 Rwyf arweinydd gynnwys yn ymweld gynhyrch ar ddangos gwasanaethau 461, yng ngherwys mwrodech ar LTVQ+, chi'n eu genlygu hwnnw y byddai sgwypanol yn Ysgr赤an, ac mae'n fawr i'r gweithio o amlwg sy'n ateb gyda ni i chi wrth ddoch chi'n teimlo i swyddo, i chi'n teimlo i'r hunain yr eich bob cyfynu alli. I was pleased that Scottish health action on alcohol problems reached out to me as co-convener of the LGBTI CPG to share their report a couple of months ago. It is an incredibly important publication and I have to thank Professor Carol Elmsley, Dr Elena Demova, Dr Rosalyn O'Brien, Professor Laurie Elliott, Dr Jamie Frankis and everyone else who was involved in this for their work, as well as Jane Gordon atchap for communicating with my office on the issue. LGBTQI issues are important to me both because I live them and because I feel like many others in the community that an issue for one of us is an issue for all of us. Until recently, I hadn't really thought about alcohol specifically as a queer person or known that being LGBTQI makes you more likely to drink excessively and experience alcohol harm. Alcohol has been around me growing up and I feel pressure to join in at school with folk drinking it, particularly in some circles in the highlands, including in queer cliques. Alcohol and drugs are seen as akin to a morning coffee. It is something that is a part of your day that helps you to function and makes social interactions easier. I have said to friends in conversations about dating that I feel that it is quite hard to meet people in Inverness out with pubs if you did not go to school there, but the wider issue around the LGBTI community in spaces and alcohol never really clicked for me until now. I haven't been able to shake this report since I read it. When you, as a young or newly-out queer person, try to meet others in the community, where do you go? You go to a gay bar, alcohol, a house party, free, poor alcohol, pride, novelty-shaped glitter shots and some of the most creative ways to get drunk that I've ever seen. I don't know how many of my colleagues have ever tried to enjoy a gay club sober, but let me tell you it's a very different experience and one that I won't be repeating in a hurry. Alcohol is so closely tied into queer culture that it is very difficult to avoid it, and that is before we get to the mental health aspect. It is an inescapable truth that many people are still judged, criticised or even excluded not just from social circles but from their family and their employment for being bisexual, trans or gay. I've heard people say that they have to drink before they can have sex or just so that they can live with themselves because they've internalised this idea that they are weird and they are wrong because that's been pressed on them for most of their lives. That feeling can be and is intensified when you live in a rural area or small town where it seems like everyone knows your business. From when I was a teenager to when I was elected here, I volunteered in a couple of suicide lines, chatting anonymously to people who were struggling. One of those lines was national and one focused on the highlands. It will never leave me that on the local service such a great percentage of our service users were LGBTQI. They would tell me things like, you don't get it, there's nobody else in this town who's trans, or if I tell the GP how I'm feeling they'll put me on medication and my aunt works in the chemist so everyone will know, or nobody else in my school is gay. Often I knew that wasn't true. We'd have someone else with a similar postcode just a few streets away who was saying the same things and I remember in one particular case I was lying awake hoping beyond hope that some random encounter would bring them together, that they'd be behind each other in the queue in the shop buying the same thing or reading a rainbow-coloured book near each other in the park so that they'd start to chat and learn that they didn't have to feel so abnormal and vulnerable and alone. We've come a long way in terms of acceptance but this is still a regular experience for young people who are in school right now. It isn't surprising to me reading the accounts and Shaps report that some people reported drinking more in the pandemic. It is about isolation and being queer really can make you feel isolated. LGBTQI people are not genetically programmed to drink more alcohol than our cisgender heterosexual neighbours. That is a societal problem to fix. It's vital then given that we know LGBTQI people are experiencing a particular push towards drinking alcohol at harmful levels that alcohol services are equipped to provide appropriate specific inclusive support. People often talk about inclusive language policies and efforts as if they're this nice extra that we can't really afford to do all the time because there are more important things going on and they talk about equality as if it's unimportant or given too much attention. This report which clearly shows that people in my community are far more likely to experience alcohol harm shows that it is not being given enough attention. Inclusivity is not a nice extra the emission of which is harmless. It's something that is necessary and without it people like me are being hurt or killed. It is life or death. If someone is seeking help from an alcohol service due to mental health issues which are related to their sexuality then that aspect cannot be ignored. It is key to where they are now. It's key to