Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Debate between Baroness Meacher and Baroness Hamwee

Committee stage
Monday 12th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, that may be so, but I think that the point I have made stands—and I think that perhaps I have said enough to point out that the Bar Council has very real concerns about this Bill.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak mainly to Amendments 11 and 12 in the name of my noble friend Lord German. I cannot stop myself saying that it really goes against the grain to do anything that suggests that Liberal Democrats regard the Bill as requiring only some tweaking to be acceptable.

First, I would like to make a general comment about Clause 1. For many years, Governments have opposed amendments setting out the general purpose of a Bill on the basis of such a clause having no effect and being rather confusing. I used to find that understandable, although I signed such amendments; they have tended to be narratives describing hopes, rather than expectations or anything firmer. The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, has commented on the changing fashion—of such measures being there to make the courts wary of the direction in which they might like to go. This problem applies to Clause 1.

There is a notable omission from the exposition of the Government’s policy—and that is tackling people smuggling, which is abhorrent in itself, not only because of the smugglers’ role in bringing asylum seekers to the UK. The Illegal Migration Act has a similar introductory section. Specifically, Section 1(3) says:

“Accordingly, and so far as it is possible to do so, provision made by or by virtue of this Act must be read and given effect so as to achieve the purpose mentioned in subsection (1)”.


It is important to be clear about the legal effect of Clause 1. If it is intended that the clause is to be relied on, it needs to be sharpened up—for instance, in the case of terminology such as

“the system for the processing of … claims … is to be improved”,

an objective of the treaty, which is a pretty low bar. But my central point is that we need to be very clear about the legal effect and status of this clause, because there will be little point in amending the clause on Report unless the amendment has an effect, either as a stand-alone or by subsequent reference, such as the Act not coming into force unless a provision in Clause 1 is met. This may seem a rather technical point but, looking ahead, I do not want to be tripped up on it.

Amendment 12—I am aware that it is an amendment to the clause whose effect I have been querying—therefore probes the definition of “safe country”. The Bill refers, in Clause 1(5)(b)(ii), to a person having

“their claim determined and … treated in accordance with that country’s obligations under international law”—

that is, Rwanda’s obligations. The amendment would leave out “that country’s” and insert “the United Kingdom’s”, changing it to being the UK’s “obligations under international law”.

The treaty is predicated on Rwanda being under the same obligations, and as observant of them, as is the UK, so that the transfer to Rwanda, as I understand it, means really only a change of venue. Dr Google did not really help me yesterday in finding what conventions Rwanda has signed up to and, importantly, ratified and observed. But we are proceeding with this on the basis that everything that we would do in this country will apply under the new regime, and I will be interested in the Minister’s comments.

Amendment 11 is related to this. Clause 1(5)(a) also defines a safe country for the purposes of the Bill. It refers to the UK’s obligations

“that are relevant to the treatment in that country of persons who are removed there”.

Surely, all our obligations are relevant to the treatment of persons removed there, not just in that country. So both amendments go to the issue of safety—that is, the Bill’s compatibility with the UK’s human rights obligations, which are the obligations that are crucial as part of this whole regime.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Baroness Meacher and Baroness Hamwee

Consideration of Commons amendments
Monday 4th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I hesitate to rise after that excellent contribution from my noble friend Lord Alton, but I just want to express very strong support, obviously, for Motions C1 and D1 and, indeed, all the amendments in this group. I want to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, and support her Amendment E1 on the right of asylum seekers to work. She made a very powerful speech, and I certainly will not repeat any of the words that she said. We can do without repetition—everybody wants to get to the votes—so I will take one minute maximum.

The main argument of the Government against this amendment is that it would be a pull factor, attracting asylum seekers to come here. It is worth mentioning at this point that there have been fully 29 academic papers assessing whether a more generous right to work has anything to do with a pull factor for asylum seekers. All those 29 academic papers showed that there was no correlation whatever between the right-to-work aspect and asylum seekers’ attraction to this country. It is also worth saying that even if this amendment passes, we would still be the toughest of all European nations—there would be seven nations then—with a six-month ban on asylum seekers seeking work. All the rest of the European countries are more generous: they have shorter bans. That is incredibly powerful.

