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Ms Mackay knows that I firmly support safe drug consumption facilities. I had the opportunity to visit a facility in East Harlem in New York. Before there are any questions about that visit, please note that I was in the States in my own time and at my own expense.

The evidence shows that safe drug consumption facilities work and that they save lives. They are not a silver bullet, but they have a role to play. We have worked very hard with our partners, including Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership, the Crown Office, Police Scotland and others to develop a service specification proposition, which has been submitted to the Crown Office.

More specifically, the Crown Office has been gathering further information, as I understand, from Police Scotland, and it is nearing the point at which it can give advice to the Lord Advocate. You will appreciate that I cannot speak on behalf of the Crown Office or our independent Lord Advocate.

There is a role to play when it comes to tackling stigma, understanding drug and alcohol issues as a public health issue and understanding people’s attitudes towards various treatments. Sometimes, people have views about the location of any service in their community, so it is important that local services engage and have open dialogue with local communities.

I want to make two broad points. We are still waiting on the Lord Advocate to give us a view on whether the service specification and operational procedures are within our powers and whether it rests within her powers to determine prosecution policy and what is in the public interest. That is a core consideration of the matter.

Mr O’Kane is right to point to other health-related legislation. The other legislation that we cannot ignore is the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. We have worked hard with partners to devise a proposition that is, we hope, within what we can currently do in Scotland, but I am not the final arbiter of that, hence the role of the Lord Advocate.

You also allude to Gillian Mackay’s point that there are other models and other ways to implement safer drug consumption facilities. There is the fixed model with fixed premises, there are clinical medically led models and there are other models that are voluntary sector-led. Of course, there are models of mobile safe drug consumption facilities as well. Although I would ideally rather have started from the position of considering which model will best meet the needs of our people, because of the 1971 act, we are framing a service in relation to our powers.

The work has been detailed, difficult and precise, but the approach that we are looking at is not the ideal way to do things. There are other models. We are framing our proposition around what we hope is within our powers, but I am not the final arbiter of that, as you will appreciate.

There are a number of layers to that. I return to a point that I made earlier: the reason why we are publishing lots of local information about what is happening with additional investment is so that it can be scrutinised and so that, where there are issues, they can be addressed. The member will be aware from our previous discussions, which I will not rehearse, that every area now has a pathway into residential rehabilitation.

What I hear about most from my engagement with people on the front line and people with real-life experience is the fragmentation of services. That is why we have a national mission and a Drug Deaths Taskforce, which has made some strong and challenging recommendations, and not just about no wrong door—there should be no closed doors to people.

The biggest frustration that people have is being bounced around between services. The ask and act homelessness prevention duties will help. It is not just about people being passed from pillar to post. In key posts in the public sector, people have duties to ask and then act.

The work on mental health and substance use services is also critical. Our response to the Drugs Deaths Taskforce will align with our response to the two reports that the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland published this year and the rapid review into mental health and substance use services. Some of that is about services on the ground being really clear that they cannot deny somebody a service or treatment until the individual is, for example, abstaining from drugs or alcohol.

There needs to be much clearer understanding about what the lead service should be—whether it is mental health or substance use—and when the other partners should be brought in. We will come back to the Parliament on that.

It is fair to say that stigma about certain types of treatment exists in certain quarters. Some of the discourse that we read or hear about methadone, for example, is unhelpful. Time and time again, I have said that I am not interested in supporting harm reduction or medication-assisted treatment at the expense of residential rehab and abstinence. Neither am I interested in supporting abstinence over harm reduction. The only thing that I am interested in is supporting people, and they need to have informed choices and options.

There is a large international evidence base on different strands of medication-assisted treatment. However, medication should never be our only offer to people, hence the importance of implementing MAT standards that involve treating drug and alcohol issues on a par with other health conditions. If any of us sitting here were to trip up to our doctor with any other health condition, we would be given information and choices and we would have a bit of a discussion about what is best. The same ethos should apply here: people should always have choices, options and the space in which to engage and make informed choices about what is best for them.

