Source · Select Committees · Home Affairs Committee
Recommendation 43
43
Rejected
Paragraph: 150
Support Glasgow safe consumption facility pilot, creating legislative pathway and ensuring joint funding.
Recommendation
In particular, we recommend the Government support a pilot in Glasgow by creating a legislative pathway under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 that enables such a facility to operate legally. The pilot in Glasgow must be jointly funded by the Government and the Scottish Government. The Government must work with the Scottish Government and local partners to establish and operate the pilot. The pilot must be evaluated in order to establish a reliable evidence base on the utility of a safe consumption facility in the UK. We repeat the recommendation made by the Scottish Affairs Committee in 2019 that, if the UK Government is unwilling to support this, the power to establish a pilot be devolved to the Scottish Government.
Government response summary AI-generated
The government rejected the recommendation to support and fund a pilot safe consumption facility in Glasgow and create a legislative pathway, citing its lack of support for such facilities and the absence of a legal framework.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Paragraph Reference:
150
Government Response
Rejected
HM Government · verbatim extract
Rejected
The Government does not accept the Committee’s recommendation and does not support the introduction of drug consumption rooms in England and Wales due to the risk of these facilities condoning illicit drug use and encouraging the continued criminal supply of drugs to users. Since the publication of the Committee’s report the Lord Advocate has responded to a request from the Scottish Government for a focussed statement of prosecution in relation to a pilot drug consumption room. The statement indicated that, subject to certain conditions, she would be willing to publish a prosecution policy that it would not be in the public interest to prosecute drug users for simple possession offences (under section 5(2) of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 committed within a pilot drug consumption room in Glasgow. The UK Government respects the independence of the Lord Advocate as Scotland’s prosecutorial authority and will not interfere with plans to introduce a drug consumption room in Glasgow, providing those powers are lawfully exercised. We recommend that the Home Office and Department of Health and Social Care jointly establish a national drug checking service in England to enable people to submit drug samples by post anonymously. We recommend the Home Office consult stakeholders on how best to implement the service. In particular, we recommend that it learn lessons from the Welsh Government and Welsh partners on the experience of WEDINOS. We believe that, ultimately, a UK-wide drug checking service would provide the most effective approach, and we therefore encourage the UK Government and devolved Governments to consider jointly establishing such a service.
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