Knife Crime

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, on enabling us to debate this pressing issue. I should declare my interest as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Drug Policy Reform, because that is the subject to which I wish to refer.

Perhaps the most devastating of the many statistics included in the first House of Lords Library briefing is the fact that the number of under-16s admitted to hospital has increased by 93% since 2012. The Government are clearly worried about that figure and have introduced a wide range of initiatives. The Home Secretary clearly realises that drugs are at the heart of this problem and has launched a review of the illegal drugs market led by Dame Carol Black. Tragically, her review was castrated before it began because she was explicitly prevented from looking at drug law. Without reform of our drug laws it is difficult to imagine that this problem can be solved. The Government will struggle uphill all the way because they have a deep problem right at the centre of everything.

Of course there are very important remedial measures which Dame Carol Black will consider, such as the need to reverse the cuts to drug treatment services and the swingeing cuts to local authority budgets which have led to the closure of youth services, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, outlined so strongly. These services offered activity, support and just a little bit of hope to these very vulnerable people. I have not seen any mention of the need to restore the budgets of schools to enable them to re-employ class assistants and others to work with vulnerable children. I heard only this morning that a school has had to cut out completely its volunteer programme. It must cost thruppence-ha’penny—almost nothing—yet it has had to destroy that volunteer programme to try to make ends meet. Class assistants and volunteers work with the most vulnerable children who have behaviour problems. Without that support those children are excluded from school, and we have heard appalling numbers about exclusions over the past 10 years or so. Alongside these policy disasters, which urgently need to be reviewed, are the cuts to the benefits budget which have left youngsters looking for some money somewhere, and it does not take them long to find illegal drug dealers—a veritable gold mine, if you are prepared to take a bit of a risk.

The Children’s Society report on knife crime points to another policy needing revision, knife crime prevention orders. Branded as preventive, these orders are in fact targeted at children who may be the victims of exploitation. As the right reverend Prelate noted, the society rightly points out that any child found carrying a knife should immediately prompt a safeguarding response. Does the Minister accept that important recommendation? The Children’s Society’s concerns mirror those expressed in this Chamber when the Bill was going through. The orders risk criminalising young people and pushing them further from support rather than the other way round. Does the Minister accept that analysis and the need to revisit that legislation, or at least the regulations within it?

Even with those policy changes, if they occur, the Government will be working uphill, as I have said, unless they are willing to look at the evidence of the relationship between our drug prohibition laws and knife crime and many other societal problems, although today of course we are concerned with knife crime.

I hope that noble Lords will bear with me if I spend a couple of minutes explaining why I have fairly recently come to the view that the legalisation of cannabis for adult social use would do more to deal with knife crime than any other initiative. The Government seem to accept that most knife crime occurs because youngsters are caught up in drug gangs or carry knives in case they are attacked by a gang wanting to recruit them. The demand for cannabis is on a different scale from the demand for any other drug, so what would a legal cannabis market look like? The legal cannabis would be a well-balanced, uncontaminated product. Good up-to-date research has shown that that sort of product has no risk of causing psychosis. There has been a lot of publicity about cannabis causing psychosis, but it absolutely does not. The illegal stuff does but a legal product would not.

The only other possible risk from cannabis is of inhibiting brain development in children. If legalisation led to more children taking cannabis, I would not support it, but the US evidence suggests that that is simply not the case. In Colorado, the use of cannabis by teenagers has fallen, and in the other legalising states it has remained much the same as it was before the change in the law.

If the supply of safe cannabis were regulated and available only in pharmacies or other legal outlets, the illegal market would largely collapse. Yes, skunk would continue to be available from the drug dealers, but if young people could buy legal cannabis safely from somewhere else, children would not find their way to the illegal drug dealers. No doubt children would get hold of the legal product—they get hold of alcohol, after all—but it would be considerably safer than what they take at the moment. The important point is that the cannabis they got hold of would not be skunk. That is crucial. Skunk is horrible, dangerous stuff. What about class A drugs? We do not know the proportion of cannabis users who move on to class A drugs but we know that the gateway effect is crucial. This would end. There would be separate markets for legal cannabis and illegal drugs.

I realise that the Minister cannot respond to any of those comments until we get a new Home Secretary but, if and when we do, I hope that I can have a discussion with him about the possibility of revisiting the terms of reference of Dame Carol Black’s review.

