Holyrood · Drugs and recovery
Right to recovery back on the table as Reform wins its first Holyrood amendment
MSPs have backed Thomas Kerr’s call for the right to recovery to be considered in Scotland’s response to drug deaths. It is the first amendment Reform UK Scotland has passed at the Scottish Parliament.
The Scottish Parliament has passed an amendment from Reform UK Scotland Deputy Leader and Glasgow MSP Thomas Kerr that puts the right to recovery back at the heart of the debate on drug deaths. It is the first amendment Reform UK Scotland has passed at Holyrood, and it was won on an issue that has scarred the working-class communities Kerr represents.
Kerr lodged the amendment to the Scottish Government’s own motion, Strengthening Scotland’s Public Health Approach to Preventing Alcohol and Drug Deaths, tabled by Alcohol and Drugs Minister Maree Todd. It adds three points. It notes that, on National Records of Scotland figures, the drug-misuse death rate in the most deprived areas is more than ten times that in the least deprived. It treats this as evidence that working-class communities bear a disproportionate share of drug-related harm. And it agrees that the right to recovery must be considered as part of the effort to tackle substance abuse.
The amendment was agreed on 29 October by 36 votes to 18, with 59 abstentions. All 14 Reform MSPs voted for it. Not a single SNP or Green MSP did: most abstained, including Ms Todd herself.
“I am delighted that the Scottish Parliament heeded my call for tackling the devastation of drug deaths in working class communities by passing my motion.
This is personal for me. I have seen first-hand what drug addiction does to families.
Drugs have devastated Scotland’s working class communities and progress so far has been slow and ineffective.
The reintroduction of right to recovery gives people trapped in addiction a real route out and could extend the lives of many more.
Passing this amendment sends a clear signal that nothing should be off the table when it comes to tackling the scourge of addiction.”
What the right to recovery means
The right to recovery is a simple principle: anyone trapped in drug or alcohol addiction should be guaranteed a route into the treatment they need, including residential rehabilitation, rather than depending on whatever their local service happens to offer that year.
It is not a new idea at Holyrood. In the last Parliament, the Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill would have written that guarantee into law. On 9 October 2025, SNP and Green MSPs voted it down at its first stage by 63 votes to 52, killing it before the session ended. Kerr’s amendment brings the principle back before Parliament, and this time it has passed.
Why it matters
Scotland still has the highest drug-death rate in Europe. National Records of Scotland recorded 1,133 drug-use deaths in 2025, up 11 per cent on the year before, and the toll falls hardest on the communities with the least. More than five years after the SNP launched its National Mission on drugs, the deaths have not come down in the way ministers promised.
The amendment does not, by itself, create a legal right to treatment. What it does is put the Parliament on record, inside the Government’s own motion, as agreeing that the right to recovery must be part of the answer. After years of slow progress, that is a marker the Government cannot quietly ignore. As Kerr put it, nothing should be off the table.
Reform UK Scotland
Scotland needs reform, and Reform UK needs you
Join, volunteer, stand, or back your local branch.
