Glasgow Safer Drug Consumption Facility

John Grady Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[John Grady (Glasgow East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Vickers. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson) on securing this important debate, and all the members of the Scottish Affairs Committee, for producing an excellent, conscientious and very serious report.

Our starting point in these discussions must always be that people suffering from addiction must be treated with compassion. It is our moral obligation to help people who are suffering and to help to remove barriers to support for individuals and communities who are affected by addiction. I see the effect of addiction daily in my seat, including in the Calton, where the safe consumption room is located. I see the huge blight that addiction can cause for individuals, families and communities, especially in Glasgow, which sadly has the highest overdose rate in Scotland. We have a moral obligation to support our communities through the devastating impacts of addiction.

Amazing work is being done in my seat to support people with addiction. I see that in the brilliant work of charities such as Back on the Road in Bridgeton, which is close to the facility and recently had its 25th birthday. I see that, too, in the courageous constituents I meet regularly who have recovered from their addictions.

The Committee heard from Dr Shorter, from Queen’s University Belfast, that addiction can often be exacerbated and caused by poverty, deprivation and trauma. This is fundamentally unjust, and it is our duty to ensure that all individuals, families and communities in our constituencies are supported to prevent and recover from addiction. Fighting poverty is an essential task of all levels of government, and we must ensure that nobody, no matter where they are from, is caught in addiction and unable to escape. We must recognise that tackling addiction needs wraparound support and a holistic approach to tackling poverty, meaning that we need a serious focus on new housing, better transport, improved education and access to jobs. All these things help to create communities that are fruitful with opportunities, which will help people to recover from addiction and to build positive futures.

We must also support children and people who have suffered trauma and consequently suffered with addiction. The Committee heard evidence on this from Dr Shorter. There is a clear link between how we treated children in Scotland historically—which is the subject of the Scottish child abuse inquiry—and outcomes in terms of addiction. I regret to say it, but it is a disgrace that the SNP has cut essential psychiatric and psychological services in Glasgow. Those services are essential to support those with addictions who need treatment for psychiatric and psychological conditions, and to help them in their recovery. All the wider wraparound factors need to be considered alongside safe consumption, to ensure that support for recovery is wraparound and holistic and that individuals, their families and communities can recover and move towards brighter and more fruitful futures.

We owe it to people with drug addiction, and their families, whom we must treat with compassion and try our best to support, to explore new ways of helping with addiction and reducing harm, so I fully support the trial, which is taking place on a sound evidence base. It must of course be evaluated robustly—there is nothing controversial about that.

There is serious talk about expanding the trial to include an inhalation facility. This reflects changing patterns in drug misuse, specifically towards smoking. The timing, so soon after the facility has opened, has come as a surprise to the community, and I can see their point. I am uncomfortable about the proposal—it is a significant change—but I have an open mind. We have to examine every possible way of reducing harm to people who use drugs. Naturally, the proposal must be supported by strong evidence, and the decision-makers need to think about the decision very carefully.

It is essential to listen to and speak to people who have addictions. That is a point that Dr Shorter made to the Committee. Harm reduction will happen only if the people who need the facility trust the facility and the staff in it. It is fair to say that people with addiction are not always treated fairly and justly by the state, and that seriously damages their trust in it.

It is also essential that there is serious listening to the community in the Calton. My constituents are utterly despondent at the increase in used needles and other evidence of drug misuse in the community. I ask anyone: how would it feel to take your four-year-old granddaughter for a walk along a street where there were used needles? My constituents’ legitimate concerns are dismissed as being wrong, dismissed on the basis that issues are long standing, and dismissed as misinformation. None of that is any excuse.

I deplore the condescending approach by the SNP council and Government towards the people I am so privileged to represent. The position is simple: the issues need to be tackled. Part 4 of the Scottish Affairs Committee report addresses this fairly and correctly states that

“the concerns of the local community need to be taken seriously.”

I agree. There needs to be a significant improvement in cleaning up the Calton, in encouraging more people to use the facility, and in active listening to my community.

The SNP has now run Scotland for almost 19 years, yet the drugs crisis has got worse, with terrible rates of drug deaths, which are, shockingly, the highest in Europe. As we head into an election year in Scotland, I hope they will take some responsibility for this situation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Vickers (Stockton West) (Con)]

I thank you, Mr Vickers, for chairing the debate, and the hon. Member for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson) for securing it.

The prevalence of drug deaths and the broader misuse of drugs in Scotland is devastating. The fall in drug deaths in 2024 was welcome, but the figure remains the highest in Europe. Between March and May 2025, drug deaths actually increased by 15%, with statistics showing that people in deprived areas in Scotland are 12 times more likely to die of drug misuse than those in the least deprived areas. We all recognise that this must change.

