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Thanks to the witnesses for their contributions so far.

The Minister for Drugs and Alcohol Policy said that the overdose prevention pilot in Glasgow will be limited to some extent by the Lord Advocate’s guidance in relation to the constraints imposed by the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, but it could also potentially be limited by the design of the facility. Does the panel have a view on whether the pilot being a higher-threshold service could hamper its efficacy, bearing in mind that the enhanced drug treatment service in Glasgow is available only to people who are already engaged with the homeless addiction team, and that it was only designed to scale up to accommodate a maximum of around 40 persons using the facility regularly? Do you believe that there are potential constraints?

Thanks for that. Are there any other thoughts on that and about the initial stages of the initiative?

I noted that the initial heroin-assisted treatment pilot in Glasgow was a capital spend of £1.2 million, which suggests that it was not scalable beyond a very limited network. In contrast, there are 45 needle exchanges in Glasgow, which might show the potential scale that we can move towards.

Are there any other thoughts on where this could evolve to?

There will be co-location with the heroin-assisted treatment service. What will the interface for that be like? One of the big challenges with street injection is the purchasing of uncontrolled substances of unknown toxicity, dosage and so on. Will there be an effort to encourage people to substitute street-bought drugs with a prescribed alternative that is safer and more controlled?

That is very helpful. I have one more question. Wez Steele mentioned Canada as an interesting model to look at as a benchmark. I understand that there are around 147 overdose prevention sites globally, in 91 communities in 16 countries. Do other witnesses have thoughts on potential benchmarks that the committee might want to look at—places where it is performing relatively well, based on your experience?

It is a pleasure to be back in the committee and I am just here to commend and echo what my colleague Mr Ruskell said in this petition to you.

The genesis of the petition came from discussions with people seeking asylum in Glasgow over a number of years about some of the practical challenges that they face living in the city, particularly in the wake of the pandemic. There was a particularly harrowing anecdote that one of the gentlemen related about having an abscess in his gum. He had to get emergency dental treatment, but he could not afford the bus fare into town, so he had to walk 10 miles in the pouring rain in severe pain to go to get emergency dental treatment, because of his financial position as an asylum seeker. That struck me as a quite shocking scenario in a country such as ours. That moved me to ask them what would practically help make a difference and that is where the idea of extending the concessionary travel scheme came from, which subsequently led to a launch of our campaign in December 2021, in conjunction with the VOICES network and the Maryhill Integration Network.

The campaign has since attracted widespread support from across the asylum sector and continues to be championed by third sector colleagues, including those from Maryhill Integration Network, the Scottish Refugee Council, Friends of Scottish Settlers, JustRight Scotland and Grampian Regional Equality Council. People seeking asylum do not have the right to work—that is the critical issue—and they instead rely on a financial allowance from the Home Office to cover the basic costs of living. That allowance is not inflation proofed and amounts to around £6 per day, and for those living in hotel accommodation, which is an increasing number, it can be as little as £1.36 a day, so they have very limited freedom to move and undertake any real life.

In Glasgow, the cost of an all-day bus ticket is £5. In effect, that means that not just recreational activity or social activity but travel to essential medical, social, legal or Home Office appointments, which often come at short notice, is simply not an option for many people seeking asylum in Glasgow and elsewhere in Scotland, unless they forgo food or other essentials, which has severe impacts. I have had testimony from mothers caring for young children, for example, who have gone without food to make sure that their child got basic nutrition because they had to attend a Home Office appointment under threat of deportation. There are severe psychological implications there as well.

Due to the cost pressures, asylum accommodation is often situated in isolated, peripheral parts of the city and an unaffordable public transport system, which does not function, is ultimately compounding that isolation for many people seeking asylum in Scotland today.

Free bus travel is one relatively small practical intervention that we could make that would allow people to integrate, explore their new surroundings, their new communities and their new country, and I have been proud to amplify this proposal in partnership with constituents and colleagues in the third sector.

I have mentioned previously some of the organisations working with people seeking asylum that have spearheaded this campaign since its launch in 2021, but it is important also to reference that this policy has support from across civil society. Indeed, all faith leaders in the Scottish religious leaders forum have signed an open letter in support of the proposal, and it has also been recommended by the Mental Health Foundation Scotland and the Poverty Alliance.

From a parliamentary perspective, it has been fantastic to work with cross-party colleagues such as Mr Ruskell and Mr Doris, the MSP for Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn, to engage with the Scottish Government on this ask, both in writing and in meetings with successive transport ministers and Transport Scotland.

I have also met Shona Robison MSP in her previous role as Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government and Neil Gray MSP in his previous role as Minister for Culture, Europe and International Development with special responsibility for refugees, both of whom saw merit in the proposals and undertook to explore them further. To that end, in the programme for government 2022-23 the Government committed to work with third sector partners and councils across Scotland to consider how best to provide free bus travel for people seeking asylum. Since then, a pilot has been run in Glasgow, but there has not really been any further update or any mention of further work or extrapolation of that pilot in this year’s programme for government. That is extremely disappointing to those of us who have worked on this project for almost two years.

To that end, I encourage colleagues on the committee to keep the petition open and to invite witnesses who are affected by this—those personally seeking asylum—to speak to the impact that this policy would have on their lives and their current situations. That could inform future correspondence from the committee to the Government regarding this proposal and perhaps create greater impetus to move forward with it. Thank you very much.

What we are looking for is an extension under a statutory instrument to the existing concessionary travel scheme. That would be the simplest and neatest solution. Certainly, rough and ready cost estimates suggest that it would cost around £500,000 per annum, so we are not talking about a substantial sum of money in the grand scheme of the Scottish Government’s fiscal position. There is plenty of headroom to deliver this policy, but it has perhaps been confused with some of the pilots being done through third sector partners. Maybe the cleanest and neatest solution is to simply go with the statutory instrument.

