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People have suggested in evidence that, notwithstanding that, there is an issue about the requirement for more capital investment. Clearly, if the bill goes through, there will be a right to recovery. You talk in the financial memorandum about publicising that, trying to reduce stigma and getting more people to come forward. There is a fear that there could be an upsurge in the number of people coming forward and that, even though the Scottish Government is going up to 650 beds, that will not be enough.

Paragraph 38 in the financial memorandum states:

“The average cost of a placement in a core programme in rehab in Scotland is £18,112”.

I understand how difficult it is to put together a financial memorandum on the issue, but it says that placement costs range from £6,504 to £27,500, for varying lengths of courses, and that the cost per week is £350 to £5,500. If there is an upsurge, there will be extra demand on private places as well, which I assume the Scottish Government would be expected to fund under the bill. The Scottish Government could be funding private places at £5,000-plus per week. As demand goes up, we could end up with costs rising exponentially because of such issues. How do you address that concern?

Do you feel that the financial memorandum reflects that? The evidence suggests that it does not. Finding people to do the work is one of the issues. Even if the Scottish Government had unlimited cash resources, it would still have to find people and train them to the required standard in order to deliver the outcomes that we would like to see.

Paragraph 85 of the financial memorandum says that

“the implementation of the Bill will lead to more completed treatments. This in turn will mean fewer repeat appointments being needed for patients who are seeking a new treatment, having had an unsuccessful patient journey.”

If staff numbers across Scotland are going to need to significantly increase, some staff will not have the same experience as those who work for organisations that have worked in the field for years or even decades. You are suggesting that the bill will lead to better outcomes, but I am not sure that we have the evidence that that will be the case, as some people will not have the same level of experience.

You represent the rural Highlands and Islands region. One concern that has been raised is about how we ensure that we are able to provide an equitable service. I have rural areas in my constituency, as do most members around the table, with the exception of John Mason and possibly Michelle Thomson. That is a real issue for many of us and for many communities. How would you ensure that the provisions of the bill are delivered equitably, from Stranraer to Shetland?

I appreciate that.

We move to questions from members, beginning with Liz Smith, to be followed by Ross Greer.

If more people receive treatment, it is clear, surely, that the level of support that is required will also rise commensurately.

You have mentioned that the level of the demand is hidden. Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems mentioned that 22 per cent of adults have alcohol problems. However, the bill will only really apply to those people who have been diagnosed with such a problem. With regard to drugs, paragraph 23 of the financial memorandum says that

“the number of individuals with problem drug use in Scotland is 57,300”,

but the number of people who had initial assessments for specialist drug treatment has varied from 6,275 to 7,867 in recent years. Therefore, the untapped demand is huge.

We mentioned earlier that the average cost of treatment is about £18,000 per person. If we take even a small proportion of those 50,000 people who have been identified as drug addicts—there are undoubtedly more whom we do not know about—it is not necessary to be an arithmetic genius to realise that the cost of £28 million to £38 million that is spelled out in the financial memorandum will be breached pretty early on simply in relation to treatment for drugs, let alone treatment for alcohol.

Indeed.

Thank you for that opening statement. Do you really think that, if you were to put the tax on inert waste up by £1 you would have vast numbers of lorries charging over the border in order to avoid tax? Given what it costs to ship such material, including the cost of fuel, payment for the driver and depreciation of the value of the lorry, that is kind of nonsense, is it not? I can understand the argument about non-inert waste, but it seems a bit bizarre that this tax has been devolved for umpteen years without there being a penny differential and that we still get a ludicrous statement every year about inert waste tourism. Surely we can think up our own tax for that. If it cost a fiver, we could make an extra few bob for the Scottish Government and there would not be a queue of trucks at Berwick trying to dump waste in Northumberland.

Do you have any further points that you feel that we have not covered?