Refugees

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

Our view is that elongating the move-on period does not necessarily solve the problem. What has been shown to be very effective is when the refugee is contacted right at the beginning of that period, so that the process of accessing universal credit or housing or other services can begin straightaway. Indeed, for universal credit, advance payments can be made ahead of 35 days.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, noble Lords will know that most asylum seekers are not permitted to work during the period awaiting the decision on their application. They will have received just £37.70 per week from the Home Office. They are therefore absolutely without money when the decision finally comes through. Homelessness and destitution seem almost unavoidable in that situation. They have no chance of obtaining rented accommodation. Does the Minister accept that there really is a need for urgent steps if we are to eliminate destitution, particularly among this group? Will she take back to the department the need to allow asylum seekers to work during the period of waiting for their decision?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Baroness highlights the complex arguments around permitting asylum seekers to work, which the Government are certainly listening to very carefully. But it is also important to distinguish between those who need protection and those who are actually seeking to work here, who can apply for a work visa under the Immigration Rules.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Tuesday 26th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elton (Con)]

My Lords, I too want to say something controversial, which I think the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, will find more controversial than most. I was convinced, 35 years ago, on incontrovertible evidence, that a course of non-custodial treatment was more effective than a custodial sentence in curing people of crime. The people in question were young people, and since then I have devoted a great deal of my life to trying to stop young people getting into crime. For three years I was in charge of the Prison Service, and nothing that I saw there changed my mind. Thereafter, I became chairman of the National Fund for Intermediate Treatment, the function of which was to provide excellent treatment in the community for offenders, which was monitored. When government funding was withdrawn, I founded a charity to do the same thing.

Non-custodial treatment must be done properly—it is not about turning up and ticking in a book or sweeping the street; what you need is an experience that the young person has not had before. In a frighteningly high percentage of cases, what these courses—or whatever you like to call them—provide is the first experience a young person has of an adult who actually cares what they are doing and what they are doing with their lives, and that has an electric effect. It cannot be produced in custody. It can be produced in outward bound programmes, in a jazz band or in whitewater rafting. It depends on the adult and young person’s relationship. It works, it is far cheaper than custody and far more effective. I echo the words of the Secretary of State for Justice in support, which are powerful evidence:

“Why would we spend taxpayers’ money doing what we know does not work, and indeed, that makes us less safe?”


That is what is being advocated. I do not often fall in step with noble Lords sitting on the Benches opposite, but on this occasion, my lifetime’s experience means that I have to support them.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I support these amendments. The one thing we know about short sentences is that people do not receive any education, training, therapy—anything at all, in fact, because, well, they are not there long enough to benefit. Therefore, as the noble Lord said, why on earth do we spend all this money only to create hardened criminals? I very strongly support these amendments.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I too support the amendments. I was at the speech given by the Secretary of State for Justice last Monday, in which he said that in the last five years, there have been just over 250,000 custodial sentences of six months or less, and over 300,000 of 12 months or less. He went on to say that nearly two-thirds of the offenders had gone on to commit further crime within a year of being released. He also said that the Government were now taking a more punitive approach than at any time during the Thatcher years, which I thought was a strange admission from him. I wrote to him pointing out that this Bill appears to be him against the Home Secretary, and he replied today that “work in the area will require careful collaboration with other government departments to ensure a consistent approach to sentencing reform which reflects my ambitions and, most importantly, keeps the public safe”.

Everything has been said about the growing body of evidence that diverting children away from the formal justice system is more effective at reducing offending than punitive responses, and I agree very much with the noble Lord, Lord Elton, on that. I also deplore the removing of judicial discretion, which works against the Sentencing Council’s guidelines. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child resolved that the interests of the children must be placed first. Mandatory short prison sentences have been proved to be ineffective—I have seen them to be ineffective—because, as the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, said, there is nothing happening in any young offender institution which is worth the while, and if people are there for a short time, nobody has time to establish their needs, let alone tackle them. Therefore, I strongly support the amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hogan-Howe]

My Lords, I also spoke in Committee. I cannot agree with the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, as he is aware. I come from a similar background and do not have the same experience of anti-social behaviour orders. They were introduced by a Labour Government and, at the time, I think they had an effect. We had a moral panic, and we also had a problem with anti-social behaviour. They were intended to address repeat offenders, repeat locations and, sadly, repeat victims. They did have an effect. They probably went on a bit too long and eventually outlived their usefulness, but the principle was valid and addressed the order to people’s offending. People had the choice to address their offending pattern or have a criminal sanction, and some chose not to address their offending pattern.

The point that the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, made—that it seems to intervene with young people who may not be able to remember all of the conditions placed on them—is not unreasonable. However, generally, this order’s aim is to replace the parental care that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, referred to earlier. When some of these kids do not have someone who cares enough to say, “That’s a line—don’t cross it”, this is one way to give them some advice. I do not think that it means that a 12 year-old will always end up with a prison sentence or even a criminal conviction, but someone needs to intervene in that pattern. Why are they getting involved with gangs and, frankly, mixing with people who are not helping them? Someone needs to advise them where they should not go, who they should not see and about the types of behaviour that are causing them problems. This is one way of doing it. I accept that there may be others, but I do not think that it is unreasonable to give that type of advice.

