Glasgow Safer Drug Consumption Facility

Patricia Ferguson Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Patricia Ferguson (Glasgow West) (Lab)]

I am very grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for affording me the opportunity to make a statement on the publication of the Scottish Affairs Committee’s third report of this Session, on the pilot safer drug consumption facility in Glasgow’s east end. Despite a reduction in deaths this year, Scotland continues to face the highest rate of drug-related deaths in Europe. Without a doubt, that is the most pressing public health issue facing Scotland, and it is in that context that the Committee agreed to undertake a thorough examination of the pilot facility on Hunter Street, called the Thistle.

The Committee’s inquiry follows up on excellent work conducted by our predecessor Committee on problem drug use in Scotland, and I take this opportunity to express our thanks to everyone who contributed to this inquiry, in particular Dr Saket Priyadarshi and the team at the Thistle for their continued engagement with our work. This is a challenging issue, and I express my gratitude to the members of the Scottish Affairs Committee for their thoughtful and collaborative work on this report.

In 2024, some 1,017 people died from drug-related causes—a figure expected to rise in 2025—with the highest concentration of deaths occurring in the Glasgow city area. The problem is not new. High levels of drug deaths have been a concern in the city for over a decade, and other harms, such as the transmission of blood-borne viruses, remain prevalent. Between 2014 and 2020, an outbreak of HIV among people who inject drugs saw 188 new diagnoses reported in the Greater Glasgow area. To address those harms, Glasgow city health and social care partnership, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and other partners launched the Thistle, the UK’s first sanctioned safer drug consumption facility.

The Thistle was opened as a three-year pilot. At the Thistle, visitors can self-administer drugs in safe, hygienic conditions under medical supervision. Staff can reverse overdoses, treat wounds and provide hygienic injecting equipment. Of equal importance to the immediate medical harm reduction is the space the facility provides for expert clinicians to build trusting relationships with people whom it would otherwise be hard for support services to reach. Those relationships can be a pathway to engagement with other health and social services, such as drug treatment, counselling and housing services, which can help address the drivers of problem drug use.

When we visited the facility shortly after it opened, we were particularly impressed by the expertise and dedication of the staff we met. The opening of the Thistle marks a radical change in approach to drug use in the UK, but internationally, safer drug consumption facilities are not uncommon; similar facilities already operate in 60 cities across the world. None of those facilities have ever reported an overdose death on the premises.

As part of our inquiry, we visited Norway and Lisbon. We saw how safer drug consumption facilities have been a core part of Portugal’s strategy to reduce drug harms. We looked carefully at what Portugal has done, given that it has achieved a radical reduction in drug harms; it has achieved an 80% reduction in the number of drug-related deaths over the past 20 years. We also travelled to Oslo and Bergen, where we saw how facilities can be successfully integrated into local communities. Above all else, our report calls on the UK Government to adopt an evidence-based approach, and not to make up their mind about the Thistle before the trial has concluded. To that end, our report also argues that experts in the evidence, rather than those with preconceived ideas, should determine the facility’s future.

There is no statutory basis for a safer drug consumption facility to open or operate in the UK. Instead, the Thistle has been able to open because of prosecutorial discretion applied by Scotland’s Lord Advocate. The Lord Advocate has decided that it would not be in the public interest to prosecute users of the facility for possession offences. While the Lord Advocate’s dispensation has been crucial to enabling the Thistle to open, our Committee found that prosecutorial discretion is not a substitute for a considered legal framework.

Our report also considers the cost of the Thistle. The Scottish Government have committed up to £2.3 million per year to fund the facility for the duration of the three-year pilot. Evidence to our inquiry found that facilities like the Thistle can be value for money, generating savings elsewhere. Such facilities reduce costs associated with public injecting, hospital admissions, ambulance call-outs and treating blood-borne viruses. For example, preventing just six to eight cases of HIV annually could generate savings equivalent to the annual cost of the Thistle.

While it is right that the cost of the Thistle be properly considered, the context of Scotland’s drug crisis cannot be forgotten. The Committee argues that the scale of Scotland’s emergency—there were over 1,000 deaths in 2024 alone—necessitates a commensurate response and significant investment. While the Thistle has not diverted funding from other services, we did hear concerns during our inquiry about the need to strike the right balance between investing in services like the Thistle and investing in traditional recovery services. We know that safer drug consumption facilities are not the only tool available for addressing problem drug use, and we are clear in our report that this facility is complementary to and works in tandem with traditional recovery services. In other words, it is not an either/or.

Our report recognises that drug trends in Scotland are changing. The facility offers supervision for only the injection of drugs, but inhalation is becoming more prevalent and can be a safer method of consumption. The Thistle must be able to adapt to meet the needs of the population it is trying to help. An inhalation space is currently not possible due to both reserved and devolved legislation, and our report encourages the Lord Advocate and the Scottish Government to consider any future application for an inhalation room on its merits.

