DRUG laws should be relaxed to allow a safe injecting room in Glasgow to go ahead, according to a city MSP.

Heath officials in the city had wanted to set up a Safe Drugs Consumption Facility for addicts in what would have been a UK first.

However the Lord Advocate refused to change prosecution policy to grant permission for a tolerance zone which would allow streets drugs to be brought onto the premises.

MPs debated the issue of safe injection rooms at Westminster with calls for drug laws to be devolved to Holyrood but initially for the UK Government to relax the rules to allow the project to go ahead.

Alsion Thewliss, Glasgow Central SNP MP, whose constituency the facility would have been set up in, said she backed the plan which she said would save lives.

She said public injecting was casue problems for addicts and communities and the safe space would help both.

MS Thewliss said: “I can attest to the fact that Glasgow has a growing problem with respect to public injecting; my constituency office often receives reports of needles and other drug paraphernalia being discarded in public places.

“In addition, I have seen for myself public injecting taking place in locations not far from where my office is located.”

She said cases of HIV were on the rise from 47 in 2015 compared to an annual average of 10.

MPs were told there were estimated to be around 500 addicts regularly injecting drugs in public in Glasgow City Centre.

With drug law reserved to Westminster the UK Government would need to approve proposal to relax the law to allow drugs to be taken in the centre.

Ms Thewliss added: “It is imperative that the Home Office consider this request which has cross-party support from a number of Scottish MPs to allow an SDCF to be trialled in Glasgow.

“This issue has become a serious public health issue, and it is our collective responsibility to ensure that we do what we can to improve the situation not just for drug users, but for the wider public in general.”

No site had been officially identified for the project which was hoped would have been open to addicts this year before it ran into difficulties.

Glasgow Health and Social Care Partnership had brought forward the plans for the injecting rooms which would also have had a Heroin Assisted Treatment facility where medical heroin would have been prescribed to a small number of heroin users.

The Lord Advocate said the HAT could have gone ahead without any change in the law but health officials behind the plans said it needed the whole scheme to be approved for it to be effective.