{"id":488301,"date":"2025-10-10T12:19:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T12:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/488301\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T12:19:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T12:19:10","slug":"how-recovery-was-killed-in-holyrood-committee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/488301\/","title":{"rendered":"How recovery was killed in Holyrood committee"},"content":{"rendered":"

Five years inside Scotland\u2019s political machine<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cFaith without works is dead.\u201d \u2014 James 2:26<\/p>\n

FOR FIVE YEARS I\u2019ve lived inside the slow, grinding process of trying to turn compassion into law. On Thursday, that work was voted down.
This is what really happened\u00a0 and what it\u2019s taught me about politics, power, and faith in modern Scotland.<\/p>\n

The Vote<\/strong><\/p>\n

On Thursday afternoon, I wasn\u2019t in the chamber. I was sitting in a small office nearby with two women\u00a0 one still working but just about to retire, one long retired\u00a0 both veterans of the Scottish Parliament since the day it opened.<\/p>\n

These were women who\u2019ve seen every kind of political drama there is. But as the results appeared 52 for, 63 against, 0 abstentions, 14 not voting<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

One of them finally said,\u00a0\u201cMy God, what have we become?\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how I\u2019ll remember it. Not outrage or shock. Just despair\u00a0 quiet, seasoned, weary despair from people who once believed Scotland could do better than this.<\/p>\n

And just like that, five years of work five years of meetings, consultations, and hope dissolved in a single line on a parliamentary screen.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Right to Recovery Bill<\/strong>\u00a0was meant to give every person seeking help for addiction the legal right to treatment. Not a request.Not a waiting list. A right.
And on Thursday, Parliament chose to say no.<\/p>\n

There were no boos or protests. Just polite applause, as if another \u201cdifficult decision\u201d had been made. But to those of us who live and work in the wreckage of this crisis, it wasn\u2019t difficult at all. It was devastatingly simple: the people in charge chose to keep things exactly as they are.<\/p>\n

Five years ago, when we first began shaping the Bill, we took it straight to the SNP\u00a0 not the Tories, not Labour, the SNP. We wanted this to be Scotland\u2019s Bill: a unifying piece of legislation that rose above party flags and proved we could still do the right thing for the right reasons.<\/p>\n

They refused. We also took it to the SNP-funded quangos\u00a0 na\u00efvely, as it turns out hoping they might carry it forward because we were too small. They said,\u00a0\u201cDon\u2019t call us, \u00a0we\u2019ll call you.\u201d<\/p>\n

From that moment, I began an education in how politics in Scotland really works not the glossy version of \u201cconsultation and collaboration,\u201d but the tribal, risk-averse, self-protective version that eats reformers alive. I learned how committees can be stacked, how evidence can be \u201cinterpreted,\u201d and how entire movements can be rebranded overnight if it suits the right narrative.<\/p>\n

I also learned that once you start speaking plain truth about treatment, about failure, about recovery, the system doesn\u2019t debate you\u00a0 it smears you.<\/p>\n

In the years since, I\u2019ve endured three-day migraines, the constant stress of running a national charity, and an unending stream of online abuse from people who\u2019ve never met me but feel entitled to decide what my motives must be. It\u2019s been a lesson in human frailty and my own But I\u2019m still here. Still standing. Because the people who died waiting for treatment can\u2019t be.<\/p>\n

This Bill wasn\u2019t perfect. No Members\u2019 Bill ever is. That\u2019s what Stage 2 is for\u00a0 to fix, amend, refine. But killing it at Stage 1 wasn\u2019t about detail; it was about control. It shut down a debate that was getting far too close to the truth: that our so-called \u201cworld-leading\u201d approach to drugs policy is, in reality, a bureaucratic carousel that keeps the same people in power while the same people die.<\/p>\n

They call it compassion.
I call it cowardice.<\/p>\n

And so here we are a Parliament that congratulates itself on inclusion while excluding every voice that doesn\u2019t toe the line. A government that funds \u201clived experience\u201d groups to echo its agenda while chastising and smearing the ones who speak freely. A system that finds money for slogans but not for detox beds.<\/p>\n

What they killed yesterday wasn\u2019t just a Bill; it was a chance for redemption.<\/p>\n

How It Started<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Right to Recovery Bill wasn\u2019t born in a policy lab or dreamed up by a politician looking for a headline. It came from years of listening,\u00a0 really listening\u00a0 to people who were desperate for help and had nowhere left to turn.<\/p>\n

The architects of this Bill sat with mothers who phoned every number they could find, begging for a bed for their child and being told,\u00a0\u201cThere\u2019s nothing available.\u201d\u00a0We\u2019ve stood beside fathers who spent their savings on private detox because they couldn\u2019t bear to wait for a call that never came. And we\u2019ve buried too many friends whose only mistake was asking for help from a system designed to manage addiction, not end it.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why we began drafting the Bill: to put into law something that should already exist\u00a0 a clear, legal right for people seeking help with addiction to access the full range of treatment options: detox, rehab, aftercare, housing, family support. Not just a prescription and a pat on the head.<\/p>\n

We didn\u2019t care who got the credit. That\u2019s why our very first meeting was with the SNP. We wanted them to lead it, to own it, to prove that compassion in government could still mean action. I\u2019ll never forget sitting in that first meeting thinking,\u00a0They\u2019ll surely get this.<\/p>\n

They didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

What came next was five years of polite nods, procedural delays, and promises of \u201cfurther consideration.\u201d Every door that closed was wrapped in kind words. The message was always the same:\u00a0We care\u00a0 but not enough to do anything that might rock the boat.<\/p>\n

So we took the proposal elsewhere. To anyone who would listen. To every party that claimed to care about equality, justice, or public health. That\u2019s how Douglas Ross ended up sponsoring it not because this was some cynical \u201cUnionist stunt,\u201d but because he was the only one who said,\u00a0\u201cYes, let\u2019s give people the right to get well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The irony, of course, is that the very people who now call the Bill \u201cpolitically motivated\u201d could have had their name on it from day one. They chose not to\u00a0 and then had the audacity to accuse others of playing politics.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when I realised what I was up against: not bad people, necessarily, but a political culture that fears change more than it fears failure.<\/p>\n

In Scotland, failure is comfortable. It\u2019s managed. It\u2019s budgeted for. And when you dare to disrupt that equilibrium, you\u2019re not met with debate you\u2019re met with dismissal.<\/p>\n

That was the start of the education I never asked for: how politics actually works when you\u2019re not part of the club.<\/p>\n

The System Fights Back<\/strong><\/p>\n

Once the Bill was lodged, the machine started moving\u00a0 not to help, but to contain.<\/p>\n

From the outside, the Scottish Parliament\u2019s committee process looks democratic: open calls for evidence, public sessions, expert witnesses, lively debate. Inside, it\u2019s more like a polite execution.<\/p>\n

The committees decide which voices get amplified and which get ignored. The \u201cexperts\u201d invited to give evidence are often the same people who designed the current system, the one that has presided over record drug deaths for more than a decade. Imagine letting the arsonists review the fire code.<\/p>\n

We submitted written evidence from people in long-term recovery, families, and practitioners, \u00a0all saying the same thing: access to treatment in Scotland is a postcode lottery; detox and rehab are almost impossible to get; bureaucracy kills. Those voices barely made the minutes.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, every quango, government-funded \u201clived experience\u201d group, and policy contractor suddenly discovered their own \u201cconcerns.\u201d The phrasing was identical you could see the cut-and-paste marks:\u00a0\u201cuncosted,\u201d \u201cunnecessary,\u201d \u201ctoo prescriptive,\u201d \u201ca blunt instrument,\u201d \u201cpromotes abstinence over harm reduction,\u201d \u201crisks stigmatising people not ready to recover.\u201d<\/p>\n

All the buzzwords were there, polished and pre-approved. The same organisations that have presided over record deaths were suddenly worried about efficiency, flexibility, and tone. It would be funny if it weren\u2019t fatal.
Translation: it threatened their control.<\/p>\n

Then came the predictable theatre. Committee members solemnly announced that, while they \u201cfully supported the intention,\u201d they couldn\u2019t possibly endorse the Bill \u201cin its current form.\u201d That\u2019s the Scottish policy version of\u00a0\u201cbless your heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stage 2\u00a0 the very point at which a Bill is meant to be tested, amended, and improved was waved away as an inconvenience. Killing it early was tidier. It allowed everyone to look principled while ensuring nothing actually changed.<\/p>\n

The truth is, we\u2019d already exposed too much. Our evidence had begun peeling back the veneer of competence, revealing just how deeply the system had failed. They couldn\u2019t risk letting that debate reach Stage 2\u00a0 because once daylight hit those failures, there\u2019d be no putting the mask back on.<\/p>\n

They rebranded opposition as\u00a0\u201cevidence-based consensus.\u201d\u00a0The same publicly funded organisations that depend on government grants were trotted out as independent voices.<\/p>\n

This is how the system defends itself: with smiles, forms, and procedural niceties. No need for corruption when conformity does the job.<\/p>\n

And what did it reveal? That recovery, real recovery terrifies the bureaucratic class. Because recovery means independence. It means people who no longer depend on the system, and that\u2019s a dangerous thing for those whose livelihoods depend on managing dependency.<\/p>\n

In one sense, I can\u2019t even blame them. They\u2019re doing what systems do protecting themselves. But let\u2019s not dress it up as compassion. When you block a law that could save lives because it might inconvenience a few \u201cdelivery partners,\u201d you\u2019re not protecting democracy. You\u2019re protecting a pay cheque.<\/p>\n

The committees did their job\u00a0 not to test the Bill, but to bury it neatly.<\/p>\n

The Media: Megaphone and Maze<\/strong><\/p>\n

But Parliament wasn\u2019t the only arena where this battle played out. Outside the chamber, another machine was spinning its own version of events, the media.<\/p>\n

For most of this journey, the press were with us. Many journalists amplified the voices of families and people in recovery with care and courage. They gave space to the simple truth at the heart of the Bill, that treatment should be a right, not a raffle, \u00a0and they did it without sensationalising grief. I\u2019m grateful for that. It mattered.<\/p>\n

But the media is also a maze. Alongside principled reporting, there were outlets and commentators playing their own political games: framing stories to wound opponents, trimming nuance to fit a tribal script, lifting lines out of context to feed the 24-hour outrage cycle. Anonymous briefings from government and its satellites were recycled as \u201cbalance.\u201d Leaks appeared to shape committee mood. Headlines sometimes arrived before facts.<\/p>\n

We tried to walk through that pool with grace and awareness. A few simple rules guided us:<\/p>\n