I broadly support these orders, mainly because we have a serious problem. The Minister went through the number of people who have been hurt and arrested carrying knives, and we clearly have a cultural problem at the moment. We have had it in previous years—this is not the first time. People in this Chamber will remember tens of years ago, when various groups who carried knives ended up competing with each other, often to sell drugs or for any other form of territory where a weapon became the means of establishing it. We have to intervene now and send a message.

I will contest one final point from the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, about whether community officers are there to arrest people. They are not, but in my view they are not there just to smile and be nice to people. They have powers. It does not help the community they serve if they ignore offences and leave someone else to make the arrest. They are there to exercise the powers that allow people to trust that it is worth telling them when an offence has been committed.

I would ask the Government still to consider two areas for the future. I agree with the point about pilots. At one time, the Ministry of Justice had so many pilots that we thought it was starting an airline. The danger is that, after a while, it becomes confusing. It also becomes quite difficult to evaluate the success of multiple pilots; so, I worry about pilots generically.

The second point, which the Minister quietly mentioned earlier, is that some people are released from prison to areas other than those where they were convicted. Also, offenders move from where they live to other areas around the country, which means that officers in areas where a pilot may not be in place would have to understand what the powers are; frankly, that could get pretty confusing. This House and the other place generate a huge amount of legislation; officers are expected to remember and act on it fairly. The more legislation there is, the harder it is to enforce when it is partial and fragmented. I worry about pilots for that reason too.

On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, if we accept that there is a need for this legislation—as I do, and I am prepared to support it—deciding to implement it partially seems an odd conclusion, since we have agreed that nationally there is a problem. We need to implement legislation in a uniform rather than a fragmented, incremental way.

Finally, I repeat a point that I made in Committee: this Bill does not give a power of search. The Minister said in Committee that existing powers of search were sufficient. I honestly do not believe they are. Section 1 of the Bill gives a power to search—anybody at any time—on reasonable suspicion, but these orders are for people who have already gone through a court process, probably at least twice, and have been found to be at risk of carrying knives. It seems not unreasonable to support the police in the relatively few cases concerned, as mentioned by the Minister; I am sure that far fewer than 3,000 of these orders will be implemented. It would not be an incredible burden for the legislature to support the police by saying that a power of search goes with this power, without the “reasonable cause” that Section 1 requires; it would not be unreasonable to support the police in that way. The officers described by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, who proposed this power—which is generally supported by the police—had requested that the power of search went with it. They were disappointed when they saw that this request had not been accepted in the legislation.

I support the amendments but I suggest to the Minister that the Government consider the two issues I have mentioned: piloting and the power of search.

[Baroness Meacher]

My Lords, I rise to respond to the government amendments in this group, as well as Amendments 55 to 60 in relation to the proposed pilots of the new KCPOs. I thank the Minister for meeting me to discuss my considerable concerns about these knife crime prevention orders. Amendment 52 could provide some reassurance, but that would depend very much on how those pilots are undertaken and reported upon.

In view of the Government’s claim that these orders were wanted by the police, I asked Ron Hogg, the Police and Crime Commissioner for Durham—which is one of the top-performing constabularies in the country, according to the inspectorate—whether he and his chief constable, Mike Barton, would find KCPOs a helpful contribution to policing and dealing with knife crime. His considered response—given at some length—amounted to a resounding no.

I would be grateful if the Minister could inform the House how many police services want knife crime prevention orders and how many would prefer not to have them. Police and Crime Commissioner Hogg reiterated many of the concerns that I raised in Committee; in particular, that there is a body of evidence to show that criminalising and punitive civil deterrents have not had a significant impact on reducing youth violence. These policies, as others have mentioned, have included ASBOs, dispersal orders and criminal behaviour orders. Can the Minister confirm—this is very important—that the KCPO pilots will specifically assess, and report on, their impact on the criminalisation of children, and the impact on knife crime in the areas involved? It is no good having pilots if they do not nail down what the orders are achieving in the crucial areas.

Does the Minister accept that in the light of recent swingeing cuts to local authority youth services, and drug services in particular, it will be important to boost these services and restore those cuts in the pilot areas, with a view to rolling out that restoration of funding across the country? Only if these prevention orders really do lead to children and young people accessing the services and treatment they need will criminalisation be avoided and positive outcomes achieved.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 30th January 2019 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Baroness Meacher]

63: Clause 22, page 21, line 35, at end insert—
“(1AA) A person charged with an offence under subsection (1A) who is certified by the relevant police force as being addicted to drugs must be referred for treatment to an addiction rehabilitation service, and, if they comply with their treatment, must not be referred to court.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require those charged with the offence of carrying a flick or gravity knife who are also certified by the relevant police force as being addicted to drugs to be referred to a rehabilitation service for treatment before attending court. Charges would be dropped if they complied with their treatment.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I must first apologise to the Committee that I have been horribly absent, but there was an event in the other place that I had to attend—I will not bore your Lordships with the explanation, but there really was no option.