how they can recover and it's key to what recovery would look like for them. Queer people already learn from WhatsApp groups, online forums and whispers about the things that schools and families teach cis straight people by default. That's everything from learning how to shave to learning how to have safe sex and relationships. If alcohol services are designed for straight people and only prepared to deal with straight people or even if that's just the perception then you're immediately less likely to get queer folk through the door let alone be able to help them deal with it. I will be following up on this member's business with engagement with the Scottish Government and I'm sure that SHAP and others will continue to engage with the LGBTI CPG. There is a lot of work to be done much of it in here and a big start will be leadership in this place on equality and inclusivity. These are not scary words, they're not dangerous, they are fundamentally necessary. So I'll finish by thanking in advance my colleagues across the chamber who I know are about to contribute to this debate. Thank you for joining me this evening and for helping this Parliament to show leadership on LGBTQI issues. Thank you very much, Ms Roddick. I now call on Jamie Greene, who will be followed by Pam Duncan-Glancy for around four minutes, Mr Greene. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I thank Emma Roddick for bringing this member's debate to the chamber and also welcome her as a fellow co-convener on the Parliament's cross-party group, who I know is already making an impact. It's proof that it is a genuine cross-party group, despite our obvious political differences that we've always just had a couple of hours of that in here, that we can actually coalesce around some very important issues that affect so many people in Scottish society. I won't really, the chamber will be pleased to know, share my experiences of glitter bombs, drinks and having to spend the night in a guy club, having not had a drink. I absolutely appreciate the sentiment of that. I don't recommend it to anyone, but it does raise a much wider point and an important one, and that's the way that LGBT people use alcohol in their life. I'm going to come on to that in a second. I'd like to thank all the charities and organisations who have helped input into this debate, LGBTQI Scotland, Glasgow College of Law and University, who have done some excellent academic work on this, and also SHAP, because it was far back as 2015, SHAP identified the role that alcohol plays in so many LGBT people's lives. Sadly, very little has changed according to the statistics. Stonewall did some research of their own, recently found that a third of, for example, lesbian and bisexual women drink three times more in the week compared to heterosexual women. 42 per cent of gay and bisexual men drink three times more during the week than the general population. The national LGBT partnership also found that trans people are twice as likely to drink in a way that's potentially harmful to their health. That's why alcohol services for the LGBT community are so important, as niche as it may sound to so many. Of course, we can't have a standalone debate about the problem of alcohol in society, because that is inextricably linked to the problems of mental health. Those statistics are even more shocking than the statistics around alcohol consumption. One in 10 LGBT people in Scotland aged 18 to 24 attempted to take their own life in the year 2018-19. I don't have more up-to-date statistics. I hope that that number has come down by suspect with the pressures of the pandemic that it may not have. According to Stonewall, again, half of LGBT people in Scotland experienced depression in that same period. That number jumps up to seven and ten for trans people. One in six LGBT people in Scotland have deliberately harmed themselves, so there clearly is an existential link between alcohol consumption as a method of self-medication and coping with stress, anxiety and other mental health issues. I recently wrote in Holyrood magazine a couple of page articles about my own family's experience with alcohol and how traumatic that was. However, what I didn't share were perhaps my own experiences in that article as well. The question really is why. What are you building the wall around yourself with and why? The with is the alcohol or the drug or the gambling or the self-harm, but the why is more important. In the SHAP report, I was quite struck by a comment made by one of the contributors. It just said that alcohol gave me the courage to go out and just be who I wanted to be. I felt like I was under pressure to be a sort of normal person and I had to shut all that away. What is normal these days? Aren't we all normal? The problem is that the services just aren't there. Mental health services are not meeting the demands of people in Scotland. As of March, only seven out of ten people were getting mental health support within the 18-week target that the Government has. That figure drops to five in 10 in places like Dumfries and Galloway. To say that support services are universal is simply not true. It's an understatement to say that it's patchy. Arguably, it's failing. The short time that I have, the other issue that we don't have time to talk about is drug misuse. There truly is a pandemic in its own right of misuse of drugs, particularly party drugs, club drugs and drugs used in sexual activity. I think that we are fooling ourselves if we