It costs money to do this. Is it really sensible to spend an unnecessary £300 million stopping people working; albeit we only pay these people—what is it—£5.75 or something a week, plus a bit for utility bills? We could save £300 million: is that not worth doing, just to be no more ungenerous than any other country in Europe? I suggest that we should support the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, from these Benches, I want to speak just to Motions E and H; my noble friend Lord Paddick will speak for us on the other amendments in this group. The Commons reasons on asylum seekers’ right to work seem to be completely circular: asylum seekers should not be permitted to work because they should not be permitted to work. In a way, I cannot argue with that.

The condition that the noble Baroness has added to her amendment is completely sensible. Ministers speak about undermining our economic migration schemes. I am aware that a great many asylum seekers disappear into the black economy. That undermines an awful lot of things.

The asylum seekers in question are impelled by significant push factors. I take issue with people who find it difficult to accept that. There is a distinction between what prompts fleeing one’s own country and choosing where to go. I accept that the English language plays a part in that second matter, but it really does not deal with the Government’s position.

Leaving aside—though I do not leave it aside—the importance of work to self-worth, dignity and so on, the overwhelming majority of asylum seekers in our country, and no doubt in others, want to play their part in society and want to pay tax. They have skills they want to use and which we should want them to use. The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, has talked about the financial interests. I absolutely agree with her, and I am not going to repeat that. But it is in the interests of our society to allow asylum seekers to work. We support Motion E1 very enthusiastically.

With regard to family reunion, I agree completely with the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, regarding the Commons reasons and with others who have made comments on Commons procedure—it is not up to us, I suppose, to comment on it—and the importance of scrutiny. I doubt that the Commons reasons would go down very well with those many British people who have responded to the powerful images of, and other information about, families in Ukraine and leaving Ukraine which are incomplete, without husbands or fathers. The noble Lord has narrowed his amendment down, and I congratulate him on finding a way to bring it back. The crisis for Ukrainians is no different from other crises in conflict zones in countries where actions and the threat of actions against individuals are so extreme.

The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, my noble friend Lady Ludford and I have made it clear on a number of occasions, including in the various Private Members’ Bills, that what is being proposed today is the bare minimum. It is not even, in my view, the least we can do. But it is what we must do, and we support Motion H1.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Debate between Baroness Meacher and Baroness Hamwee

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 1st February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]]

My Lords, we have Amendments 55 and 56 in this group, and my name is also to Amendment 154 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher.

From the moment the Data Protection Bill, as it was, arrived in this House, we opposed paragraph 4 of Schedule 2, which exempts data processed for purposes relating to “effective immigration control” from the protection provisions. Our reasons range from the ethical, for instance, solicitors being unable to obtain what the Home Office knows or thinks it knows about a client; to the humanitarian, for instance, deterring asylum seekers from seeking assistance to which they are entitled; to the practical, for instance, there are obvious implications for public health if people seek to stay under the radar.

The vulnerability of migrants subjected to domestic abuse is recognised by the commissioner-designate, and we have more amendments to come on different issues. It is recognised by Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services, who has recently said:

“Victims should have every confidence in approaching the police for protection. They should expect and receive protection at times when they are vulnerable and so desperately need the assistance of the agents of the state. Victims should never be in a position where they fear the actions of the police could unintentionally but severely intensify their vulnerability and thereby strengthen the hands of organised criminals and others whose motives and objectives are to inspire fear and do them harm.”


There is an obvious read-across from that. The vulnerability and fragility I mentioned are also recognised by the Government, but by way of a pilot.

As well as the stand-alone proposed new clause, which is Amendment 154, it seems to us necessary to address the issue in the specific clause regarding disclosure of information both by and to the commissioner. Patient information is dealt with; nothing requires or authorises its disclosure, and that is right. Nothing requires or authorises disclosure that would contravene data protection legislation. That does not preclude processing—the term used—of personal data for

“the investigation or detection of activities that would undermine the maintenance of effective immigration control.”

