Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of introducing harm reduction centres for drug users.

No recent assessment has been made of the potential merits of introducing ‘harm reduction centres’ for drug users, including any implications for UK drug legislation. Such centres are sometimes referred to as drug consumption rooms or safer consumption facilities and are understood to be locations where drug users could lawfully consume controlled drugs that they have purchased from criminal dealers.

Specifically in relation to Scotland, the Government will not interfere with the lawfully exercised prosecutorial independence of the Lord Advocate in respect of a pilot drug consumption room in Scotland. We will consider any evidence emerging from evaluation of that pilot in due course.