Amendment 63 aims to ensure that vulnerable children or young people found with an offensive weapon in a public place are assessed for addiction. So many of these vulnerable children and young people are addicted to drugs. If they are found to be so addicted, they should not be processed through the criminal justice system; rather, they should be referred to a rehabilitation service for help with their addiction and related problems. Many of them are homeless and have all sorts of mental health problems and so forth. The Government have recognised that short-term prison sentences are generally unhelpful. Re-offending rates following such sentences are very high. In the case of drug addicts, a prison sentence will generally achieve—I really mean this—absolutely nothing positive, but it is very likely to increase the vulnerability and addiction, and therefore the criminal activity of these young people.

Several noble Lords attended an interesting meeting yesterday where senior police officers and a police and crime commissioner from the West Midlands explained this. I quote one of the officers, “The police cannot reduce the illegal drugs market, however many drug dealers we arrest and imprison”. That is a powerful statement on behalf of men on the front line who deal with these things day in, day out. Those people spend their lives that way. Neil Woods, who has written two books about his time as an undercover officer arresting drug dealers over many years, explained that he came to realise that he was not achieving any reduction in the availability of drugs. He was completely wasting his life away, so he changed to a very different view about how these things should be dealt with.

The police officers also talked about how much more effective alternatives to punishment are in persuading young people to back away from the illegal drugs market. Ronnie Cowan MP talked about the work in Glasgow where young people are diverted from the criminal justice system and helped to return to a normal life. Perhaps the Minister will tell the Committee whether she is familiar with the work in Glasgow. If she is not, it may be worth her looking into it before Report.

This amendment is really important from the pure efficiency point of view on reducing addiction and crime in this context, but let us also look at it from the point of view of the children and young people involved. As I said at the beginning, a very high proportion of children found carrying a knife or another offensive weapon in a public place will be vulnerable children, who have become addicted to drugs or been targeted by the drug gangs. The Children’s Commissioner estimates that at least 46,000 children in England are involved in gang activity. It is estimated that about 4,000 teenagers in London alone are being exploited through child criminal exploitation in what has come to be known as county lines. These vulnerable children should be seen as victims of trafficking and exploitation rather than as criminals.

Gangs are deliberately targeting vulnerable children. They watch for a child walking home from school day after day alone, head down, looking miserable. These children are unsafe, unloved or unable to cope for one reason or another. Gangs take advantage of their vulnerability. They threaten or trick children into trafficking their drugs for them. They may threaten a young person physically or threaten a family member. They often offer food, which the child or family may desperately need, alcohol or clothing to the child or their family in return for co-operation.

Once children have received gifts, they feel indebted to the gang. They quickly feel they have no option but to continue. As many noble Lords will know perfectly well, the gangs use these vulnerable children to store their drugs and to move cash proceeds or the drugs themselves. No doubt they give them a knife or something else to protect themselves with. The county lines groups use high levels of violence, including the ready use of firearms, knives and other offensive weapons, to intimidate and control members of the group and its vulnerable victims. The victims are exposed to varying levels of exploitation including physical, mental and sexual harm. Some of the young people are trafficked into remote markets to work. Others are falsely imprisoned in their own homes, which have been taken over using force or coercion. I must say that I had not heard of that until I read it rather recently.

The National Crime Agency report County Lines Violence, Exploitation & Drug Supply 2017 analysed the exploitation of vulnerable people, including those with mental health or physical health problems. Sixty-five per cent of police services reported that county lines activity was linked to the exploitation of children. The police know perfectly well that we are dealing with victims here. Once involved, victims may want to get out of their situation but do not want to involve the police for fear of self-incrimination or retribution by the perpetrators. They are really caught in the middle. These victims may carry a knife or other weapon for self-protection, as I have mentioned. The real question is whether they are really criminals for carrying that knife for self-protection. Other noble Lords talked about what is in the mind. These children have got a knife not to attack others, but to protect themselves. That surely makes all the difference to one’s approach to dealing with these children.

This is a very complex problem but the courts and the prison system are not the right vehicles for dealing with victims. Yes, send the gang leaders to prison, though retraining and psychological treatment will be essential for them, too, if they are not to spend their time in prison, come out of it later and then start all over again, with just a little more bitterness added to what they already had. I hope we can have a discussion—a serious discussion—before Report about drug issues in relation to the Bill. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response and I beg to move.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendment because it advocates one public health approach, along the lines advocated in the serious violence strategy. The sad fact is, however, that too many of the intervention and preventive measures outlined in the strategy are not sufficiently resourced and may not materialise.

Last week, the drugs, alcohol and justice cross-party group that I co-chair heard about an initiative from Thames Valley Police, about which I immediately wrote to the Home Secretary, encouraging him to take an interest in it. It is a diversion scheme—modelled on the mental health diversion scheme so successfully introduced after the report by the noble Lord, Lord Bradley—requiring those found to be in possession of drugs to attend for voluntary treatment. The interesting thing was that the constables on duty in the Thames Valley streets reported that they found it extremely simple and clear to use.