We very much support Amendment 154, whose authors have thought through many aspects of this. They urge that we do not put the commissioner in a position where information may not, out of fear, be confided in her, or where she is required to disclose immigration information. As so often happens when one returns to an amendment, I can see Amendments 55 and 56 might be more nuanced and detailed, but it is important, at this point, to get the matter on to the table. I beg to move Amendment 55.

[Baroness Meacher (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 154 in my name. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Wilcox and Lady Hamwee, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London for supporting it.

The key point is that victims of domestic abuse and their witnesses must be able to divulge personal data in the context of seeking or receiving support or assistance related to domestic abuse without the risk that such data may be used for immigration control purposes. Proposed new subsections (1) and (2) require the Secretary of State to make arrangements to honour this key principle and proposed new subsection (4) requires them to issue guidance to relevant officials and others affected by the new clause.

Migrant women with insecure immigration status are, in my view very understandably, reluctant to report domestic abuse to the statutory services. Would you, one might ask, particularly to the police? This reluctance is due to the current data-sharing agreements between statutory services, including the police and the Home Office, for immigration control purposes. This means that women affected cannot seek support or a safe place to go, with the most appalling consequences, as one can very easily imagine. Perpetrators are not being brought to justice.

In 2019, the Step Up Migrant Women campaign found that half of migrant women with insecure immigration status do not report abuse to the police for fear of detention and deportation. The use of insecure immigration status by perpetrators as a tool of coercive control has been highlighted for many years. CEDAW highlights this problem and calls on states to repeal restrictive immigration laws that leave migrant domestic workers vulnerable in this way. Imkaan’s vital statistics report shows that no less than 92% of migrant women have reported deportation threats from their perpetrator.

The Government’s draft statutory guidance framework for the Bill recognises the situation; indeed, it recognises the need for more support if these women are to seek help, but this support is not available in this Bill. The Government’s response has been to announce a pilot scheme to assess the needs of migrant women and provide those with no recourse to public funds with emergency accommodation. This is really concerning. As I have said, we know very well what the issues are and their consequences for migrant women. We know perfectly well what their needs are—the same as those of other women or men subject to domestic abuse—so I do not believe that we need this pilot. We need legislative protection for the women involved. If the Bill is passed without a solution to this problem, it could be years before the next appropriate piece of legislation. I really hope the Minister will agree that the proposed pilot is redundant and therefore not appropriate at this point.

The briefing sent to us by Step Up Migrant Women and others includes a number of heart-rending cases—I am very happy to pass them on to the Minister, but I have a feeling she already has them. She might want to make that clear.

In view of the serious crimes that go unpunished because of the fears of women with insecure migrant status, it is not surprising that the Equality and Human Rights Commission supports this and related amendments. The EHRC refers to a joint report of several policing bodies, including the HMICFRS, which found that victims of crime with insecure or uncertain immigration status are fearful that, if they report crimes to the police, their information will be shared with the Home Office. It concluded that the current system of information sharing between the police and the Home Office was causing significant harm to the public interest. I hope the Minister will respond to this particular concern in her response.

I put on record that, in 2019, the draft Bill committee made a clear recommendation to the Government to establish

“a firewall at the levels of policy and practice to separate reporting of crime and access to support services from immigration control”.

That is exactly what this amendment seeks to do.

Finally, as the Minister knows, without this amendment, and no doubt others, the measures in this Bill will not be compliant with Article 4(3) of the Istanbul convention, which states that

“provisions of this Convention by the Parties, in particular measures to protect the rights of victims, shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as … national or social origin … migrant or refugee status”.

The Minister will know that, in December 2019, the Government stood on a manifesto pledging to support all victims of domestic abuse. Can we discuss how to deal with this before Report? I am tremendously aware that she is responsible for, I think, three Bills—overwhelming, I must say—and is clearly extremely busy, but I would very much welcome even 10 or 15 minutes to try to clarify where we might go on Report. I realise that these are complex issues but very much hope that the Minister will work with her colleagues to achieve government support for this amendment or something like it.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Meacher and Baroness Hamwee

Consideration of Commons amendments & Ping Pong (Hansard) & Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 21st October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I support most strongly the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, which provides for refugee children to come to the UK from EU countries if they have family here with whom they can reunite.

