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The work that we have done so far—minimum unit pricing for reducing affordability—will help. Young people will see less drinking in society. However, one of the main areas that we need to address is alcohol advertising and promotion.

YoungScot, the Children’s Parliament and the Scottish Youth Parliament did an amazing report a couple of years ago, which made shocking reading. They came to Parliament and presented it: from the mouths of babes, we heard directly how much alcohol they were exposed to. Alcohol is ubiquitous in our children’s lives, and not just through advertising, although that is a big part of it. Children talk clearly about how, when they open the fridge door in the morning to get the milk out, there is a stack of wine there. Think about how our drinking has changed since the 1970s, when I grew up. It was not common to drink at home then; people did not really drink wine with dinner. Nowadays, children see a great deal more alcohol being consumed at home.

Children also see alcohol advertising on transport and on billboards on the way to school. I have previously made the point at committee that we cannot just protect children from alcohol advertising simply by throwing a ring around where they are; we cannot prevent alcohol advertising just around schools. Children are in our society and they see billboards and adverts as they navigate their way to school. They also see advertising in the cinema and on television. A shocking study was done on the amount of alcohol adverts that children were exposed to in sports promotions. I will find the statistic to make sure that I get it correct. However, when children watch sports, they see alcohol advertising literally a couple of times a minute. That is particularly harmful because sportspeople are heroes to them. [Interruption.] I am sorry. I am not sure what that noise is.

I am open to any approach that will work, but there are currently no plans to adjust the licensing laws. I do not think that we can simply say, “If we do this, the problem will go away.” I think we all accept that, given the level of the problem in Scotland and the harmful relationship that we have with alcohol, it is probably going to take multiple measures over a good period of time to shift the culture so that we have a significantly healthier relationship with alcohol.

You are right to say that it is not just about children and young people or impulse buying. The evidence suggests that people who are in recovery struggle when they see adverts for alcohol and will take steps to avoid them. They are another group in our society who find it hard to resist the lure or the attractiveness of alcohol as it is presented to us today.

Absolutely. The core purpose of the framework is to prevent disputes through close collaboration between the four UK nations while respecting the devolution settlement. That means enabling policy divergence. The aim of the framework is to avoid, where possible, the need to trigger the dispute resolution process.

In terms of scrutiny, Parliament will engage with the framework through the decisions that it will be asked to take on any change of legislation that is proposed in the policy area. In essence, the framework is a way of working. It sets down the mechanisms for working together with the other Administrations of the four UK nations that share these islands.

To be honest, we do not know about the effect—the most recent year that we have data available for is 2019-20, which was just before the pandemic hit. There were 75,616 ABIs in that year, which was 23 per cent more than the standard that we asked people to aim for.

We need a fuller picture of what has happened with ABIs over the pandemic. The committee knows from previous evidence sessions that I am a huge fan of Near Me, and there is an opportunity to use that technology. If ABIs can be a useful tool virtually as well as in person, we will try to get the evidence to support that going forward.

The work that is going on with Public Health Scotland to review ABIs began before the Covid pandemic. It will reflect on the experience of the pandemic across Scotland, and the actions are well under way, so I expect the strategy group to be convened in the summer.

It is difficult to have immediate actions to take and levers to pull, because we do not quite understand what happened or what the barriers were. We need to understand what led to the increase in deaths, which occurred across the UK, before we know what will be effective at reducing deaths in the future. We also need to understand whether such an increase will be repeated—whether it was the result of a consistent behaviour change or a one-off.

The situation is frustrating. I am desperate to solve the problem and I am keen to do what we can—the need is urgent. Every single one of these deaths is a tragedy, but we need to understand the situation better before charting our way forward.

I am satisfied that an effective process is in place. I hope that we do not reach the point of triggering it. For all that the impression that is given is that we are regularly in conflict with one another in the four nations, we actually work together closely on a number of issues across the board in health, and we have strong working relationships, particularly in my portfolio. Therefore, I expect us to be able to avoid triggering that conflict resolution process.