do not admit that there is a problem, specifically in the gay and bisexual community, around problematic drug use. That has to change far too many young men dying of overdoses in that community. I just want to thank Emma Roddick for bringing this very short debate to the chamber. I think that it should be the start of the conversation, not the end. I know that our cross-party group will do more on this, but I do hope that we can spend more chamber time looking into what, how and what the Government is doing. I hope that the Government has some specific plans that we will hear and sum them up by the minister on this. I would like to thank all members from across the chamber, wherever they identify themselves, for sitting in today's debate and understanding the importance of it. I thank Emma Roddick for bringing it to the chamber and for her characteristically outstanding speech. I welcome the report by researchers at Glasgow Caledonia University and thank those who are involved in carrying out such important work. I also want to pay tribute to LGBT Youth Scotland for its report on life in Scotland for LGBT young people, a vitally important piece of research. Sadly, both reports highlight that the rights of LGBT people in Scotland are not being fully realised and in many cases things have actually moved backwards. There is still much to do if we want to meet our aspiration of ensuring that Scotland is the best place in the world to grow up and live in for everyone. LGBT Youth Scotland's survey found that, overall, the percentage of LGBT young people rating Scotland as a good place to be LGBT plus has fallen in the past five years, from 81 per cent in 2017 to 65 per cent in 2022. That fact makes for very sad reading. The debate today focuses particularly on LGBT people's experience of alcohol services, and the report referenced makes clear that those services are simply not meeting their needs right now. We have heard from others so far in this debate about that. Deputy Presiding Officer, in Scotland in 2022, too many people still feel shame, stigma and rejection because of their sexual orientation or gender identity—an unacceptable situation, not only because no one should feel any of those things for being lesbian, gay, bisexual or trans—but because we all know that stigma, shame and rejection have a detrimental impact on mental health and wellbeing and can lead to excessive drug and alcohol use. The link between alcohol and drug use and the shame felt by LGBT people is deeply worrying, so, too, is the likelihood that that shame can also come as a result of substance abuse, so we must do all we can to address both of those. That starts by recognising that tackling substance use must come hand in hand with reducing the negative experiences and discrimination that LGBT people face in Scotland. Trans people in particular face stigma and hostility, which we have seen being exacerbated by a vacuum left around the forthcoming legislation on the Gender Recognition Act. I am proud of the way that most members across this chamber have handled that bill in recent weeks, though, and believe that we have a duty to continue that respectful tone and seek to remove the hostility and abuse towards trans people that has been stoked up in recent years. As legislators, we have responsibility to ensure that we do all we can to address stigma faced by trans people and make sure that Scotland is a place where they, too, can live equally. Believe me, we still have a long way to go to get there. The relationship between stigma, poverty and inequality has, of course, been long known, and we have heard of that so far today. They are key drivers of drug and alcohol abuse, and it does not just mean financial inequality—it is inequality in all its forms, including the inequality that is faced by LGBT people that drives minority stress and can lead to the use of harmful substances. I was pleased to see the report that marks a path to improvement, and I think that all of us in this Parliament must make a commitment to consider its recommendations and support their implementation wherever and whenever we can. Alcohol and drug abuse is a public health issue, and it must be treated as such. It damages lives, not just for those who use them, but for their families, too. My dad was an alcoholic and my best friend a drug user. I know from personal experience how hard it is to see the people you love turn to substances as coping mechanisms, and how hard it is to see them when they have nowhere to turn. We must make sure that questions about the reasons for people's substance abuse can be asked in a way that does not make service users feel uncomfortable about any of it, but we must respect people's rights to be who they are and make sure that those turning to services feel confident in their ability to do so. That means addressing the heteronormative assumptions that underpin services and tackling the concerns that exist around confidentiality and the worries that diagnosis or treatment could be negatively affected by the disclosure of sexual orientation or gender identity. That means funding services, too. We need proper investment, but we cannot do it on the cheap. That includes mental health services and a halt to attacks on budgets for the third sector, local authorities, support services and alcohol and drugs partnerships. Crucially and lastly, there must be an end to the practice of diverting drug users or people addicted to alcohol from mental health services until they