As many other noble Lords have pointed out, knife carrying is a symptom of wider social issues. Many young people carry them because they fear for their lives. However, in confirmation of my warning that too many of the intervention and preventive measures outlined in the serious violence strategy are not sufficiently resourced, the Institute of Mental Health in Nottingham —I declare an interest as a member of its external advisory board—has found that only 18% of the community commissioning groups recognise that they have any responsibility for funding probation, which includes mental health and drug treatment. This emphasises the need for this significant programme of work—words used by the Home Secretary to describe the strategy—to involve a wide range of government departments, including liaison between the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Health on this issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, for affording us the opportunity to discuss her amendment and to outline the Government’s approach to tackling that combined problem of drug misuse and knives. Noble Lords will have heard the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, talking about the link between knives and the growth of the drugs market. It is absolutely right that she has tabled this amendment. I pay tribute to all the work that she has done in this area and to the work done by the charity of the noble Baroness, Lady Chisholm, to divert vulnerable women from prison.

Clause 22 prohibits the possession in public and private of flick-knives and gravity knives. A person guilty of this offence is liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months’ imprisonment, a fine or both. However, under this amendment, a person who is dependent on drugs would have charges dropped if the police refer the person to treatment and the person complies with the rehabilitation treatment. It is worth noting that Clause 25 prohibits the possession in private—the possession in public is already a criminal offence—of offensive weapons to which Section 141 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 applies, for example push daggers and zombie knives.

The aim of this amendment is that a person who is addicted to drugs would have charges for possession of a flick-knife or gravity knife, but not any other prohibited knife, dropped if the police refer such a person to treatment and the person complies with the rehabilitation treatment.

I know the noble Baroness and others are keen, as we all are, to deal with the underlying issue where offenders have a substance misuse problem. We will not break the cycle of offending unless we do just that. She and other noble Lords said that. I assure the noble Baroness that the Government are already taking action to address the links between drug misuse and offending. A key aim of the Government’s Drug Strategy 2017 is to take a much smarter approach to drug-related offending to address the drivers behind the crime and prevent further substance misuse and offending.

The police have a range of powers at their disposal to deal with drug-related offences in a way that is proportionate to the circumstances of the offender and the public interest. This includes the appropriate use of out-of-court disposals. We continue to encourage wider use of drug testing on arrest to support police forces in monitoring new patterns around drugs.

[Baroness Meacher]

The West Midlands police and crime commissioner made the point that the police do things almost outside the law, if you like, but it is quite uncomfortable. They want a change in the law to make it clear that the right thing for the police to do is to get drug-addicted young people into really good services that will move them on and get them right away from the illegal drug market. I do not think it is okay to say that the police are doing things—even though they are—because they are not really happy about it. They want the Government to lead.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

We have to get the balance right between protecting vulnerable people from becoming further involved in drugs or crime generally and criminalising some of the people who caused them to get into that life in the first place, which may involve drug abuse.

I shall outline some of the things the Government are doing, which go right to the heart of what the noble Baroness is talking about—early prevention, intervention and treatment. Noble Lords will have heard me talking about the Home Secretary’s commitment to a public health approach to drugs, taking into account all the resources that different agencies have at their disposal to tackle such problems. The noble Baroness was talking about the work in Scotland, which is very effective and very good in terms of intervention.

NHS England is rolling out liaison and diversion services across the country. They operate at police stations and courts to identify and assess people with vulnerabilities, substance misuse and mental health problems and criminality, which are quite often interlinked. They refer them into appropriate services and, where appropriate, away from the justice system altogether. If we went back 10 years, the noble Baroness could talk about the police operating aside from the law, but there is much more understanding now that early intervention and diversion are the way forward. The schemes that the NHS is currently running cover around 80% of the population in England, and we are looking to full coverage by 2021.

The Department of Health and Social Care and the Ministry of Justice are working with NHS England and Public Health England to develop the community sentence treatment requirement protocol. The protocol aims to increase the use of community sentences with drug, alcohol and mental health treatment requirements as an alternative to custody, to improve health outcomes and reduce reoffending. It sets out what is expected from all involved agencies to ensure improved access to mental health and substance misuse treatment for offenders who need it. The Department of Health is currently leading an evaluation of the implementation of the protocol across five test-bed sites to inform further development.

