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Again, Mr Gulhane will need to forgive me. He has tempted me to take a position, which I cannot do at this stage. The Government is neutral on the bill. I have set out the various areas that we have concerns about, which are areas that the Government has policy on and in which a significant amount of work is being done.

Our response to the bill will be informed by the good work of the committee and by the evidence that the committee has gathered. We will take a position on that basis, once the committee has reported and before stage 1.

I hope that Mr Gulhane and the rest of the committee will forgive me for restating that we have taken a neutral position on the bill. We will return to our position on whether it could or should be amended—and, if it were, whether it would meet our expectations—after the committee has done its work and we have seen the totality of the evidence that has been provided.

I have already pointed to issues that have come through in evidence that, as I have set out in my written submission, cause me concern, but we will base our final judgment on the work that the committee does.

Yes, and those issues have come through in the evidence that has been provided by the likes of Public Health Scotland and the Royal College of General Practitioners. Some of those who have contributed evidence have suggested that an unintended consequence could be those rights becoming exclusionary for only those who are able to follow a particular path.

We are very clear, as Mr Whittle set out in his opening question, about the challenge for somebody who is in a situation where they have a substance dependency. They will probably have had varying degrees of interaction with statutory, community or voluntary services, and their decision to come forward to seek help is in itself a momentous one that we should support and embrace. However, we must make sure that a GIRFE—getting it right for everyone—approach is taken at that point. It should be person centred, and there should be a recognition that an abstinence-based approach at that initial stage of seeking help is not for everybody. There are other ways of getting people to a point of finding their own recovery, which could include going through residential rehab or various recovery treatment options. The MAT standards already provide for the timeliness of how that should be delivered, which is within hours of the first presentation.

The most recent quarterly data shows that the 90 per cent target is being exceeded at the moment. That is not to say that there is not more work to be done there—there is, because there are gaps in certain parts of the country—but the work that has been done through the national mission over recent years has certainly improved the picture on people accessing support and help when they ask for it, which is the point that Mr Whittle raises.

Yes, it is. It is important to set out at the outset that, although the Government is neutral on the bill at this stage, while we await your good work and the further evidence being collated and compiled, it is fair to say that we support the intention of the bill, which is to ensure that there is timeous access to support when people request it. There are measures in place to support that in a broad sense, through the medication assisted treatment standards and various other elements that are already in train, but the general principle of the bill that Mr Whittle sets out is also my understanding of it.

I recognise that the bill’s intention is to do that, and it is a shared objective. However, given what I said about the Government’s neutral position on the bill, I have to reserve my position on whether it could be such a mechanism. Through the committee’s work, a significant amount of evidence has been gathered, which I look forward to seeing a compilation of. We will, in part, take our position based on that, as well as other considerations.

We clearly and demonstrably have more work to do in relation to alcohol and drugs. Too many people are losing their lives or being harmed by their substance dependency, and we need to do more to support them.

Progress has been made, and I point to one area, above all else, that has changed during the national mission, which is the level of stigmatisation of people who seek to access services, particularly drug-related services. I say that on the basis of my interaction with families who have, sadly, lost a loved one to drug dependency and those who are currently seeing their family members battling that issue. I recognise that some of the evidence is anecdotal and not necessarily empirical, but it is clear to me from my conversations with those loved ones, particularly those who have lost family members, that had the services that are available now been available then, and had the stigma been reduced as it has been now, their loved ones would have been able to access services in a different way.

I recognise Mr Whittle’s point that there is clearly more work for us to do, and it is right that we consider the potential way forward that the bill gives us. A significant amount of work is on-going that is supporting and changing lives. I point to stigma as one particular area of improvement, because I am told consistently by family members that there has been a demonstrable shift due to the national mission.

We need to do more. As I referenced to Ms Mochan, we are demonstrably not at the end of the journey. We still have more work to do, which is what the Government is currently reviewing. We are not waiting until the end of the national mission; we are doing that work now. We are keeping the bill’s potential under consideration and are reserving our judgment on it while the committee does its work.

Through the bill?

I cannot comment on that at this stage, because we have taken a neutral position on the bill and we are reserving our judgment until the conclusion of the committee’s work. We will obviously rest on the work of the committee and the expert opinion that comes through in evidence in order to arrive at the Government’s position thereafter.

We strongly believe that we are compliant on a human rights basis with the services that are being provided. There is more work to be done, which I set out in my initial response to Mr Whittle. The charter provides us with a greater basis from which we are making sure that those who are seeking to access those services understand what their rights are and where they can turn in order to access the services on a human rights basis. Making sure that the charter is grounded in that position was a central focus—as Ms Whitham will know from her previous experience—of the work of the national collaborative, and it has garnered international recognition as a result. However, I will turn to Ms Davidson on where we are with enforcement at the present time.

Again, I will not comment on the bill in and of itself, but the committee has heard evidence on the importance of the multidisciplinary team. As I said in my responses to Mr Whittle and Ms Whitham, we want to ensure that we get it right for everybody and that we provide services in a way that destigmatises the process and makes it as easy to go through as possible. Providing various opportunities for interaction is critical to that. The multidisciplinary team is fundamental to ensuring that we have that breadth and depth, as I referred to in response to Ms Mochan’s question about where we go next. I am clear that we need to meet people where they are, as opposed to where it is easier for us to deliver services, and that is what we are seeking to do.

In response to Ms Harper, Ms Zeballos and I stated that we recognise that services that are provided in rural and island communities are often provided to a very small number of people. The confidentiality issues that arise from that, which those who represent or have come from rural and island communities will recognise, are a concern for us.

A significant amount of regular reporting on harms as well as deaths, particularly on the drug side but also on the alcohol side, is done by the Government, Public Health Scotland and others. We are considering whether that can be strengthened and increased as part of the review of the national mission.

Other than expressing the concern that we expressed in the submission that we provided, there is nothing more that I can say about the bill itself.