have a dressed addiction, because, very often, people need both together. Colleagues, I believe that all of us here this evening have a common objective to improve the experiences of LGBT people in Scotland and ensure that they can access support services that actually meet their needs so that they can enjoy their human rights on an equal basis. I urge colleagues to work across the chamber wherever possible to achieve that. I congratulate Emma Roddick on securing her first member's debate. I must apologise for leaving early as I have an event tonight in Parliament that I am sponsoring. This debate is important and timely. As a member of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, we took evidence last week from the minister regarding Scotland and our relationship with alcohol. I specifically raised the issue of LGBTQ plus persons' experience with alcohol services at the evidence session following SHAP's submission to the committee. I also thank SHAP and LGBTQ Scotland for their hugely helpful briefings ahead of the debate. Different social groups are affected by alcohol problems in different ways and people develop negative relationships with alcohol for a number of reasons. Emma Roddick has highlighted that absolutely extremely well already, and I thank her for that. It is important that we do not generalise while someone uses alcohol, causing detriment to their health and that we need to recognise harmful use as a complex issue that requires varied responses. There is no one-size-fits-all. Our harm caused by alcohol is a very serious problem in the LGBTQ plus community. A study carried out by Alcohol Focus suggests that up to 25 per cent of the general LGBTQ plus community has moderate alcohol dependency compared with 5 to 10 per cent of the general population. Additionally, 25 per cent of biwomen reported heavy drinking. Despite the many challenges, awareness of LGBTQ plus harm from alcohol is growing, and many treatment facilities do now tailor programmes, or at least aspects of the programmes, to meet the unique needs of LGBTQ plus individuals. That is welcome, but as SHAP points out, work must continue to ensure that our alcohol services meet the needs of the LGBTQ plus community. It is particularly important that this work is carried out quickly. A SHAP study reported that service providers assumed that all patients were heterosexual and that services and peer support groups tend not to provide a safe and welcoming space. In order to tailor services to the needs of individuals, it is important to look at why LGBTQ plus people have higher levels of alcohol dependency. One of the most important is the bigotry that the LGBTQ plus community faces on a daily basis—stigma, shaman and abuse. I echo what Emma Roddick has said about people feeling abnormal, vulnerable and alone, especially during the pandemic. Of course, I will take an intervention. I agree. I think that that is all very true. One of the more difficult things is that there is the other aspect of high drinking levels in that community, and that is the social aspect. It is actually one of the few ways that people find it easier to meet fellow LGBT people. Perhaps the solution to that is to encourage different ways of fraternising, if you like, and socialising with people through shared interests groups, sport, music and other types of activities, which might give people a different environment in which to meet and socialise and make friends. Thank you, Jamie Greene, for that intervention. Yes, I agree. What we need to do is to make it easier for people to be able to identify and be able to engage in whatever activity they want to do, and we can support them. One of the things that we talk about in the health committee all the time is reducing stigma and tackling stigma. It is a huge issue that we need to address in Scotland. Again, thank you for that intervention. We know that, in rural areas such as Galloway and the Scottish Borders, that services can be harder to access. It is interesting that Emma Roddick also mentioned rural issues. Here is my ask for the minister. Can the Government commit that rural Scotland will continue to be included when improving alcohol services for LGBTQ plus people? Alcohol use has become deeply ingrained in LGBTQ plus society as a result of history, and we have spoken about that as the easier way to access. In my time when I lived in California, it was the way that people met each other, and that was acceptable. Individuals felt safe when they were in gay bars. Stonewall stated that because of that, excessive drinking has become normalised. It is important that we work to change that. The SHAP report shows that some alcohol service providers were uncomfortable discussing LGBTQ plus issues, particularly trans issues, due to lack of training. A final ask for the minister, as a former nurse educator, to what training is being provided to alcohol service providers on LGBTQ plus issues, to support people in order to achieve the best possible treatment outcomes. I thank Emma Roddick for bringing this personal debate to the chamber. Congratulations also to the team at Glasgow Caledonian University for completing such an important survey for SHAP. It is important not to brand all LGBTQI people as drinkers and to recognise that this is not a homogenous group. However, the SHAP report notes a growing body of international research suggesting that people who identify as LGBTQI are more likely to become dependent on alcohol. Members will also