Patricia Ferguson
MP for Glasgow West · Labour · United Kingdom
“The Scottish Secretary will be aware that no NHS board in Scotland has met its target for starting cancer treatment within 62 days since 2012, that Public Health Scotland data shows that one in seven Scots are on an NHS waiting list, and that the Scottish Government’s own figures show that home completions fell by 10% in the year to March…”
“I absolutely agree with the hon. Member. I know that there have been such examples in Gaza, too. I raised that in a Westminster Hall debate almost two years ago, and I was reassured by the Minister that none of those drones are being produced in this country, which is at least a start.”
“I absolutely share that outrage, and I will mention it later in my contribution. We cannot as a country allow this situation to continue. We are out of step with so many of our European partners.”
“I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed) for securing the debate and speaking with so much passion about an issue that concerns us all. The ever-increasing number of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are illegal—each and every one of them.”
“A ban that simply covered agricultural products, for example, would just encourage the movement of activity into those other areas. We know that existing restrictions on trade have been neutralised, in effect.”
“The level of violence instigated by the settlers has increased; more than 1,700 settler attacks causing causalities or property damage have been recorded across 270 Palestinian communities in the west bank in 2025 alone.”
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“I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) for raising the issue of the barcodes. Royal Mail representatives came before the Scottish Affairs Committee when we wanted to discuss with them the problem of deliveries in rural and highland areas. They were particularly proud to talk about the barcode idea, but seemed to be concerned that perhaps in Scotland there was not the same alacrity in adopting that sensible suggestion. Given the Minister’s knowledge of the geography of Scotland, which is at least as good as mine, is that a point he might want to take up with colleagues in the Scottish Government?”
“The hon. and learned Member may or may not be aware that in order for those sections to apply across the UK, the Scottish Government would have to agree to a Sewel motion—a legislative consent motion—that would allow this place to legislate for Scotland. Justice is devolved to the Scottish Parliament—it has been since the Act of Union and before. That is something that is valued, so there would have to be that agreement. It is not something that can be laid at the feet of this Minister.”
“The hon. and learned Member was a Member in Stormont. I was a Member of the Holyrood Parliament, where I was also the Minister for Parliamentary Business for three and a half years. It was my responsibility to take through legislation in that Parliament and to oversee the Sewel convention, and I can assure him that that is not how it happened.”
“I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) on securing this urgent question. The attack over the past few days is truly appalling, as colleagues have said, but it is not the first time such an attack has taken place. The World Health Organisation has verified 285 attacks on healthcare facilities, with at least 1,200 deaths and more than 400 injuries to health workers and patients. Can the Minister explain what more can be done to make sure that the RSF understands that hospitals and healthcare facilities should not be targeted in the way that it is doing and that the sanctity of life has to be considered when civilian populations are concerned?”
“Does the Leader of the House believe that sufficient progress is being made in rolling out additional driving test appointments? Learner drivers and their instructors in Glasgow West would suggest not. Will he agree to a debate in Government time on the issue?”
“Perhaps those voices will help the Minister to have the ammunition to take to the Treasury to say, “We’re not happy with this.””
“I thank the Minister for his statement today, and for the work that he has done. One issue raised by a constituent is that when she applied for the interim payment, she filled out lots of forms and gave information, as she has been doing for many years, because her husband died some time ago, having contracted infection back in the 1970s. She now has to apply again, and the same information will be asked for. There must be a way of expediting the process to make life slightly simpler for people like her. She, too, is in a situation in which, at the age of 88 and having not received all the payments that she is likely to get, she is worried about inheritance tax—not on her own behalf, but on behalf of her children. I am sorry to belabour the point, but may I add my voice to those around the Chamber?”
“I strongly welcome the Minister’s commitment to work to support Chevening scholars to leave Gaza, particularly the decision to extend that support to students with full scholarships. Will the Minister update the House on the latest steps that the Government have taken to support Gazan students who wish to study in the UK, particularly those I have been arguing about who have dependants who they understandably do not wish to leave in Gaza?”
“Does my right hon. Friend agree that the actions of this Government, in supporting young people, are in stark contrast to the situation in Scotland, where we have had 18 years of SNP neglect, with the college sector suffering a 20% cut over the past five years? Does he also agree that, as the energy sector in Scotland transitions to greener forms of energy production, the jobs and skills needed to bolster that industry could be taught at those colleges, and that we risk having a double whammy of young people not being able to take on these important jobs, while lecturers are paid off and our colleges are in dire financial straits?”