Nevertheless, the question of how we achieve that is not simple. We are right to reflect on how we reached this situation. The monumental failure of the SNP Scottish Government is apparent. Former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon admitted that her Government had taken their “eye off the ball”. I dare say that turn of phrase vastly understates the scale of the crisis that has gripped individuals and communities in Scotland. When my former colleague, the previous Scottish Conservative leader, put forward his Bill in the Scottish Parliament to address this problem, he said:

“This is a crisis that was made in Scotland, and it is one that can be fixed in Scotland, but not if we do not have willing participants in the Government.”—[Scottish Parliament Official Report, 9 October 2025; c. 106-7.]

I will return to the efforts made by my Conservative colleagues in Holyrood later. However, we believe that approaches to dealing with drug use must go beyond the narrow debate about drug consumption centres.

Let me be clear: both the Conservative party and I respect the independence of the Lord Advocate as the prosecutorial authority in Scotland. The last Government were clear that, provided that power is exercised lawfully, we should not stand in the way. Respect for the institutions that underpin our Union is critical, and I would not desire to undermine them. However, that should not preclude us in this place from criticising decisions made in Scotland or from questioning some of the comments underpinning the Scottish Affairs Committee’s report. That is why the Conservative position on drug consumption rooms in England and Wales is simple: we do not support them. That position was set out transparently when the party was in government, and it is appropriate to continue supporting it now.

It is appropriate to offer clarity on this matter. I understand that was a challenge faced by the Scottish Affairs Committee when questioning the former Policing Minister, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham (Dame Diana Johnson). When she was Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, she produced a report that backed such proposals. As such, it would be interesting to hear from this Minister whether she or the Government believe that these facilities are now appropriate.

The reason for our concern is that the use of drug consumption rooms condones or even encourages illegal drug use. As my hon. Friend the Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross), who is a member of the Scottish Affairs Committee, stated:

“I cannot ever support the facilitation of addiction as a way of helping to treat addictions”.—[Official Report, 13 October 2025; Vol. 773, c. 111.]

[John Grady]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that one of the key purposes of a consumption room is to reduce harm to people who would, in any event, consume the substances in question? In Glasgow, we have had significant problems with needle-borne viruses, infections and illness, so it is only morally right to help these people, as they struggle with their addictions, to consume in a safe way. Otherwise, people lose their loved ones, their mothers and fathers, and their sons and daughters. It is a question of compassion.

[Matt Vickers]

I definitely believe that we should be helping people with addictions, but feeding those addictions and allowing the illegal use of drugs is not the way forward. There are many ways in which we should support people with addictions and their families, but we clearly have a fundamental difference of opinion about the role of consumption rooms.

As my colleague on the Committee stated, we can never support the facilitation of addiction as a way to treat addiction. That is alongside the impact of potentially encouraging the continued supply of illicit substances, which invariably happens if there are specific locations at which to consume the products of this trade—a trade that, as we all know, has devastating consequences for our communities. Police Scotland states clearly on its website:

“Drugs can be very dangerous to your health and can kill.

The advice of Police Scotland is simple…There is no ‘safe’ way to take drugs, there is always a risk…The only way of staying safe is to avoid drugs altogether.”

Let me demonstrate why we need an effective police response. The county lines programme—which was started by the previous Government, and which has rightly continued—found a notable impact on drug misuse. Its evaluation, released at the very end of 2025, illustrated that drug misuse hospitalisations decreased by 29% in the exporter areas as a result of the county lines programme, when compared with the control group of areas that receive direct county lines funding. At the same time, the evaluation showed a 15% reduction in drug-related hospitalisations, equivalent to 22 fewer hospitalisations on average per quarter, in the importer forces, which were defined as those police forces most likely to be impacted by spillover effects from the county lines programme. Comparing the data to the 2024 evaluation illustrated that the programme is having a continued and seemingly increasing impact on reducing drug-related hospitalisations. Despite the best intentions of those who work at drug consumption facilities, it is inevitable that those taking the drugs will acquire them by criminal means. When we have targeted police action, the evidence appears to show improved outcomes for those who abuse drugs.

Clearly, enforcement is not and should not be the only approach to the problem. That is why the 10-year drugs plan published by the previous Government set out that any plan needed to be underpinned by enforcement and treatment. I appreciate that it was not focused on Scotland, but I would highlight that the previous Government’s drug strategy saw £532 million of additional funding through to 2024-25 to support improvements in alcohol and drug treatment.

Additionally, the previous Government took steps through their consultation—and we have backed secondary legislation while in opposition—to expand access to naloxone to more healthcare professionals and services. As Members will be well aware, the Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill introduced by a former Scottish Conservative leader, Douglas Ross, sought to give those diagnosed with drug and alcohol addiction a statutory right to receive treatment from a relevant professional.