I will bring in Jennifer Howie to talk a little bit more about the detail of how the process will work should it be triggered.

Although the act was passed in 2020, it is still bedding in. We are still trying to understand the impact of that piece of legislation on our public health decisions, and I cannot at the moment think of an area in which we would be looking for exclusions.

The framework allows for divergence and respects the devolution settlements. For public health reasons, and all reasons, we prefer that mechanism for resolving issues of divergence.

We are very aware of that issue. Angela Constance and I work closely together, as do our officials. I will perhaps ask my officials to explain just how that works.

We recognise that there is learning from the national drugs mission that we need to apply in exactly the same way to our alcohol services. Some of the criticisms that are made of drugs services—that they are not person centred and do not respond rapidly enough—could equally and easily be made about our alcohol services. We are determined to learn the lessons.

Because of the way that services are structured, treatment for alcohol problems and treatment for drug problems usually happen in the same location. The services are co-located or are often the same services, so investment in one will benefit the other.

One of the pieces of the joint work that we did was the work to tackle stigma, which was quite successful. Stigma is a problem in relation to treatment in both areas, and taking a joint approach on that issue has proved to be quite helpful. Recently, we had an advertising campaign that talked about stigma, which covered both alcohol and drugs. I think that the campaign landed quite well and will make a difference to perception.

We are keen that we have a patient-centred, rights-based public health approach. We want people to be able to access those services easily and for there to be no judgment as they do so. That applies across the board in relation to addiction.

We are also keen to learn lessons. When we have the UK clinical guidelines for alcohol treatment, the work around medication-assisted treatment will be helpful when we think about how to implement the guidelines and ensure that MAT is adopted quickly and used on the ground. Maggie Page is in the drugs team, so I will ask her to come in and say a bit more.

Thank you. First, thank you for inviting me along to the committee to discuss the two provisional common frameworks. Officials in my team have been working with our counterparts in the UK Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive to develop a four-nations approach to the delivery of the European Union repatriated functions on common areas of interest in the frameworks. The ministers of the four nations have agreed the content of the provisional frameworks, which were published on 2 December 2021.

Policy on organs, tissues, cells and blood safety and quality were and continue to be highly regulated at EU level. The purpose of the frameworks—and what they give Scotland, to respond to your question—is to ensure that, post EU exit, there is a joined-up approach across the UK to the continued maintenance of high standards of safety through the delivery of regulatory functions in these areas. That includes agreement as to how divergence will be managed within the UK, as well as governance and decision-making processes.

Throughout the process, we have committed to continuing to work collaboratively to develop common frameworks on the basis of consensus and in line with the agreed principles of the joint ministerial committee on EU negotiations as of October 2017. The provisional frameworks have been operational on an interim basis since the end of the transition period and they will remain provisional until the parliamentary scrutiny by all legislatures has been completed. I am happy to take questions.

I think that that question is probably best put to the two ministers who will be in front of you next. However, I must challenge your brass neck, frankly, given that we have spent so much of the past 10 or 11 years talking about the impact of austerity and welfare reform.

You called it the attainment gap, but its full name is the poverty-related attainment gap. You cannot close the poverty-related attainment gap without tackling poverty. We have detailed very carefully in just how many areas the party that you represent and support is undoing the work of the Scottish Government.

I am not saying that we are powerless, because we are not powerless in this situation. The investment in the 1,140 hours of free early learning and childcare, for example, is one of the many ways in which this Government has shown its commitment to and delivered for children and young people in this country. Laying the increase in the poverty-related attainment gap at the SNP Government’s door when the Westminster Government has increased the level of poverty in the country is a difficult one to take.

The evidence is that, of the four UK countries, Scotland has the lowest level of poverty. The policies that we are enacting are making a difference. We have more affordable housing, which is one of the ways in which we are making a difference to children and families. Food bank use is increasing in all the other countries in the UK; in Scotland, it is decreasing.

Our policies are having an impact, but we are attempting to solve the problem without switching off the tap of appalling and damaging policies that come from Westminster.