“Will my hon. Friend outline to the House how the Government are delivering the clean energy jobs plan, which will see 40,000 new jobs in the clean energy industries in Scotland by 2030? I am sure that move will be welcomed around the Chamber. Will he advise us what support will be given to that plan by the Scottish Government?”
“Our electronic voting system and the public petitions process were seen—I think rightly—as efficient, businesslike and inclusive. I sincerely hope that the Modernisation Committee will consider those examples during its investigation—especially electronic voting, please.”
“They included free personal care for the elderly; free university tuition; the banning of smoking in enclosed public places, which has led to verifiable health benefits—Scotland led the way for the rest of the UK on this issue, and we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the ban this year—the repeal of the discriminatory clause 2A; bringing the Golden Jubilee hospital into the NHS; the Fresh Talent initiative; the creation of an international development fund; the creation of the National Theatre of Scotland; and submitting a successful bid for the 2014 Commonwealth games, to name but a very few. The Scottish Parliament’s approach was modern, with family-friendly hours and a willingness to use technology to the advantage of Members and the public.”
“As my colleague said, it is my conviction that co-operation between the coalition partners, and sometimes across all parties, was key to the progress of devolution, as was joint working between the Scottish and UK Governments. Many positive initiatives were implemented during that early period, some of which the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross mentioned. I apologise to the House if I repeat one or two, but I would like to list some of the ones that come most easily to mind.”
“It is quite remarkable that a party was returned to power in May 1997, held a referendum just two or three months later on the Scottish Parliament and whether we should have devolution, and delivered that Parliament within two years. I was proud to campaign, along with many others, for a Scottish Parliament over many years. I believe that such subsidiarity is sensible and is a democratic imperative, and as one of the first MSPs elected in 1999—alongside my colleague, the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross—I was privileged to see at first hand the challenges and successes of the Labour-Liberal Executive, which steered our country through the first years of devolution. We did not call ourselves a Government then; “Executive” was good enough for us.”
“Despite the disappointment of the 1979 referendum, devolution remained firmly on the agenda of the Labour party through the long years of Conservative rule. The idea was kept alive by Donald, his great friend John Smith, Labour party and trade union members across the country, and colleagues in the Liberal Democrats and some other parties. “A Claim of Right for Scotland” in 1988 and the Scottish constitutional convention were significant markers on the long road to the successful 1997 referendum. I am pleased to recount that when Labour was returned to power in 1997, one of its first acts was to pass the Scotland Act, which paved the way for the Scottish Parliament just two years later.”
“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I nearly lapsed into old habits and called you Deputy Presiding Officer, but that is a title for another place some 500 miles up the road. I thank the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) for procuring this debate, and for arriving when he did; some of us were becoming rather anxious. I do not think I have ever been more pleased to see him enter any room. On a more serious note, 25 years ago this month, Donald Dewar—MP, MSP and the first First Minister of Scotland—died prematurely. Donald had worked hard, both in our party and beyond, to promote the idea of a Scottish Parliament. It was a huge loss when he passed away only 17 months into the life of that new Parliament, but his legacy—the Parliament he played such an important part in establishing—lives on.”
“My recollection of the system is that it worked very well indeed. I do not know whether standards have slipped since the days when I and other hon. Members present were Members of the Scottish Parliament. What the hon. Lady describes did happen—I admit that—but very rarely. I was for some time in the Chair, announcing those decisions, and I genuinely do not remember that happening very often at all.”
“I absolutely agree with the hon. Member. I am not in favour of voting remotely either, except perhaps in very rare and exceptional circumstances. However, please believe me that electronic voting is the way forward. Members would not have to spend some 20 minutes walking through the Lobby. Votes would be cast, and a result declared, within roughly one minute. That is definitely a better use of Members’ time, and a much more efficient way to do things.”
“It is undoubtedly true that we have to learn from one another, and from international examples too. If I can give one example that I would like colleagues to learn from, it is that electronic voting has a place, and a place from which I think this House could benefit greatly.”
“That, I think, was a great thing. I also think that the Scottish Parliament has, perhaps, a better balance of power between Members and the Government, but we have to accept that the scale is an influencing factor at the very least. I would not suggest for a moment that the years from 2007 onwards—when the SNP first formed a Government through a deal with the Tories, when they then formed a majority Government, and even when they were in coalition with the Greens—have been a complete failure, but there has been a great deal of wasted time and opportunity.”
