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It is clear from yesterday’s joint committee evidence session with Kit Malthouse MP that the Scottish and UK Governments take a very different view on the causes of drug use and how that should be addressed. What impact will that have on the two Governments working together on drug-related deaths? What, if any, changes need to be made to improve partnership working?

Good morning—[Inaudible.]—UK Government—[Inaudible.]—Is the minister confident that there is still a way forward for Scotland to launch a pilot?

Thank you.

Just briefly, convener.

In his evidence at yesterday’s joint committee meeting, Kit Malthouse said that he did not recognise poverty as a driver of drug use and argued that drugs and violence drive poverty. I am deeply concerned about the apparent equating of drug use with violence and the UK Government’s belief that poverty does not drive it. What impact will that clear conflict between the Scottish and UK Governments’ understanding of the causes of drug use have on your ability to work together on the issue and on efforts to tackle the stigma surrounding drug use?

Did stakeholders raise any concerns about the frameworks? The committee did not receive any responses to its calls for views, but it would be good to understand whether any concerns were raised with the Government.

Good morning. It was recently reported that,

“Since 2014, Scots have been abused due to their sexual orientation more than 7500 times, while the number of hate crimes relating to transgender identity doubled between 2014 and 2020.”

We know that 40 per cent of LGBT young people consider themselves to have a mental health problem, compared with 25 per cent of all young people in Scotland. Are mental health and other support services equipped to deal with the particular issues and trauma that are faced by LGBT young people?

School counsellors are a phenomenal thing to have, but I have spoken to several stakeholders who believe that we need training places for mental health clinicians to be more accessible to people from a diversity of backgrounds. For example, as you will know, training to be a mental health counsellor takes a significant financial investment in terms of supervision and often requires a large amount of voluntary work to make up accreditation hours. Those barriers can often exclude many of the people we would perhaps like to see in a counselling position—people who experienced care as children and young people or people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds—from entering this type of profession. What can the Government do to ensure that we can have more of those people in place because, in order for children and young people who have these experiences to build trust, it is imperative that they have a counsellor who understands the lifestyle and background that they are coming from.

Good afternoon, minister. Do you think that the war on drugs has been a success?

Thank you, convener—we could discuss this subject all afternoon.

Minister, drugs are often cut with everything from baby powder to rat poison, and even cement dust. Testing drugs would prevent poisoning and thereby prevent further pressure on health services, which are devolved. In order to ensure that we can save lives, would you devolve powers to allow the Scottish Government to set up drug testing?

You said that you need more evidence on safe consumption rooms. There are at least 39 sites in Canada, there are peer-reviewed articles from Portugal and there is an evidence base in San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, Vermont, Delaware and Portland, Oregon—I have used the example of just three countries, from a cursory glance at the use of safe consumption rooms around the world.

The evidence is well established that safe consumption rooms save lives, and the Scottish Parliament has backed the approach. Given the evidence, and the democratic mandate for safe consumption rooms, what do you say to the families of people who could be helped by such facilities but currently cannot be, because of your Government’s decisions?