The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, also talked about funding. I do not know whether he knows, but a youth endowment fund of £200 million is being introduced—quite a substantial amount of money. It will run for 10 years, so it is not a short-term approach. The fund will open shortly, so I hope that alongside some of the things we are doing, it will help us in our endeavours to tackle some of the root causes with early interventions and diversions from that type of activity. I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

[The Earl of Listowel]

I shall briefly raise a matter I should have raised before. I thank the Minister for her reply, for the tone of what she said and for her recognition of the need to get to the underlying problems. I omitted to develop the concern about children and young people in care and care leavers. As the Minister will know, there is a long-standing concern about the criminalisation of young people in care and care leavers. Very few arrive into care because of criminal activity, but far too many are represented in our prisons, both as children and as adults. My noble friend Lord Laming led an inquiry into reducing the criminalisation of children, and he is concerned to see all agencies working together to keep young people—both those who have left care and those who are in it—out of the criminal justice system. What the Minister and the noble Baroness have said is helpful in this regard. But there is also a new strengthening duty on the corporate parenting responsibilities of all agencies to support young people leaving care. These are important matters to relate to this particular issue, and I thank the noble Baroness for allowing me to make those points.

[Baroness Meacher]

I thank the Minister very much for her thoughtful response, but she did not respond to my reference to Report stage or to whether we could do something to align this Bill with the Government’s thinking on people addicted to drugs who get into these awful situations with gangs. Does the Minister feel able to say something about what we might do between now and Report?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I am happy to discuss this further with the noble Baroness. She and I have had many discussions on this subject—we have not had one for a while, so perhaps it would be worth having another. Early intervention and prevention, and a multi-agency approach to assist in diverting people away from the criminal justice system, need to be balanced with the fact that there are quite hardened criminals out there involved with drugs and gangs who we need to capture via the legislation. We need to run both in parallel.

[Baroness Meacher]

I thank the Minister, and could not agree with her more. In my little remarks, I also made the point that there are such hardened criminals who are turning these young people into victims. It would be good to discuss all that before Report. On that basis, I am happy to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 63 withdrawn.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 28th January 2019 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, my noble friend and I support the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, particularly on the question of the clause standing part. I am conscious of progress in the Chamber, so I will not say as much as I might otherwise have done. It looks like some negotiations are going on. We have a number of other amendments to these clauses as well. In addition to supporting what the noble Lord has said, I want to make clear our implacable opposition to mandatory sentences—in this case custodial ones. Judicial discretion is very important and precious in our system.

Clause 8(4) is a get-out clause, referring to having regard to the duty under the 1933 Act to have regard for the welfare of the child. I do not think this works. It was obviously a response to representations, but it applies only to children, not young adults, and seems to be a nod to that well-established provision without changing anything that surrounds it. I also have a question about the particular circumstances in Clause 8(2). I had a look at the sentencing guidelines yesterday. If that phrase originates from those guidelines then subsection (2) is actually an inversion of them. They require the court to look at the particular circumstances, but Clause 8(2) is the reverse: it is an “unless” provision. Finally, Amendment 37 deals with the appeals subsection. We have added a reference to the criteria in Clause 8(2). I am not sure whether this is appropriate technically, but perhaps we could have an explanation as to how the appeal takes into account the points made in that subsection.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I support these amendments tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Ramsbotham and Lord Paddick, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the clause stand part Motion spoken to so ably by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. The noble Lords made the case very strongly against short-term prison sentences. I want to add my voice to emphasise very strongly just how unhelpful these short-term sentences are, particularly to the very vulnerable young people who are most likely to be caught up in these offensive weapons allegations or crimes. Apart from doing nothing for those individuals, short-term sentences do absolutely nothing for society as a whole. If we do not prevent these young people committing crimes in the future, our society will be all the worse off.

Scotland has shown the way. The removal of judgment in Scotland has been proven to be more cost effective and positive when responding to people with drug and alcohol addiction and other problems often associated with the carrying of knives or corrosive substances. I believe huge proportions of these young people have drug problems. As others have mentioned, the Ministry of Justice has already produced its own evidence of the ineffectiveness of short-term imprisonment. Perhaps the Minister can explain why we are adding to these short-term sentences in this Bill.

I want to draw the Minister’s attention to the radical Checkpoint deferred prosecution scheme in Durham, run by Chief Constable Mike Barton, and very much supported by his police and crime commissioner, Ron Hogg. Checkpoint is a multi-agency initiative which aims to reduce the number of victims of crime by reducing reoffending. This is what this should all be about. The scheme targets low and medium-level offenders—it is not just for people right at the bottom—at the earliest stage of the criminal justice process and offers them a suspended prosecution. It encourages them to engage in services designed to address their problems instead of receiving a caution or going to court, which does not seem to have anything to do with where these kids or young people are coming from. Checkpoint is evaluated by Cambridge University. This is very important because the evidence on this is really very thorough and reliable.

If this amendment were to be accepted by the Government, the objective would be for the Checkpoint policy, or something like it, to be applied to children and young people who are found in possession of an offensive weapon. I know very well how utterly appalling these corrosive substances are. I happen to know a young, beautiful girl whose face has been utterly destroyed by an acid attack. The poor girl has had endless operations and she will not be the beautiful person that she was, although she will be a beautiful person inside and that is what really matters. Nevertheless, I want people to know that I really understand that these are shocking and horrible crimes. The most important thing that we can do is to cut them down, reduce them and, ideally, eliminate them. Anything that somehow does not achieve that is an utter failure, so I feel very strongly about it because we have to do something that is effective.

