Last week brought statistics long awaited by politicians, healthcare professionals and those blighted by drug addiction.

The National Records of Scotland revealed that the number of people dying due to drug misuse fell by 279 compared with 2021, the lowest figure since 2017.

Although the drop is welcome, I’m acutely aware of two decades of unremitting challenge, with nearly four times as many deaths in 2022 as in 2000 – 2.7 times higher than the UK as a whole.

The East Lothian Health and Social Care Partnership Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (2022) reported that drugs deaths had climbed in the county since 2006 but were, in recent years, lower than the Scottish average.

Demographic statistics show that inhabitants of most-deprived areas are more likely to die from both drugs and alcohol misuse than those in least-deprived areas.

The latest figures on alcohol deaths, released this week, show there’s no room for complacency.

My personal priority is the eradication of poverty, a goal that demands treating alcohol and drug misuse as health emergencies. Tackling both effectively will reduce social ills, enabling East Lothian to thrive fully and equally.

The continuing damaging saga of late ferry deliveries doesn’t impact East Lothian directly, but all are aware of the widely criticised delays.

Few might know, however, that in 2022 Caledonian MacBrayne (CalMac) carried over 4.9 million passengers, equivalent to the entire adult population of Scotland travelling by ferry, and boarded over 1.4 million vehicles, enabling people to work, run businesses, travel for leisure, and contribute to the islands’ economies.

Scotland’s mainland peninsula sits within an extensive archipelago accessed by ferry, which reinforces a European identity that Scotland shares not only with our Scandinavian neighbours but also with Greece and the Spanish islands. Like them, we need all ferry routes to function effectively.

I am pleased that the National Museums of Scotland is returning a 36ft-high totem pole, seen by many on school or family museum visits, to the Nisga’a nation, one of Canada’s First Nations.

I’m confident that an independent Scotland would continue to fulfil its duty, implementing an ethical, responsible, and well-informed cultural heritage policy, and not perpetuate the British Museum’s mistaken claim that London is innately “safer” for cultural artefacts, irrespective of origin.