The Thistle opened in Glasgow’s east end—an area with long-standing issues around public injecting. Since its opening, we have heard concerns about its impact, particularly regarding drug-related litter. We know that community support is of paramount importance to the pilot’s success. That is why consultation work was undertaken about the opening of the Thistle and continues through the community engagement forum. When members of our Committee attended a community engagement forum meeting in August, they were able to see that consultation work in action, but we encourage the Thistle to go one step further and develop a more responsive communication strategy to maintain dialogue between meetings.

As I said, an independent evaluation is under way to assess the facility’s impact on people who inject drugs, local residents, businesses and public services. That includes examining the service’s effectiveness, reach, costs and potential long-term savings. Community concerns must be taken seriously, but it is also important to allow time for the pilot’s local impact to be properly understood, and we await the results of that evaluation, which will provide an objective assessment of the Thistle’s impact.

If the Lord Advocate continues to apply her discretion beyond the three-year pilot, the Thistle and any future facilities in Scotland could continue to operate without UK Government support, perhaps indefinitely. However, the Committee has found that the legal position of the pilot is fundamentally precarious, and the arrangement is undesirable in the longer term. We therefore conclude that if the independent evaluation deems the pilot a success and the Thistle is to be made permanent, the UK Government should ensure that there is a full legal framework for safer drug consumption facilities in Scotland.

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham (Dame Diana Johnson), who was then the Home Office Minister with responsibility for this area, for giving oral evidence to our inquiry. She told us that the UK Government will not introduce safer drug consumption facilities, and pointed instead to alternative ongoing interventions to address drug-related harms. While those approaches are needed, the evidence we have heard is clear that the sustained scale of Scotland’s drug death crisis demands further action.

I will conclude by echoing the sentiment in the report that any intervention that is found to be effective at saving lives and reducing harm deserves the Government’s serious consideration. The Committee looks forward to the Government’s response, which I hope will reflect serious consideration of our recommendations.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Harriet Cross (Gordon and Buchan) (Con)]

I thank our Select Committee Chair for the statement—I have a brief question. I am sure that she expects me to say this, but I just want to say for the record that although I supported the report as a whole, there are a couple of recommendations that I could not support. The first is the recommendation on the inclusion of an inhalation room, and the second is on the provision of tourniquets. I cannot ever support the facilitation of addiction as a way of helping to treat addictions—I just do not see that as an option. Why, before we know the results of the pilot, does the report conclude that it should be extended?

[Patricia Ferguson]

I hope the hon. Lady does not mind if I call her my hon. Friend. I thank her for her question. I think it fair to say that the issues we looked at challenged us all. Many of us were considering issues that we had never reflected upon before, so it was a challenge, and I perfectly understand that we will have disagreements about how to go forward. The thing about inhalation that was highlighted to us is that for many people, inhalation is safer than injecting, which has all sorts of risks attached—infected wounds and blood-borne viruses, for example. Inhalation does not have those problems, and is becoming increasingly popular as a method of using drugs, so it seemed to the Committee that we could encourage its consideration. We are not suggesting that there should be further injection spaces at this time—we think it is important to see what the evaluation says, and that any decisions should be based on that particular finding—but we are aware that other places in Scotland are looking at the Thistle with interest, and may well make those applications, although that is not the gist of the report.

[Douglas McAllister (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab)]

Scotland has the worst drugs death figures of any nation in Europe, and they have increased again, with 607 suspected drug deaths in the first half of this year. Six years ago, the SNP Scottish Government declared a “drug death emergency”—just another example of soundbite announcements with no actual delivery. They have had two decades to tackle this issue, but the truth is that they have failed. None of them is here tonight. Does my hon. Friend agree that the independent evaluation panel will determine the Thistle’s efficacy and, ultimately, its future beyond the three-year pilot, and that that gold-standard service is not an either/or but must work in tandem with a range of other recovery services?

[Patricia Ferguson]

I hope that my hon. Friend will forgive me, as the impartial Chair of the Committee, for not criticising or commenting on the failings or otherwise of the SNP, whose Members are not, as he points out, here this evening. He is absolutely right that this is not an either/or. It is important that the provision is part of a range of options offered. If any of those options can help to reduce the drug death numbers in Scotland, they must be considered seriously, and that is what we suggest.

[Siân Berry (Brighton Pavilion) (Green)]

I thank the Select Committee Chair very much for the report’s conclusions, particularly the call on the Government to consider a secure legal footing for safer drug consumption facilities. From the discussions that have been had, does she have any sense of the chances of a lesser legal mechanism from the Attorney General to give comfort in relation to the risk of prosecution for people using and running such facilities in England and Wales?

--- Later in debate ---

[Patricia Ferguson]

To be perfectly frank, I cannot answer the hon. Member’s question because we did not take evidence on the situation elsewhere in the UK and were particularly focused on Scotland, as one would expect of the Scottish Affairs Committee. It may be that the prosecutorial discretion that the Lord Advocate has offered is something that others wish to look to, but whether or not the law in England and Wales would allow that is not for me to say because I genuinely do not know.

