§ Lord James Douglas-Hamiltonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many deaths attributable to glue sniffing or solvent abuse there have been in Scotland over each of the last 10 years; and how many there have been in 1983 to date.
§ Mr. John MacKayI regret that information for the years prior to 1976 is not available. Information for 1976 to date is shown in the following table:
Death from solvent abuse in Scotland 1976 to 1983* 1976 1 1977 2 1978 2 1979 2 1980 3 1981 9 1982 14 1983 7 * Provisional figures to 22 October 1983.
§ Lord James Douglas-Hamiltonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many young persons have been referred to Children's Panels in connection with solvent abuse since the passage of the Solvent Abuse (Scotland) Act.
§ Mr. John MacKayThe Act came into effect less than four months ago, on 13 July, and detailed statistics are not yet available. I understand that more than 100 referrals to reporters have been made under the new ground; it is not possible to say at this stage what proportion of these were referred by reporters to children's hearings.