have noted that big-name commercial brands have supported pride, and while such corporate support for LGBTQI is equally welcome, I have some concern that those brands might be cashing in on what they know to be higher levels of alcohol consumption in this community. While alcohol plays a central role in social connections for some in this community, drinking may be a response to discrimination, family rejection or forming their identity. In the words of one of my constituents, I started to drink when I was about 16. Initially, I drank just to fit in at the weekend, normal teenage stuff. However, my drinking did become more problematic in the run-up to and after I came out as gay at 17. The single memory that led me to drinking more frequently was a teacher pulling me aside ahead of a school trip and saying to me, you'll be sharing a room with other boys, so no funny business. The event sticks in my head so vividly it made me feel isolated and ashamed of my sexuality. After this, I began to drink almost every night after school, and there were a few occasions where I drank at lunch times during a school day. There is no doubt my shame of being gay led me to drinking more heavily. I must thank him for sharing his story, which was very sad and revealing. When LGBTQI people became dependent on alcohol, as highlighted in the SHAP report, there were perceived barriers in gaining access to alcohol services. Those included the perception that services are aimed at middle-aged straight men who have been drinking for decades. For many years, the Scottish Government has invested in prevention and treatment services and has reduced the country's alcohol-related death rates. However, some thought is required to ensure that those services are more open to everyone, including minority groups. It seems that more training is required as the report found that some staff at alcohol support services were worried about getting it wrong, upsetting people when it comes to talking about sexuality or sexual orientation. With that report's recommendations, we could make a real difference to the experience of LGBTQI people and I welcome better links between alcohol and mental health services, as well as more of a focus on denormalising drinking for young people, LGBTQI people, plus all young people. It is good to see on the kinder, stronger, better website more alcohol-free social spaces for people to meet, as there is obviously a demand for this. I welcome Jamie Greene's comments in the same regard. Scotland is already leading the way as a first country in the world to embed LGBTQI inclusive education across the curriculum to help all young people to reach their full potential. We are proud to place inclusivity at the heart of what we do, so let's listen to this community and use their lived experience to improve our offering to them in terms of public services. I now call on Paul O'Kane for around four minutes, Mr O'Kane. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I begin tonight by doing what colleagues have done in thanking Emma Roddick for bringing both this motion and debates to the chamber. I also thank Jamie Greene for his contribution as a co-convener of the LGBT plus cross-party group for the work that both colleagues do on that group and, indeed, for all other colleagues who are members or support that group. I think that it does vitally important work in our Parliament in representing important issues for LGBT plus people across Scotland, done more so than the issue that we are debating this evening. I perhaps want to start also by thanking SHAP for its work, along with Glasgow Caledonian University, on their support. If I can, Deputy Presiding Officer, to plug an event that is coming up in the Parliament in June, I am delighted to be hosting SHAP and Glasgow Caledonian University to mark pride month and to give us all an opportunity to hear more about their support and to engage more fully in it, so I would welcome all colleagues to that. As we have already heard this evening, many communities in Scotland suffer from health inequalities when it comes to the overconsumption of alcohol and Scotland's LGBT plus community are among them. Evidence shows that, although alcohol-free spaces for LGBT plus people are highly valued where they do exist, alcohol still plays a central role in most LGBT plus safe spaces. We have heard from colleagues about their own experience of that, and I echo much of what has been said about that. It is so important in our times and cities to have a gay scene, community areas where there are bars and cafes and places that are safe spaces for LGBT plus people, but very often they are based around a drinking culture and alcohol, and that, for some people, can be very challenging. We need to widen those safe spaces and ensure that many of our spaces are as safe as they can be. I point to what Jamie Greene said about sports and the challenges that we know that also exist in terms of access to sports for LGBT plus people. Historically, many people have not engaged in sports and find it difficult to do so. We know that LEAP sports and others are doing a huge job of work to try and make sport more accessible for people to ensure that they are welcomed there. We know that the SHAP research points to challenges with LGBT plus people accessing alcohol support services because of misconceptions embedded within those services regarding the sexuality or gender identity of their service users. Indeed, very often people's sexuality