[John Grady (Glasgow East) (Lab)]

The facility is located in my constituency. The report stresses the importance of engagement with the local community. Drug litter and public injecting very close to the facility are a cause of real concern for my constituents, whose worries are not being properly addressed. There are now suggestions that the facility could open for 24 hours a day—a cause of real worry for my constituents. The community must be properly consulted about material changes to the facility. Does my hon. Friend agree that a robust strategy is essential not only for communicating with but for listening to and addressing the concerns of my constituents?

[Patricia Ferguson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that public confidence in the facility is paramount if it is to have a future—and even for the duration of the three-year pilot. Committee members who attended the forum were very struck by the fact that although forum members from the community and local businesses were raising questions with the operators of the Thistle and those involved most closely with it, there was no mechanism for a response to be given between meetings. We suggested that the communications strategy needed to be much more responsive so that if a problem is raised, or a good comment made, the Thistle can respond to it rather than wait until the next meeting. That would give the public a lot more confidence and reassurance that their concerns were being addressed.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Committee Chair for bringing this statement forward. I share the concerns in the questions asked earlier about the recommendations; I would be concerned about the addiction aspect as well. But I recognise that some of the problems in Belfast city, for instance, are the same as those at the Thistle pilot scheme in Glasgow, which the hon. Lady outlined. Ever mindful of my own opinion, I think it would be worth while sharing the information from that pilot scheme with those in Belfast, who may have a similar outlook and point of view.

[Patricia Ferguson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. Many reports have been done on international facilities, which he might want to bring to the attention of his colleagues in Belfast. He is absolutely right that it is not just Glasgow or Scotland that have these problems, although Scotland seems to be suffering particularly badly. There are other models. In Lisbon, we saw a mobile model that accompanied the fixed facility. That seemed to be popular; a queue of people was waiting to use it when we were there—a small queue, but a queue. There are other ways of addressing the issue, and he may wish to consider those.

[Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)]

As a member of the Scottish Affairs Committee, I thank my hon. Friend for securing time for this statement. The report makes it clear that drug consumption rooms are just one of the tools that can be used to reduce drug-related harms and that one intervention must not come at the cost of another. Scotland sustains the highest number of drug-related deaths in Europe. Does my hon. Friend agree that a lack of recovery beds and facilities undermines a holistic, joined-up approach that those living with addiction deserve?

[Patricia Ferguson]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. She is absolutely right: it cannot be one thing or another. A holistic attitude must be taken towards eradicating drug misuse. Given Scotland’s particular situation, we have to be open to considering any and all options. But recovery facilities are certainly vital.

[Adam Jogee (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend and her Committee for this important report. The effects of drug addiction and misuse hit communities hard in Scotland, as we have heard, but also in Newcastle-under-Lyme and elsewhere in Staffordshire. I think of the work of Paul Sweeney MSP on the ground in Glasgow; he has done much on these important issues.

There are often enhanced challenges around the stigma of drugs in religious and ethnic minority communities. Will my hon. Friend touch on what the outreach at Thistle looked like for those furthest-to-reach communities? That will be particularly important for my constituents in Newcastle-under-Lyme, as the Government learn the lessons.

[Patricia Ferguson]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. We did not look closely into that issue; if someone is going to inject drugs, they will buy them and take them almost immediately, so the reach of the Thistle will never be much further than the localised community around the building. For that reason, we have not looked at the issue in the way that he suggests. It will be interesting to see from the evaluation whether there has been more of a reach than was imagined at the beginning, when the facility was being scoped. But that is certainly not the experience that people have had until now.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Ind)]

I thank the Select Committee for its report. I have been following the international evidence on taking a public health approach. Could my hon. Friend set out how the centre is developing a harm reduction model and how it will evaluate that? I am thinking particularly of engagement with clinicians. It is so important that people get the right support in the right way when they enter such a centre.

[Patricia Ferguson]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. It is important to understand that, although prosecutorial discretion is offered by the Lord Advocate, the Thistle is quite limited in what it can offer. At the moment, it would like to be able to offer tourniquets, for example, to allow people to inject more easily. It has also applied to become a drug testing centre. There is an increasing incidence of synthetic opioids, which can be very dangerous, coming on to the market in Scotland. Testing would allow the police and academics to track those and take them off the streets more easily. Things like that can be done, but permissions need to be given to do them. At the moment, the facility does not have such permissions and it is simply an injecting centre.

That is not to say that staff are not able to refer people to other facilities, perhaps those where recovery or housing services are more of an option, or where there is a space for people to have a really good wash, get some clean clothes and go out feeling better. However, at this facility people are able to talk. No one leaves the premises immediately after injecting, so people will sit around having conversations with each other and with the professionals at the facility, who are trying hard to be really supportive.