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Do any other folks want to come in on that?

I wish you a very good morning, and welcome you to the second joint meeting in 2023 of members of the Criminal Justice Committee, the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee and the Social Justice and Social Security Committee, to consider the progress that has been made in implementing the recommendations of the Scottish Drug Deaths Taskforce.

We have received apologies from Paul O’Kane, who is attending a meeting of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee.

Before we begin, I place on record our thanks to Clare Haughey and Sue Webber for visiting Aberlour’s mother and child unit on our behalf, and for the helpful note that they provided of their meeting. I also thank Aberlour for facilitating the visit, and I particularly thank the two women who took the time to talk about their personal experiences. We are very grateful.

Agenda item 1 is a decision on taking business in private. Do members agree to take in private item 3, which is a review of today’s evidence?

Members indicated agreement.

Agenda item 2 is an evidence-taking session on tackling drug deaths and drug harm. I am pleased to warmly welcome to the meeting our first panel of witnesses. Kirsten Horsburgh is chief executive officer, and Wez Steele is senior training and development officer, at the Scottish Drugs Forum; Simon Rayner is service lead at Aberdeen alcohol and drug partnership; and Tracey McFall is chairperson of the Scottish Recovery Consortium. I refer members to papers 1 and 2 and thank witnesses who have provided written submissions.

We move straight to questions. As ever, I will open with a question just to set the scene and get the discussion under way.

I wonder whether panel members can give us a broad response to the statistics on drug-related deaths, on which there has been a lot of commentary and coverage. The most recent publication of the statistics shows a decline; according to those figures, which have been published by National Records of Scotland, 1,051 people died due to drug misuse in 2022. That is a decrease on the figure for 2021 and the lowest annual total since 2017. However, given that drug death numbers remain stubbornly high, I ask individual witnesses for their response to, and any commentary that they might have on, those recent statistics. Do you feel that we have perhaps started to turn the corner a bit?

I will start with Kirsten Horsburgh and then work across the panel.

Thank you. Collette Stevenson, did you want to come in with a follow-up?

Sue Webber has a very quick question.

I will bring in Russell Findlay. I apologise, Russell; I should have brought you in earlier. I know that you are interested in asking some questions around safe consumption rooms.

We are just about up to time. I will stay with the key recommendation on an additional independent review process. I note in the review report the context around the needs of families, which we have discussed robustly this morning. I noticed in the review that there was reference to the fact that that change—creating another independent process—

“would bring Scotland into line with practice in other jurisdictions including England, Wales, and Northern Ireland.”

I know that it is not just a case of taking a model from somewhere else and slotting it into our policies and processes, but I wonder whether any work was done to look at that practice and whether there was a feeling that there was good learning from that that could realistically form part of a new process in Scotland—bearing in mind what we have discussed about the other option of, potentially, looking at the existing processes and making some changes to them?

Your question is about the broader issue of implementation of the legislation; we know that there have been challenges in and delays to the timescales. I understand that the minister is aware that we maintain an interest in that and has undertaken to keep the committee informed—specifically about the issues that you have raised, of firework control zones and the licensing scheme. I know that members are very interested in those matters but, for today, I am interested in ensuring that members are content with the response that we have received on the specific points that we raised in connection with football banning orders and the actions of an individual on release from being detained by police after being found to be in possession of a pyrotechnic device.

I am quite keen to maintain that focus, but I absolutely understand the points that Russell Findlay has made, which are, I think, reflected around the room.

I cannot answer that off the top of my head.

We can look at that. I cannot answer off the top of my head, but I am happy to take that away as an action point.

If there are no further questions, are members content that we give the Government a wee bit of time to come back to us?

Members indicated agreement.