I am not interested in false arguments around, for example, harm reduction versus abstinence. We have to dump our own ideological perspectives—my views on many things have changed over the years—and we must follow the evidence, but it is crucial that we listen to what each individual wants and needs.

The proposition could change depending on the feedback that we get from the Lord Advocate and the Crown Office in due course. Our work has centred on one service in one city, but there has been a broad range of work. The correspondence around that work is not all mine; the committee will appreciate that there is a central role for the independent Police Scotland and the integration joint board.

My approach in Government has been to facilitate and support that work, and to enable people to build from the ground up a proposition that is framed within the powers that we have. I will look at what it would be appropriate for me to share, because I appreciate the great interest in that aspect.

I also appreciate that there is strong parliamentary support for safe drug consumption facilities. Although I know that some Conservative members have reservations, I take them at their word that they are not looking to stand in the way of a pilot.

There is accountability at each and every level. I am stepping up accountability for local areas, but I stress that I am not asking other people to do anything that I am not prepared to do myself. Accountability and leadership are crucial not only at local level but at senior levels in IJBs, local authorities and Government. Accountability is needed at each and every level. We are accountable to ourselves and one another and we need to challenge ourselves and one another.

That is an important point and is reflected in our national drugs mission plan. You will see in our outcomes framework the importance of not only tackling poverty and inequality but focusing on equalities and different groups.

I have already spoken about women and young people. My concern is that we are not doing enough to reach into other communities. I am conscious that, sometimes, services can have stereotypes and misconceptions about other communities. I assure Mr Choudhury that my officials and I have begun to make better contacts with groups.

The visibility of the recovery community is a factor as well. That has encouraged other groups. I recently made contact with the lady from the Scottish women’s Muslim group, for example. I am conscious that, although drug and alcohol problems can be hidden across our society in general, they can be even more hidden in some communities. Some of that can be related to our false perceptions of other communities. We really need to think more sharply about how we reach out to other communities. If members, especially Mr Choudhury, wish to engage further on that, I would be delighted to do so.

I will give you one example. Yesterday, I was at a recovery-oriented systems of care event for women, where 200 women in Glasgow with lived and living experience were putting the world to rights and certainly holding my feet to the fire. It was a fabulous event with the Glasgow ADP lived and living experience reference group, which will also be one of the reference groups for the national collaborative.

I met a woman at the event who told me that, when she embarked on the early stages of her recovery journey, social work were involved with her and her children, and they were of the view that she could not take her child to a fellowship meeting—a recovery meeting. In my view, although I am not making judgments about such cases, that begs the question whether we understand enough about the recovery community and recovery opportunities. That meant that that lady was very constrained in the time that she could spend going to meetings and investing in herself and her recovery. Sometimes, quite simple things can be done in practice that involve taking a more personalised care approach by acknowledging the challenges that parents with caring responsibilities have.

Monday was a great day with the official opening of Harper house in Saltcoats. It has actually been open for a few weeks now, and the first families have begun to come in. It opened for referrals last month, and we are now beginning to see more referrals, with families entering the great facility. Harper house is a national specialist facility that is available to families from all over Scotland. It will be a leading therapeutic facility, and services across the country will be able to learn from it.

We are doing other work, such as our work with Aberlour. On child and mother houses, we are working with the River Garden Auchincruive in Ayrshire, which is increasing its facilities for women.

In relation to the whole-family approach, the families framework is a stream of work that is led by multidisciplinary experts in the area. They are, of course, working to support and share best practice, but they will also do an audit of how the framework is being implemented. Again, that is about gathering and publishing more information so that we can support, but also scrutinise, what is happening on the ground.

We have made a cross-Government commitment to keep the Promise, which is about keeping families together and preventing the unnecessary separation of children from their parents, because that is in everybody’s interest. Our work also speaks to the additional stigma that women and mothers experience if they have a problem with substances—I know that we will discuss stigma later today in the chamber. Many women fear coming forward to seek help so, as well as early intervention, cultural changes are needed to ensure that women feel safe in coming forward and can build trusted relationships.