Substance misuse is an issue that takes its toll on individuals, on families and on communities across Wales. It affects the health of those who misuse substances—or worse, of course: the number of deaths in Wales as a result of drug misuse has trebled in 20 years. There’s also an effect on the economy, of course, in terms of loss of income for individuals and businesses through employee absence. The burden on the NHS is a heavy one evidently, but also for social services and the criminal justice system. And local authorities, through their cleaning work every Sunday morning if nothing else, also shoulder a very heavy financial burden.

Compare and contrast that cost with those who profit, be they those who sell drugs illegally or, more out in the open, if you will, the drinks industry, which is a lobby trying to persuade Government not to take steps to tackle misuse by setting a minimum unit price for alcohol, for example. Even though this lobby has succeeded in persuading some political parties in the Siambr, we must not shift our focus from the need to tackle substance misuse.

Many initiatives have been put forward by the Government on this issue, of course, but we must evaluate their success against the results, against what has been achieved. Unfortunately, the mortality rates as a result of alcohol misuse have remained the same for a decade. There has been an increase in the number of deaths due to drug misuse. We heard a number of figures quoted by Mark Isherwood. It’s worse in some areas than others. I was reading an article in the ‘South Wales Evening Post’ published over the weekend raising concerns about the situation in that particular city. So, the facts show us, certainly in terms of preventing loss of life, which has to be a priority, that the previous strategy has failed and that it therefore needs to be updated.

Why are we failing to make progress on this issue? The lack of full powers with regard to alcohol is certainly one barrier. We in Wales cannot put a series of measures in place, such as setting a minimum unit price, preventing advertising or changing the drink-drive limit, for example, as a strategic effort across Government to tackle that problem.

The Welsh Government’s leadership has not been sufficiently robust in implementing strategies. Provision has varied too much from area to area, especially in terms of residential services, services exclusively for women and so on. These are not just Plaid Cymru’s findings either—I remind you of that; these are the findings of the previous health committee too. So, I’m very pleased that that committee’s recommendations have been accepted by the Welsh Government and that the recommendations have at least influenced this new scheme that we have before us.

I have a few comments and questions on the scheme, the first of which echoes what we heard from Mark Isherwood. The scheme involves an intention to map substance misuse services, but it doesn’t mention residential services specifically. So, will the Minister please give an assurance that the mapping process will include this and make a commitment to fill the gaps that exist in terms of service provision at present? The scheme mentions, and indeed boasts about, spending around £50 million annually on substance misuse services, but given the size of the problem and the implications for public spending on other services from not tackling the problem, does the Minister genuinely feel that that amount is sufficient to lead to the decrease in drug misuse that we all wish to see?

Even though I welcome the fact that the action plan puts forward indicators to measure success or failure, I would have wished to see greater detail in terms of targets, for example. There is no intention to state how quickly we should see improvement and no dates set for hitting targets. We would want to see more specific targets and timetables in place, and I would welcome the Minister’s comments on that.

Finally, we note that the scheme fails to mention the need to ensure that more powers are available to the Welsh Government to develop a more holistic scheme—the lack of powers that I referred to earlier. Where there is clear evidence that the weak devolution settlement that we have harms the people of Wales physically—the previous health committee agrees with this, by the way—then we in Plaid Cymru strongly believe that it should be the Welsh Government’s duty to press for the powers that we need—to demonstrate the limits of the current settlement and draw attention to the true costs to the living standards of our citizens, as well as the financial cost, of poor devolution. It is worth noting, of course, that we’re having this debate here today, the day after the House of Commons failed to take the opportunity to strengthen the settlement in a genuinely meaningful way with the new Wales Bill.

The Plaid Cymru manifesto earlier this year contained a commitment to establish a network of residential centres for those who misuse alcohol and drugs, more training for NHS staff and a minimum unit price. You can rest assured that Plaid Cymru would not tolerate a poor devolution settlement and we will always campaign to ensure that Wales receives the powers it needs to deal with important issues such as drug misuse. Of course, we will—