or gender identity is misunderstood in terms of how it influences wider relationships with alcohol. We have made great strides in Scotland when it comes to protecting the rights of LGBT plus people and amplifying voices, but it is clear that we still have a lot of work to do. The threat and reality of discrimination can have a devastating impact on wellbeing, contributing to the reality that LGBT plus people are particularly vulnerable to experiencing poor mental health, and I think we have heard from colleagues particularly Pam Duncan-Glanty this evening about the work of LGBT youth Scotland in that regard and evidencing some of that in their recent work. Testimony show that mainstream health services are not always inclusive. We see that the LGBT plus community is not just more likely to struggle with mental health issues and alcohol misuse, but they are indeed less likely to receive the support that they need when they do. The Glasgow Caledonian University report displays concerns from the LGBT plus community that alcohol services are often intimidating, orientated towards white straight men, and that support groups are not, in fact, gay friendly. We all have a right to support, and it is therefore vital that those rights are accessible to everyone across all communities, especially to marginalised groups such as LGBT plus people. Going forward, we must commit to the provision of additional alcohol-free spaces within the LGBT community and more widely. We must provide spaces where people can express themselves and unite free from alcohol as if that is what they choose to do. It is a key step towards improving isolation and providing social support, and something that I think is particularly important for people who are under 18. I think that we would all want to try and engage with LGBT youth Scotland and others to look at those issues in particular. In concluding, I thank Emma Roddick once again for bringing this timely debate. I urge all colleagues to attend the event with Shab in June, and I will leave my comments there. I thank Emma Roddick for lodging this motion and to offer my thanks to all members who have taken part in discussing what we can all agree is a really important issue. I welcome the opportunity to respond on behalf of the Government. I also extend my thanks to the researchers at Glasgow Caledonian University and to those who took the time to share their experiences with them. The results tell us that we must empower LGBT plus people to seek treatment for their alcohol use when it is needed. I must admit that I myself had not particularly made the link between the LGBT plus community and the alcohol culture, but, as soon as it is pointed out to you, the link is very clear that a group of people who have been so pushed to the outskirts of society for so long and who have found gay bars and gay clubs a safe space in which to be themselves and in which to socialise, undoubtedly it has become an integral part of the culture. It is vital that the experience they receive when seeking treatment should be non-judgmental and person-centred. On that note, I was going to mention just a way aside about the work that went in with NHS Scotland boards to launch the NHS Scotland pride badge, which I am not sure whether Emma Roddick is aware or other members of the chamber are aware, has a wee link with the Highlands because it was developed by a periodist in their working in London, Mike Facher, who is from Inverness. The NHS Scotland pride badge showcases our commitment to foster an environment that is open, tolerant and inclusive for all. Racism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia—any form of bigotry—has absolutely no place in our NHS and our health system is based on the core values of care, compassion, openness, honesty, dignity and respect for everyone. I am delighted that that badge launched in June 2021 to coincide with Pride Month in Scotland. It encourages open and constructive conversations on difficult issues pertaining to ethnicity, age, sex and sexuality. That is a useful tool in our NHS. It is vital that the experience that people receive when they seek treatment should be non-judgmental and person-centred. As I said, we set out a national mission to improve lives and save lives at the core of which is ensuring that every individual, no matter what their sexual or gender identity, should be able to access the treatment and recovery that they need. An increased investment from the national mission on tackling drug-related deaths has been used by alcohol and drug partnerships across Scotland to support people facing problems because of alcohol and drug use. However, more can and must be done to get people into appropriate treatment quicker in order to reduce harms and to help with recovery. There should be no shame or stigma in reaching out for support and the voices of those with lived and living experience are critical to this process. I forgot to make a plug in my speech. There is always a plug, is not there? For organisations like the LGBT Foundation, even talk to Frank have a dedicated LGBT service and others, but that is fine if they are aimed at that community. My question is what happens when people interact with regular public services. Is there any perceived conflict that maybe perhaps medical professionals or service providers, who have quite a mixed view on this reading the report, should not be asking those types of questions? Is it appropriate to ask someone who comes asking for alcohol