Thank you, convener.

I have a personal interest in the petition. I have a background in the shipbuilding industry on the Clyde, working for BAE Systems, and I have maintained a long-standing interest in the development of the Clyde corridor as an industrial asset for the wider city region.

I have had long-standing concerns about the port’s general long-term decline as a major port. That stems from ambitious plans that were launched around 20 years ago to develop Hunterston and Greenock as one of the major transatlantic trans-shipment terminals for containers coming across the Atlantic. At that time, huge investment was planned. Clydeport plc then merged with, or was purchased by, Peel Ports Group, which also owns the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company and has a major interest in the Mersey. That is another competing port on the west coast of Britain. Subsequently, huge investment—in the order of billions of pounds—has gone into developing the Liverpool 1 container terminal, and the focus of Peel Ports Group’s operations as a port authority has very much been on the Mersey at the expense of the Clyde.

There is a general, long-standing concern that the Clyde has been in a pattern of managed decline and disinvestment over many years and that the focus has been very much on Merseyside, to the extent that, if people want pilotage on the River Clyde, they call a call centre on the Mersey to get access to it. The situation seems to me to be unacceptable on a number of fronts.

Perhaps there are some parallels with previous inquiries into the management of airports in Scotland. There was an issue with one company managing both Glasgow airport and Edinburgh airport, and having a conflict of interest in that regard. There has not been any serious inquiry into, or study of, the potential long-term economic effects on the west of Scotland and the greater Glasgow city regions.

There is, of course, a container terminal in Greenock, but it does not even feature in the top 10 British ports any more. It has been in decline for a long time. At one time, it was the fifth-biggest container port in the UK, but it no longer appears in the top 100 ports in Europe, for example. There is a major long-term concern.

There is a high correlation between the level of freight traffic that comes through ports and levels of economic growth, so there is a yoke on the west of Scotland’s potential. We have recently seen the publication of population statistics and that the west of Scotland is in long-term decline. There is a broader issue that the Government really needs to pay more attention to. We need to have a serious ports policy and a policy for growing freight traffic through Scotland, ship movements and associated industries, such as the ship repair industry. To that end, the petitioner has made some serious and valid points.

We should be guided by measurable outputs. What is the goal to grow the Clyde? What is the goal to develop and invest in the Clyde and its operations? That is not clear at this point in time. There have been stop-start projects associated with Inchgreen dry dock, which is the biggest mainland dry dock in Great Britain. We should contrast that with what has happened in Belfast, where there has been massive investment in the former Harland & Wolff shipyard site. Nothing corresponding is happening on the Clyde. I have concerns on a number of fronts.

In a more parochial sense, the upper Clyde is, in effect, not dredged any more beyond the Govan shipyard site and at Braehead, where the King George V dock sits. That is a major concern, because there is a real dearth of recreational traffic on the upper Clyde. Anyone who is familiar with Clydeside around Glasgow will know that not many boats go there. That is in contrast with Merseyside, for example, which teems with marinas, wharfage and lots of recreational craft. If Glasgow had a marina at Pacific Quay, that would be a huge boon for the city. It would generate millions of pounds of revenue. No attention is being applied to that.

It is quite extraordinary that, in the early 1990s, a private bill was passed that effectively gave quasi-legislative control to a private enterprise, to manage 450 square miles of riverine land in the west of Scotland, with huge legal privileges and byelaws, including the management of the riverbed itself. The obligations that that enterprise has in legislation to maintain a navigable channel as far as the tidal wharf at Glasgow Green have not been adhered to for many years. That has starved, damaged and stymied the Clyde’s potential from central Glasgow all the way down to the estuary. That merits a broader inquiry. Frankly, I am not impressed by the Government’s blasé brush-off in its response to the committee and the petition.

The issue has been raised in the House of Commons and the Scottish Parliament over the years, but it has not had any serious focus. That has been most frustrating, and a number of parliamentarians across parties have expressed concern about that.

The creation of a space to look at the issue in greater depth would be fantastic, and this committee has a good opportunity to free that space for wider consideration. Stakeholders up and down the Clyde could be considered. I know that colleagues have suggested some stakeholder groups in the estuary and the Firth of Clyde area. Perhaps it would be helpful to consider submissions from the greater Glasgow city region councils and major industrial companies on the Clyde, such as BAE Systems and the Malin Group, which are looking to develop infrastructure on the Clyde, as well as Ferguson Marine and other parties that have industrial operations on the Clyde.

It might also be worth speaking to Maritime UK and other trade bodies that look at port development, to get some analysis of the longer-term growth of the Clyde as a port relative to competitor ports in the UK, and to start to establish a base of evidence on what is going on.

It would also be good if Peel Ports Group responded. It is important that it justifies its position and sets out its plans for investment on the Clyde. No one is against the group per se; what we are concerned about is the lack of clear operational ambition for the Clyde as an asset. I think that, if the group were to rise to that challenge, people would be more relaxed about its stewardship of the river.

The number of people seeking asylum in the country at any one time varies, but it is broadly around 6,000. We have done some rough cost estimates and there is a very marginal cost to the public, given the wider benefits that this proposal would realise for people’s wellbeing, social interaction and so on. It is a very small percentage of the cost of the existing concessionary travel scheme. It is quite a marginal increase in the overall provision. I think that the Government mentioned in its correspondence that around a third of people seeking asylum currently would qualify under the existing schemes for young people, disabled people and over-60s, so we are really just filling in that gap of people of working age.