Checkpoint shows that it is the threat of punishment, rather than the severity of a punishment, that is cost-effective and, most importantly, effective. It argues in favour of taking a whole-person-centred approach to understand the causes of their offending and ensure that those people receive appropriate interventions to address the problems of drug dependence, debt issues or homelessness—a whole range of problems that these young, very vulnerable people face. Indeed, its figures from a random control trial—and I emphasise that it is a random control trial, not just any old tin-pot kind of study—show that reoffending is reduced by 13% if we do not send these people to custody but instead try to get them involved in help for their problems.

Its study of young offenders who have committed crimes on more than five occasions within a year is very important. You might think that these are hopeless cases and that there is no point in doing anything. This study looks at the traumatic experiences during childhood that so many of those repeat offenders have experienced. Almost all have been exposed to violence, physical harm or danger, parental offending or admissions to A&E due to physical harm or trauma. They have frequently exhibited violent behaviour or problems in school and have been excluded.

We have to ask ourselves about the effect of putting those young, very vulnerable, damaged children into custody for just another dose of punishment. They obviously need a great deal of therapeutic help and support to begin to recover from their childhood experiences. Durham Constabulary, West Midlands Police and other police services are, in my view, leading the way in exploring policies which will benefit not only the vulnerable but society as a whole by reducing reoffending and will also save vast police and prison resources, but that is not the point. This is about reducing these terrible crimes and helping the vulnerable.

I hope this legislation can be amended to ensure that it works with the grain of new, evidence-based criminal justice policy. It is interesting that police services are taking the lead in this crucial field. Of course, the police have their street-level experience; I always have great regard for the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for this reason—he knows what goes on on the street. They are saying we should not send these people to prison because they see them coming round again and again. I take this very seriously; I think we all should. I hope the Minister will discuss with us how best to amend this Bill. I very much look forward to the Minister’s reply.

Youth Crime: London

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, we have talked a lot in this place about police funding. It is important to note that public investment in policing has grown by over £1 billion from £11.9 billion in 2015-16 to £13 billion in 2018-19, including investment in counterterrorism policing, local policing and funding for national programmes. There are other funding streams, including the £175 million police transformation fund and special grants.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, in view of the IDPC report published today, which shows huge increases in the use of drugs across the globe despite harsh punishments and criminalisation, will the Minister seriously consider decriminalising the possession and use of drugs, as Portugal did very successfully more than 20 years ago? That would massively reduce youth crime and is probably the quickest and best way of doing that. It would also increase children’s recovery from drug use and enhance their ability to return to education and work.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Baroness will know that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary has no intention of decriminalising drugs, but intends to get a better understanding of who drug users are, what they take, how often they take it and so much more. He is launching a review into the market for legal drugs.

Cannabis: Medicinal Use

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

Monday 16th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

On whether no more than five people have applied, the noble Lord is absolutely right that not many people have done so. The panel as currently constituted is making those sorts of decisions on the back of some very urgent cases. Over a longer period, the ACMD will report to the Government on whether cannabis should be rescheduled. Of course, Dame Sally Davies has already made her interim pronouncement on 3 July. On the question of parents travelling abroad to get their children medicine, the noble Lord is absolutely right, and that is why the Government are doing exactly what we are doing: we do not want children to have to travel abroad with their parents and we are acting now in the best interests of those children.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I congratulate the Government on instituting these reviews, and I congratulate Professor Sally Davies, the Chief Medical Officer, for making very clear in correspondence with me that she believes that cannabis needs urgently to be rescheduled—she did not use those words, but it was very clear what she meant. In view of the clarity now that cannabis has quite remarkable medical qualities for certainly a number of people with epilepsy, severe pain and so on, is any consideration being given to moving medical cannabis from the Home Office to the Department of Health so that there is clinical leadership in the decisions on this matter?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

There is not, and that is because of some of the harms associated with drugs. Yes, Dame Sally Davies made her position quite clear, but of course we work closely with our health partners. In the last few weeks, the noble Baroness will have seen the way in which clinicians and medically based evidence were used to arrive at some of the decisions that were made.

Police and Crime Commissioners

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, along with all my colleagues, I applaud the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, for proposing this debate and winning the ballot. I fully support his position in relation to Wiltshire.

I have to confess that when police and crime commissioners were introduced, in a Bill in this House, I was highly suspicious of the whole idea, but I have come to realise that they can be—although they are not always—a force for good. Clearly, they all need to learn from the terrible situation in Wiltshire, and, indeed, the other warnings that noble Lords have given this morning. I have been particularly impressed by Ron Hogg, the PCC for the Durham constabulary. He and Mike Barton, the chief constable, have shown that a PCC can think outside the box and support his chief constable to follow sensible but radical policies. If I dare say it, I think that chief constables can be a bit conformist. I am surrounded by three former chief constables and feel a bit hemmed in here—I do not want to misbehave.