support if they are LGBT plus, for example? I am not going to give a clinical opinion during this debate, but let me say that I am very clear that our services need to be open and welcoming to all. It is absolutely vital and life-saving that they are. There are many communities. When we talked at committee last week about some of the health inequalities experiences that Shaff have done and another brilliant piece of work on people living in socioeconomic deprivation, Paul O'Kane mentioned that people regularly say that these alcohol services appear to be targeted at middle-aged men. Women feel excluded from them, so we want services that are open and welcoming to all, and we want people who need help to be able to ask for it easily and to get help easily. We are working with the UK Government and the other devolved Administrations on reviewing and updating clinical guidelines for alcohol treatment, and that guidance will look to introduce new approaches on treatment and support the development of alcohol specific treatment targets. We are working with Public Health Scotland on reviewing the evidence on the current delivery of alcohol brief interventions. That works at its early stages, but it is critical to ensuring that alcohol brief interventions are as effective as possible. We are also exploring the evidence around managed alcohol programmes, and we are delighted to be able to contribute to the running of the model piloted in Glasgow by the Simon community and its evaluation, and that is another community that is often missed out in terms of targeting our services. Many of the recommendations made in the report are for alcohol service providers, and I would absolutely encourage them to act on them to ensure that their services are as inclusive as possible. Like Eveline Tweed, I note that the report discusses the harmful impact of targeted marketing of the LGBT plus community. We know that there is a direct link between exposure to alcohol marketing and consumption of alcohol, and I personally find this deeply troubling, and I am determined to cut down on the volume of alcohol advertising and promotion that young people in particular see and to reduce the appeal that alcohol has to them. That is why we are planning on consulting on a range of new measures to restrict alcohol advertising and promotion in Scotland in the autumn, and that consultation will be vital in helping us to consider whether new legislation is needed. The Government's long-term goal is to create a Scotland where everyone can flourish and improving health and reducing health inequalities is vital if we are going to achieve that. Unfortunately, we know that the pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing inequality in society and has a big impact on mental health in some groups, including the LGBT plus community. That is why the mental health transition and recovery plan commits to making the mental health of those groups a priority, including better understanding and responding to the needs of the LGBT plus community. I absolutely agree with Pam Duncan-Glancy that, for many people, the twin issues of alcohol and mental health are so closely intertwined that it is impossible to treat one without the other, so we are well aware that people need person-centred and holistic care to recover, and I and Angela Constance are working to deliver that. In doing so, can the minister commit to looking at the practice of people attending mental health services having used substances at the time and if there is another option from diverting them completely out of it, but on to a different path so that they do not leave the services? Certainly, we are more than happy to look at that. If you want to write to me with specific incidences, I am more than happy to pick that up with you, and I know that Angela Constance is also working in that area, too. We need to create the conditions that nurture health and wellbeing, and that responsibility needs to be shared widely across many organisations, many sectors, communities and individuals, and the potential impact of that combined talent, expertise and commitment is huge. We work with a range of third sector organisations, including the registered charity Stonewall Scotland, to ensure that the voices of those with lived experience can help to shape policy and practice to improve outcomes for LGBT plus communities. I will pick up on a couple of issues that Emma Harper raised. We have staff training for NHS colleagues to address any issues that they might have in terms of equality, diversity and inclusion, and we are more than happy to promote that further. The final question that she had was about rural areas. Of course, like Emma Harper and Emma Roddick, I am also from a rural area. I recognise the challenges, both in delivering services in rural areas but also the challenges in finding alternative ways to socialise them through alcohol, and I am determined to make progress on that issue in tackling our long-term relationship with alcohol that we have in Scotland. I am under absolutely no illusions about the enormity of this task, but by continuing to work together, learning from our recent experiences, building on our successes, I am confident that we can make lasting changes that reduce alcohol consumption and its associated risks and which will improve the health and wellbeing of absolutely everyone in Scotland. Thank you. Thank you very much, minister. That concludes the debate, and I close this meeting of parliament.