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You must sit around the table with the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care or the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government—

This brings me on to a point that was discussed earlier around minimum unit pricing. I am open-minded about doing whatever we can to tackle Scotland’s drug and alcohol deaths problem. I hope that you appreciate my earnest approach to that. However, I was not entirely convinced by the academic research that makes the link. I want there to be a link—I want the policy to be a success, if that is the policy—but we also need to be clear that there is evidence that makes the link. The evidence that I have is from speaking to alcoholics and drug users. I can tell you that when the cost of alcohol went way above what they could afford, many of them simply moved on to street drugs. There are many people who will tell you the truth about that situation.

That is not a case of me trying to politicise the matter because I have a problem with the policy. It is just evidence from the anecdotal conversations that I have had with many of the support groups in the third sector that are helping people on the ground. I hope that you are open-minded to that work as well, because feedback from real users is what matters, not just spreadsheets and statistics plucked out of NHS boards.

—and say, “We need more money. It’s as simple as that.” I hope that you can give me some reassurance that you are jumping up and down in asking for more money, because you know that that is what it will take to deliver improvements. We cannot settle for a real-terms cut.

That will work only if the services are available. The reality is that people have a very limited time to speak to their general practitioner about such issues, and services need to be as close as possible to people in their own communities. I am afraid that the reality is that, over the past decade, many services have simply disappeared due to funding issues. That is a real source of shame and has resulted in many regional disparities, including in my West Scotland region.

The report paints a picture of a postcode lottery on outcomes. After Glasgow and Dundee, Inverclyde and North Ayrshire, in my region, are numbers 3 and 4 in relation to the per capita drug death rate, but East Renfrewshire and East Dunbartonshire are at the bottom of the league table. At the bottom of the table, seven or 11 people die per 100,000 of the population, but, at the top of the table, the figure is 33 or 37 per 100,000, so there is a huge difference. Life expectancy in those areas is massively different, too, but they are a stone’s throw away from each other. That does not make sense. What is going wrong?

Thank you. I appreciate your time.

I am glad that that is the focus.

We are running out of time, but another part of the Auditor General’s report that really struck me was exhibit 4, which is on barriers to accessing services. I think that I raised the issue with the Auditor General when he gave evidence. The table talks us through someone’s journey from identifying that they have a problem to getting treatment and being supported after treatment, but it paints a very dim picture, given the many barriers that exist as people go through that process.

The same issues come up time after time, including being unaware of where to get help, people being unavailable to provide help, waiting lists, shortages of suitable staff and the strict eligibility criteria, which Mr Dornan mentioned. Once people get into the services, they need to find a service that works for them, because everyone is different and every situation is unique, and once people come out of those services, they need to sustain their sobriety or abstinence from substances. It feels as though the whole system is stacked against people, and I know from anecdotal evidence that it is incredibly difficult to navigate it.

I am not sure that the questions will be sweet, but they are a suite of questions.

Thank you very much for the evidence that you have given. I have been listening with great interest.

Where do I start? Ms Lamb, let me put this in context. This coming Sunday will mark 22 years since I lost my dad to drugs and alcohol. I was 22 years of age at the time, and he was 42. I am now two years older than he was when he succumbed to those diseases. You might thus appreciate my sense of sadness, frustration and perhaps even anger that we are having this conversation, two decades later. Far too many people in Scotland are still going through what I went through as a young boy.

We have talked about a lot of statistics today, and behind every one of those statistics is a person. Year on year, more and more people are dying of drugs and alcohol in Scotland—two decades on from when I thought that things could not get any worse.

I guess that what I am asking is this: do you understand why so many people are so frustrated and so angry at the direction of travel with the statistics? Do you understand why so many people have lost confidence in the Scottish Government and in your ability to manage the problem?

It is impossibly difficult, particularly if you are young. Many young people are living through the experience of being the carer for their parents who are struggling with alcohol and drug problems. That is indescribable, to put it mildly.

I had the unfortunate experience of having to repeat the situation a couple of years ago with another close member of the family, so I have gone through all the experiences that we have talked about today more recently—everything from the ADPs to the rehab options to the primary care options. I do not say this to score points, but I can tell you from first-hand experience that it was incredibly difficult and nigh-on impossible to get support for someone who was struggling with an alcohol addiction. That was just a couple of years ago, in modern-day Scotland, and years and years after my previous experience. Personally, I do not think that things are getting better, and I think that many people watching this session will share that view, unfortunately.

Here is what I do not understand. I appreciate all the money that has been pumped into this: you talked at great length about the doubling of the budget from £70 million to £160 million between 2013 and 2023-2024, the ring-fenced money for ADPs and the national mission cash that has gone into all of this. I have heard a lot about that, and it is all very welcome—it really is. However, despite that, year on year, the numbers still go up: there were 527 drug deaths in 2013 and 1,172 in 2023. It seems as if cash is not solving the problem. We can keep pumping money into it, but the statistics are still heading in the wrong direction. I cannot get my head around that. Please help me to understand why pumping more money into the problem has not solved it.

I have heard two phrases used a lot this morning: one is that the issue is complicated, and the other is that it is complex. I do not disagree with you. There are so many intertwining issues that make it complicated. These are long-standing generational problems in communities such as the ones that I grew up in—I understand and appreciate that—and many of the wider macroeconomic factors that have been affecting the issue over the years are outside your control.

However, hearing that the issue is complicated and complex does not fill me with confidence that we are heading in the right direction. I came to this evidence session with an open mind, and I wanted to leave full of confidence that the problem is understood, that there is a strategy and that the direction of travel is right, and having seen that there is some honesty about any failures that have happened. I have heard responses that give me some confidence in that respect, but I have heard other responses that do not. This is your opportunity to say to people, yes, it might be complicated and complex, but it has always been complicated and complex. It was complicated and complex 20 years ago—that has not changed.

Yes and, obviously, Police Scotland has a massive role in that as well.

I cannot let the evidence session pass without raising the joint letter that the committee has received from Alcohol Focus Scotland and Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems. Those are two organisations for which many ���˿��� will have a huge amount of time and respect. Perhaps we will not all agree on every issue, but that is not the point.

The letter is short, but I am afraid that it is stark and critical. Alcohol Focus Scotland and SHAAP simply want us to ask you to respond to their letter. They welcome many of the measures that you are taking—there is no doubt about that—but their view is that

“this is an inadequate, piecemeal approach and the actions ... do not add up to a coordinated plan to respond to the ... ‘public health emergency’”.

They go on to say:

“We would be very interested to hear views from”

the witnesses

“as to how the actions listed in”

your letter, Ms Lamb—including

“a real terms cut to the Alcohol and Drugs Policy budget line—square with ... comments”

and recommendations

“made by the Auditor General.”

Here is your opportunity to respond.