime of the national mission for the expansion of residential rehab. That includes £38 million, which will increase the number of publicly funded beds by 140. Public Health Scotland said in its February report that we are on track to meet the target of 1,000 publicly funded places in residential rehab by the end of 2026.

Can the cabinet secretary confirm that he is doing all that is in his power to minimise the delays with the NHS assure sign-off process? Can he also confirm that progress is being made with sign-offs for drug testing at the facility and with screening for blood-borne viruses such as HIV and hepatitis C?

I thank Mr Sweeney for his question and for his long-standing interest in the issue. He will be aware that the NHS assure process is largely outwith my control, as it is an assurance process by its nature, which means that facilities have to go through the processes.

I am very keen that we make progress on the drug testing facilities. There is the potential to make progress on harm reduction, and we are interacting with the Home Office on the necessary processes that would be required from it to allow that to happen.