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We have been rolling out our national naloxone programme for more than a decade, which is standing us in good stead already. We know that naloxone works on synthetic opioids. There may be a need for multiple doses; anyone giving naloxone will have to phone the emergency services at the same time, who must judge whether the person needs another dose of naloxone. The international evidence clearly shows that naloxone will still work, but that you need to have it in quantity in order to be able to react.

Drug checking should be rolled out at as low a threshold as possible. We need to work through what the pilots will look like, what they will tell us and how we will evaluate that, while operating within the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. The ministers responsible for drug policy from all four nations will meet in a week and a half, and synthetics will be foremost in our conversation, because it is recognised across the whole of the UK that that is an increasingly important issue.

There are other things that we know could help. The safer consumption facilities will have professionals and supportive people on standby to respond to any crisis. Just this week, we have had the roll-out of safe supplies of naloxone to community pharmacies. We all recognise that those pharmacies are at the heart of our communities and are well placed to deliver that life-saving treatment, so it is a real boon to have that available everywhere.

That clearly demonstrates to me that if, in the UK as a whole, there was a move towards an array of different types of safer consumption facilities, or if we were given the ability, with devolved powers, to make such a move, that would allow us to be more flexible and agile in responding at the same time, and to have more third sector partners involved in providing and delivering those services. Although we know that the facility will save lives when we get the pilot up and running, that situation demonstrates some of the constraints that we are operating under.

On your first point, the resourcing of any other safer consumption project would be an on-going process between my officials and officials at Edinburgh council. That is not something that I can foresee, but I take your point about how pressed the budgets are.

We need to have a robust evaluation process, which needs to be flexible and agile. At the same time, I do not believe that that should stop us exploring the possibility of other pilots that could be proposed while the initial Glasgow pilot is being undertaken. As is set out in information that I submitted to the committee, we have had conversations with the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service about what it would be willing to consider.

It is clear that the Lord Advocate would consider a robust application from an area, provided that it followed the parameters of the initial Glasgow pilot. An application would need to be precise, detailed and specific, underpinned by evidence from that area and supported by those, such as Police Scotland, that would be responsible for policing such a facility. Any area that sought to make an application for a pilot would need to ensure that it satisfied the Lord Advocate in relation to everything that Glasgow did.

Conversations have already been undertaken in the city of Edinburgh about whether the council there would seek to have such a pilot in the offing. Officials in the Scottish Government are supporting that area to explore what that pilot could look like.

We do not need to wait for the full evaluation of the first Glasgow pilot before applications are put forward by other areas.

Absolutely. I anticipate that, by the time we go into the spring, we will have a lot more information about what the stigma action plan is going to be. We are co-designing a voluntary accreditation scheme that people who are working in services can sign up to. That means that they, as practitioners, and their service will adhere to looking at how they can reduce stigma and drive it down. That is really important.

We are also supporting organisations to launch campaigns such as “See Beyond—See the Lives—Scotland”, which is run by a few partner organisations, to get the stories behind the people. We have heard powerfully from MSP colleagues about the stigma that they and their families have faced. There is a lot going on in the background, but I will keep the committee and the chamber up to date on that.

Yes, and I absolutely take that point.

As for the case that was brought to our attention on social media, I asked officials to start looking into it straight away, because the story of the individual’s journey that it told did not reflect what an individual’s journey should be in that setting. Let us zoom out from that one person and think about the journey as it should happen. When someone transitions from any setting, whether it be a hospital setting, a prison setting or whatever, a cohesive plan should be in place to ensure that their medication or anything else does not fall between the cracks, that they do not present as homeless and so on. The individual in question should have had a seamless transition from the prison facility into the community setting.

I am still waiting to find out what some of the difficulties in that situation could have been. We know that Edinburgh has a named person standard operating procedure in place, which means that a specific patient is able to have the medication follow them, because you need to have a Home Office licence to store Buvidal. At the point of transfer, the person should have been able to have long-acting injectable buprenorphine set up for the next time that they were due to have that, so there must have been a breakdown in communication somewhere.

There has to be learning from that case, because it cannot be something that happens regularly across the country. That also harks back to the sustainable housing on release for everyone—SHORE—standards. When somebody makes that transition from a prison setting back into a community setting, their healthcare should follow, as well as support for their needs in relation to housing, access to welfare benefits and so on. I am happy to keep the member informed.

I will answer part of that and then see whether Susanne Millar wants to come in.

If we consider the running costs of such a facility, we can see that staffing it within that timeframe is reflective of the tariff that we know it will cost us. However, I recognise that people will use drugs at all times of the day, so there is need to look at how we can assess, as the pilot develops, what the real-time information is telling us about individuals’ habits and how individuals are engaging with the service. It is something that I have certainly thought about and I am sure that Glasgow has thought about it as well.

That is a really good point, because we need challenge and scrutiny of, and independent eyes on, some of these things. I will probably pass over to Susanne Millar to help us with understanding the evaluation process from a Glasgow perspective. Obviously, things will look slightly different from a Government perspective, as my scrutiny will be of the evaluation that Glasgow will take forward.

I am happy to hand over to Susanne at this point.

It is very helpful to set that out. In relation to the thresholds and people’s expenditure, the picture during a cost of living crisis is very different from the one a couple of years ago. We absolutely need to be cognisant of that.

Yes—I am very happy to look at the impact of the regulations as we go forward. As Shona Urquhart has set out, the 2026 date is not set in stone. We are now in a position where we are able to work as fast as possible to implement what we can. It is also helpful to understand that, as Shona Urquhart has already said, the profession is now on board with the process, which is really important. After Martyn Evans’s report came out, we also had the pandemic. Although some issues have held us back a bit, we will now, collectively, work as quickly as we can on that measure.

Since I came into post, I have had many conversations with the Law Society and the Faculty of Advocates, and we are setting up a working group, which will be co-chaired by all of us, to look at the future of the legal profession. That will include issues not just about reform but about diversity and how we retain people who are entering the profession; it is a jigsaw of things that all have to come together.

Although I understand some of the issues that have been raised in the Law Society’s letter, the letter itself does not actually represent the full state of play at the moment and the good will being shown by everybody around the table as we try to get a sustainable legal aid system for the whole of Scotland.