[Lord Blair of Boughton]

Whisper the next bit.

[Baroness Meacher]

I want to talk about Durham police service’s excellent drug policies—that will be no surprise to anybody—in the context of the recognition of Durham as the leading police service in this country. For three years Durham has achieved an “outstanding” rating for effectiveness in reducing crime and keeping communities safe, and Durham has the third-highest level of public confidence of all police forces. This outstanding performance has been achieved while leading the way with policies that could be described as being soft on drug users and even soft on low-level drug dealers, something I think police services generally are not keen to be reputed to support.

PCC Ron Hogg continues to call for drugs to be decriminalised, so that users will not fear being treated as criminals when considering whether to seek medical advice to help with their addiction. Portugal has proved the success of this policy over 20 years and I think we need to take it seriously. Increasingly, other PCCs are supporting the call for drug policy reform and this has to be welcomed. Durham has lots of other innovative programmes and I shall refer to just two. The Checkpoint diversion scheme has reduced reoffending by about 10%, releasing resources, of course, for more police officers. Under the Checkpoint initiative, introduced in 2015, offenders are selected for diversion to non-criminal justice interventions. The chief constable, Mike Barton, has proposed putting all drug addicts who are arrested through Checkpoint in order to stabilise their lives and get them into treatment. Even some low-level dealers and those caught up at a low level in trafficking are included in Checkpoint: this is really radical stuff, I would say. These people will have been intimidated, pressured or coerced into working for the big guys—we all know about that. This is truly humane, but again, it is a massive resources issue.

Durham’s other target for reform is long-term heroin users: it recommends heroin assisted treatment centres, pioneered very successfully in Switzerland. This programme is costly but highly cost effective. On average, heroin addicts commit 80 crimes a month, according to the Swiss research. Does not treatment, rather than locking someone up in a cell, sound like a good idea for this group? The new Home Secretary has made clear his determination to achieve reform, at least for medical cannabis. I hope our Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, will invite the Home Secretary to visit Durham police, if he has not already done so, and urge him to encourage all PCCs and their chief constables to follow Durham’s example. He could cut crime drastically and save huge resources, as well as saving lives.

Police: Firearms

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

Monday 4th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My noble friend is absolutely right: the training is crucial. These officers are experts in their field, who have to make split-second decisions in not just challenging but life-threatening situations, with a lot of people being affected should decisions go wrong. Training is absolutely crucial.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister said that the timeliness of investigations into firearms incidents is improving, but my understanding is that it is not. Will she take this matter back and perhaps leave a report in the Library about what the Government are doing to improve that timeliness?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I am certainly happy to give the noble Baroness a longer answer in writing. I will just run through some of the things we have done in recent years. The timeliness of investigations has gone down from 205 working days in the year to April 2017 to 186 working days in the year to April 2018. The IOPC has increased the number of investigations nearly sixfold since 2013-14. In addition, we have doubled the IOPC budget.

Cannabis-based Medication

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

Wednesday 21st February 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Meacher]

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will issue a special licence under Section 30 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 to enable the family of Alfie Dingley to import cannabis-based medication to treat his epilepsy.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government have a huge amount of sympathy for the rare and difficult situation that Alfie and his family are faced with. My right honourable friend the Policing Minister has undertaken to meet Alfie Dingley’s family as quickly as possible. Both he and my right honourable friend the Home Secretary want to explore every option within the current regulatory framework, including issuing a licence.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

I express my sincere thanks to the Minister for that very positive reply. I understand from it that Ministers are now united in wanting to find a legal way to support Alfie Dingley so he can receive medical cannabis in order to lead some sort of life.

I want to set out the main reasons why Ministers have to succeed in this case. The Minister knows that Alfie Dingley was suffering from a very unusual epilepsy mutation. This was causing 3,000 epileptic fits a year, 250 a month, under UK-prescribed medication which will probably lead to psychosis, damage to his internal organs and early death. Alfie Dingley and his family spent five months in the Netherlands, where Alfie was treated by a neuro-paediatrician with cannabis drugs. During that period, Alfie Dingley suffered one or possibly two seizures per month, down from 250 per month in this country.

On the legal question, the Minister knows that under Section 30 of the 1971 Act, licences can be provided.

[Noble Lords]

Too long.

[Baroness Meacher]

I express my profound thanks to the Minister and her colleagues in the other place for their absolute commitment to find a way under the law to enable this poor six year-old child to continue his life.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank the noble Baroness for her positive words acknowledging the way forward that I and other Ministers want to find for this little boy. As she said, this little boy has a very rare form of epilepsy. I am very pleased to hear that his seizures have reduced and very much look forward to a positive way forward being found.