SNP leadership: recovery is key to tacking drug deaths says Ash Regan

Ash Regan agreed the rising toll of record deaths has been a “failure” of government and a change in culture is needed to save lives.

In an interview with the Glasgow Times, the former community safety minister spoke of her plans to meet the challenge.

The latest annual figures show Glasgow had 311 drug deaths in 2021, a record high, out of 1330 in Scotland.

Regan said: “I would hold our hands up and say this has been a failure because it's worse than in other places.

She added she would “caveat that by saying that the last years we did put in a specific drugs minister to look at this and move it forward and I know she has been doing good work.”

The MSP said recovery experts need to be given a greater role in shaping and delivering policy.

She added: “I was reading about Annemarie Ward (of Favor Scotland) in the last few weeks and what she is saying is we need to put more money into programmes like LEAP, the mutual aid model,

“Whilst we say we’re doing a lot on that, she feels we’re not putting enough investment into that part.

“I would prioritise speaking to people who’ve got that experience and I also think there’s a difference between addiction experts and recovery experts.

“We need to focus more on the recovery experts and this mutual aid model. One model is never going to be right for everybody, but this type of model is very successful in other places and we need to put more emphasis on it.”

She said people need to be able to believe recovery is possible for everyone.

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Regan added: “I wonder if we’re trapped in this mindset where we think we can do stuff around the edges but can’t really help people. We’ll just put people on methadone and leave them there.

“I spoke to people who say they go to their GP and they want to know what their other options are and they’re not getting any other option.

“They are being told ‘there’s nothing else we can do for you’.”

Answering the same questions we put to Kate Forbes and Humza Yousaf, Regan said independence was the key to ending poverty in Scotland.

Westminster was, she said, a block on making meaningful change.

She said: “We know that a lot of the drivers are coming from the UK economic set up that we’ve got because we’re part of the UK.

“And even when we use a lot of our budget to try to mitigate this, we’re just not having the impact that we would have liked to have had.”

Employment and housing were key to ending poverty, she said.

Regan added: “We know a lot of the kids living in poverty have a parent who is in work.

“We know even people who are working they’re not earning enough money to be able to live a good standard of living and to keep their family out of poverty.

“That’s something that is also very difficult to address when you’re part of the UK because we don’t have the powers over things like employment law and to be able to change the economy.

“So, that’s why as part of my pitch to be leader, I’ve said we can’t stay as part of the UK anymore.”

Read our interview with Humza Yousaf:  I want to 'thrash out new deal' on council funding

Regan said a new social rented housebuilding programme is the key to ending homelessness.

She wants to use the Scottish Investment Bank to fund high-spec, energy efficient low-rent social housing across the country.

The MSP for Edinburgh Eastern said there are problems with temporary accommodation in the capital as well as in Glasgow.

She said: “We’ve always had ambitions to make sure we don’t have people in temporary accommodation because often it’s unsuitable, particularly for families and young mothers.

We’re back to where we need to build more accommodation.

“If I’m first minister, this will be a real priority for me in terms of that infrastructure and building these homes of the future.”

She added: “It’s very hard to live and do well at school if you’re living in unsuitable accommodation. We know it has an impact, particularly on children.”

Regan said councils need improved funding and the ability to make their own decisions.

Glasgow has lost half a billion pounds from its budget over the last ten years, with jobs lost and services slashed.

Regan said the impact is now noticeable.

She said: “Obviously, the Scottish Government would say well we’ve had our budget cut by Westminster and say we’ve got to make savings but we’re getting to the point where it’s starting to show more that we’re struggling especially with council funding.”

She wanted to remove ring-fencing to give councils more flexibility to spend their budget on their own priorities.

She also said councils and the country needs to raise more revenue to be able to spend it on public services.

Regan added: “I met with the permanent secretary last week to set out what my priorities were, and I think because we know we’re in a situation where Westminster is going to continue to keep our budget at a very unsustainable level that we need to look to see where we can raise money inside Scotland and keep it in Scotland.

“I’m looking at revenue-raising ideas and one of them might be an energy company where we’ve got a stake for Scotland in that so the money is staying in Scotland and if we invest in renewables we can keep the supply chain in Scotland.”