“I think we have to realise that the Parliament in Scotland is very much smaller than this Parliament, which makes a great difference to many of the ways in which it operates. As we heard from the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, it is much easier to speak to a Minister there than it is here. It is a regular occurrence. There is a saying in the Scottish Parliament: you only have to sit in the Garden Lobby for half an hour, and every other parliamentarian will have passed you by at one point or another. That is a huge advantage, and it is one of the aspects of the Scottish Parliament that I personally preferred: we did have that access, not just to Ministers but to other colleagues across parties, and we could develop relationships that enabled us to work in a cross-party way very easily with them.”
“He said that we will “never lose sight of what brought us here—the striving to do right by the people of Scotland, to respect their priorities, to better their lot and to contribute to the common weal.” In recalling those words, we should look forward to the future, to how the Scottish Parliament can do right by the people of Scotland, and to how we Members of this Parliament can play a constructive part in making that so.”
“It is important that those differences are reflected, and that the agencies and public organisations that support and serve our populations reflect local bias, local need and local interest. Sadly, that is no longer the case in some places. As the Scottish Parliament progresses into its second quarter-century, we have an opportunity to look back, to mark both the successes and the shortcomings, and to recall the words of Donald Dewar at the Parliament’s opening on 1 July 1999, which are as relevant today as they were then.”
“Sadly, it has to be said that recent Scottish Governments have been found wanting when it comes to the measurements of success that they have set for themselves on NHS waiting time guarantees, climate targets or educational attainment, and the premise of the Parliament —allowing for the delivery of Scottish solutions to Scottish problems—has fallen some way short. For a Parliament that is devolved, it has had the most centralising agenda in recent years, which has not been to Scotland’s advantage. Scotland is made up of peoples, cities, towns and villages, and what works in my constituency of Glasgow West will not necessarily work in Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross.”
“Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross cited the ill-fated deposit return scheme as an example of when there was not that cross-party working to make legislation appropriate and fit for purpose; I would cite as another example the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act, which was passed in 2012 only to be repealed in 2018. Again, I would not suggest for a minute that Scotland does not sometimes have a problem with football matches, and with some of the sectarian and offensive behaviour that goes on in connection with them, but that Act was badly thought out. People tried to say so at the time, but they were not listened to. I think it is always important for us to listen to one another and hear what others have to say.”
“The Labour party did not vote with the SNP on the Budget. The SNP needed the Tories to get Budgets through, and that was the basis on which they did a deal. Sadly, those Budgets very much reflected Tory values, and that is why Labour could not vote for them; nor could friends in other parties that are represented in this Chamber. I have to say, though, that time has been wasted by people obsessing about the constitution and creating grievances with Westminster. We could have been in a very different place if the Scottish Government had continued to focus on the issues that mattered to people in their everyday lives, and also if they had been more constructive in their engagement with Members of the Scottish Parliament itself. My hon.”
“Does my hon. Friend agree that it is ironic that it is only because BAE Systems won the contract with Norway that it is able to give work to Ferguson Marine, which is owned by the Scottish Government, to keep it going? At the time, the Scottish Government were saying, “We will not have anything to do with defence procurement.” The irony of that is appalling, given that people’s jobs are at stake.”
“It is very interesting to hear my hon. Friend outline so succinctly how Scotland could be better served if the UK Labour Government’s policies were copied elsewhere. I believe that symbols can sometimes be very important, so does she agree that the fact that there are more Labour Scottish Ministers sitting on the Front Bench than there are SNP Members attending this debate says a lot about people’s priorities, and about the priorities of this Government compared with those of the SNP?”
“I am sure you will take this in the spirit in which it is intended, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I have to tell the hon. Member that unfortunately that request has been rejected by the Art Committee. I am not sure that I will necessarily take that lying down, as he would imagine, but it has been rejected as things stand, and I thought it important for him to know that.”
“A constituent of mine—an elderly gentleman in his 90s—recently tried to change his energy tariff to one that was cheaper. Unfortunately, when he applied it transpired that he could only do so if he was online, which was not possible for him. Does the Leader of the House agree that this is an unacceptable form of digital exclusion, and can he suggest how we might try to address it?”
“I very much welcome the Prime Minister’s statement today, and I thank him, his ministerial team and their advisers for all the work that has been done over many months to get us to this point, where there is some hope for peace in Gaza and also for peace for Israel. In this process, as we go forward and try to build peace, can he ensure that the voices of women, who are so often excluded from such processes, are heard, and that women are at the table when decisions are being made?”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”