Chamber and committees

I will bring in Jamie Greene before bringing in Collette Stevenson and Katy Clark.

Like other members, I am completely horrified by the recent disclosures about cases of spiking in which young women have wilfully and recklessly been targeted. In my constituency, Robert Gordon University has put the safety of students front and centre of its equally safe strategy. What more can be done to support students within and beyond the campus to ensure that they are safe?

I am pleased to support the motion. I am a member of the Aberdeen city alcohol and drugs partnership, and I wish to acknowledge the work that is being done to reduce alcohol harm in Scotland.

Too often in my former professional role, I removed children from a mother who had a history of depression and who had overdosed on release from prison. She was not a bad mother; she was a failed mother. Too often, I searched a suicidal young woman who was suspected of concealing drugs in custody. She was not a criminal; she was criminalised. That must change.

The correlation between problem drug use and poor mental health is well documented. The Scottish Drugs Forum highlights that it is complex but not the result of poor decision making or lifestyle choices. The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction highlights the complexities in treating drug use and mental ill health, noting barriers relating to access to and co-ordination within services as well as treatment networks being separated, which risks service users falling through the gaps.

In the First Minister’s announcement on the national drugs mission funds, she acknowledged that more should have been done earlier. The motion reflects the commitment to implementing approaches that reduce harm and save lives.

Alcohol & Drugs Action, in Aberdeen, is developing outreach services for people in custody, and it is engaged in non-fatal overdose follow-up work. Improvement funding has been sought to scale up its sharp response service to mainstream provision, and funding for pre-rehabilitation provision and post-care pathways will assist people who engage in residential provision.

Despite the challenges that the Scottish Ambulance Service faces, its harm reduction team is doing fantastic work to develop non-fatal overdose pathways, and its take-home naloxone programme has seen nearly 600 take-home kits given to individuals who are at risk of overdose.

There is much going on and much to do. In that regard, I have two brief but important points to make. First, workforce development is key to delivering a truly integrated person-centred approach. The mental health nursing programme at the Robert Gordon University, in my constituency, puts compassionate and person-centred care at the heart of students’ learning. The masters-level module on addictions and substance use is open to practitioners working in the field, and it is co-ordinated by mental health nurse lecturers and delivered by alcohol and drug services practitioners. It is a truly collaborative offering.

Secondly, later this week, the Criminal Justice Committee will hold a round-table session on drugs and the criminal justice system. A range of evidence has already been submitted. In the context of the debate, I note the submission from Dr Liz Aston of the Scottish Institute for Policing Research, who highlights that the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971

“shapes the environment within which people use drugs, the way environments are policed, and may impede the introduction or delivery of public health interventions”

such as

“the establishment of Safer Consumption Rooms, despite a wealth of evidence on their effectiveness as a drug death prevention intervention”.

I urge the Scottish Government to do all that it can to mitigate the impact of that damaging and antiquated UK legislation.

The public health emergency that we face in Scotland demands an ambitious and wide-ranging response in which the Government, stakeholders, educators and people with living and lived experience work to ensure that people get the right support at the right time, which, ultimately, will save lives.

The Scottish National Party Scottish Government has committed to investing £500 million in the north-east and Moray over the next 10 years to accelerate the transition to net zero and to support highly skilled jobs and livelihoods in the oil and gas sector. Does the cabinet secretary think that the UK Government should match that funding commitment, if it is serious about a just transition for the north-east?

During Scottish business week, I visited retailers in my constituency, one of which no longer has a post office. That has resulted in a surplus of floor area, which is now partitioned off to form an empty but usable space. What can be done to support or incentivise businesses such as supermarkets to ensure that unused floor space can be used for community benefit?

I congratulate Paul McLennan on bringing this important debate to the Parliament. I am pleased to join colleagues around the chamber in debating world mental health day and, within that, mental health in an unequal world.

I thank all the organisations that provided members with briefings ahead of the debate. I also acknowledge people present in the chamber and beyond who have lived or living experience of compromised mental health. I thank them for listening.

Earlier this week, I joined a Scottish Association for Mental Health briefing for north-east MSPs. Although the focus of the briefing was suicide prevention, I had an overwhelming sense of déjà vu listening to the updated data on young people and suicide risk, albeit that it was framed in the context of Covid-19.

In its briefing paper on the impact of Covid-19 on 10 to 17-year-olds, Public Health Scotland outlined how

“Loneliness has been an unintended consequence affecting young people.”

In particular, it has affected vulnerable young people with communication difficulties, young carers, young people in the justice system and those who previously sought support because of mental health difficulties.

Studies indicate that some young people who had poor mental health and wellbeing prior to the pandemic had better mental health during lockdown, possibly due to school closures and the removal of school-based pressures. However, young people with pre-existing mental health issues described many barriers to seeking help, including not wanting to burden their families, feeling ashamed or feeling that they were not sufficiently unwell to seek help.

The World Federation for Mental Health report that was published to coincide with world mental health day states:

“Equality, fairness and opportunity have to be central to developing our young people in order to address existing inequalities and their effects on young people’s mental health wellbeing.”

World mental health day 2021 provides an opportunity for us to consider how we might achieve that.

The Minister for Mental Wellbeing and Social Care recently outlined poverty as the single biggest driver of poor mental health. We know that the pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing structural inequality in our society, but disadvantaged groups have disproportionately felt the adverse impact on mental health. As Paul McLennan outlined, the Scottish Government has committed £120 million towards a mental health recovery and renewal fund, with £10.3 million being allocated to improve access to child and adolescent mental health services.

The World Federation for Mental Health report reminds us that Covid-19 has underscored how critical mental health and wellbeing are for all children and young people, but the magnitude of the mental health burden that the world faces is simply not being matched with the response that it demands.

This month, UNICEF launches its report, “The State of the World’s Children 2021: On My Mind: Promoting, protecting and caring for children’s mental health”. It will call on Governments to commit to increase investment in CAMHS, promote connection through evidence-based interventions and take a leading role in breaking the silence surrounding mental health. Let us make 10 October—world mental health day—the starting point for that. I very much hope to see members there.

Pauline McNeill is keen to come in.

Ms McNeill, do you want to come in on this subject?

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the seventh meeting in 2021 of the Criminal Justice Committee. Apologies have been received from Katy Clark.

The first agenda item is to decide whether to take in private items 4 and 5, which are to consider today’s evidence and to discuss our work programme. Do we agree to take those items in private?

Members indicated agreement.

That perhaps covers my follow-up question, which was about how specialist criminal law firms might need to change their model of practice and what budget considerations might need to be taken into account to allow that to happen. Do you want to add anything on that?