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
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.
Paragraph Reference:
150
Government Response
Rejected
HM Government
Rejected
The Government does not accept these recommendations. Our 10-year Drug Strategy, From Harm to Hope, is focused on reducing drug use, addiction, and drug-related crime. It is underpinned by a record investment of over £3 billion over the first three years of delivery to break drug supply chains, deliver a world-class treatment and recovery system and achieve a generational shift in the demand for drugs. The Government does not support the establishment of safe consumption facilities, often referred to as drug consumption rooms. There is no legal framework for the provision of drug consumption rooms and the Government has no plans to create one. Anyone operating within a drug consumption room would be committing a number of offences, including possession of controlled drugs and being concerned in the supply of controlled drugs. The police have a duty to investigate such offences and to take action where necessary. Enabling drug consumption rooms would also condone and facilitate the use of illegal drugs. The Government has a zero-tolerance approach to illicit drug use and its harms. Instead, we are focused on preventing drug deaths through evidence-based interventions like the expansion of naloxone, and needle and syringe programmes, increasing the number of high-quality treatment places available in a recovery-orientated system of care in every part of the country, continuing to build a high-quality workforce and improving the quality of psychosocial interventions. Furthermore, the Government is taking robust action to break drug supply chains, through the dismantling of County Lines drug trafficking networks and targeting the operations of the key organised criminal groups involved in drug supply. In addition, the Government is increasing drug seizures at the border, and will increase drug testing on arrest and pilot out of court disposals as one of the suite of tools the police have to address drug misuse. We are also working with law enforcement to target visible drug use such as cannabis through our zero-tolerance approach, and in March 2023, the Government launched a plan to crack down on anti-social behaviour.