The Government say they have proposals to deal with family reunion, but as the noble Lord has pointed out—I will not repeat his explanation—those proposals would not provide a secure route for child refugees to join their families here in the UK. Why is this country so much less willing than our neighbours in Europe to accept these vulnerable children? Germany stands out as the most generous and morally correct European country on this issue, having taken 71,000 children in 2019, but we do not even measure up to France, Greece or Spain—and two of those countries are a great deal less well off than we are.

It is important to note that local authorities, if adequately funded, are willing to welcome refugee children from Europe and, as my noble friend Lord Kerr pointed out on Report, the Government will have public support if they accept the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. Surely the Government want some public support, do they not? They have enough problems on other issues at the moment. The British public understand the importance of refugee children being able to join their families, whatever the reason they became separated in the first place.

In her introductory remarks, the Minister referred to the costs of housing asylum seekers. Will she clarify that the Government would not have to fund the housing of unaccompanied children who come over here to live with their relatives? It is quite important that there is not that financial hit for the Government.

If the Government reject this amendment and children are not able to join their families under the Government’s proposals, many will inevitably resort to the traffickers and the rubber dinghies, with inevitable loss of life. Surely, it is only a matter of time before the Government are challenged under the Human Rights Act, in particular Article 8, on the right to respect for your family life. I would be grateful if the Minister responded to that point.

As the Minister will recognise, this amendment has huge cross-party support and public support across the country. I hope she can persuade her colleagues to accept it.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]]

My Lords, at every stage, tributes have been paid to the noble Lord, Lord Dubs—rightly so, but I imagine he must sometimes be shouting at his screen, while on mute, “Forget the tributes, just accept the amendment.”

The Commons reason is that leave to enter to make an asylum claim, and a strategy to ensure that an unaccompanied child can be relocated in the UK if it is in the child’s best interests, would be, in their words, as the noble Lord said, a “charge on public funds”. Like him, I appreciate that this is a standard response, but it in no way reflects the debate. They trust that we will regard it as sufficient; it is not a sufficient reason.

We were told that it would not be right to undermine negotiations with the EU, with which, it must be said, agreement on this issue shows no sign of life at all. Domestic legislation must be the least threat in this context. It is still not too late to do the right thing.

Our Immigration Rules are inadequate, and applications outside them rarely successful. The Government have announced that they are looking at safe and legal routes for those seeking sanctuary next year. We on these Benches will not subscribe to the notion that this is an issue for next year. The routes are unsafe now, and we could make them considerably safer. We support the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Meacher (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I shall speak in support of the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Oates. He has removed the only apparent government objection to his original amendment —that no fee could be charged—and, in her opening remarks, the Minister produced a few rather more minor costs. However, he undermined that argument, so perhaps she can clarify that point in her summing up.

As I understand it, this amendment will do no more than bring EEA nationals into line with all other immigrants residing in the UK. The Government have argued in relation to many amendments to this Bill that they are determined to treat EEA nationals in exactly the same way as other people who are resident in this country. Surely the Minister cannot then argue in relation to this amendment that EEA nationals should be treated differently when compared with immigrants from other countries. If she does not accept this amendment, can she explain this apparent inconsistency of approach?

The noble Lord, Lord Oates, has cogently set out the case for this amendment and his arguments need no repetition. For me, the two most powerful are first, that, as others have mentioned, IT system failures and technical faults are all too frequent, while the second is that large numbers of people have limited IT skills. The Minister responded to that point by saying, “That will not be a problem because there will be department-to-department communication.” Let us suppose that someone goes to a doctor needing medical help, but the Home Office system has gone down or some other technical problem has arisen; the doctor cannot treat them. I do not think that it is good enough to say, “Oh, do not worry, it will all be fine on the night.”

Just imagine, as an example, that we no longer had physical passports, merely an entry online to prove our UK citizenship. We could arrive at an airport and not be entirely confident that our details would be found to enable us to board an aircraft. How many of us would be comfortable with that? I certainly would not be. I wonder, when the Government talk about these things, whether they are actually planning to abandon physical passports, because that would be the logic of this situation. I will support this amendment if it is put to the vote.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]]

My Lords, it is rare for a campaign to take off in the way that the call for physical proof has done. The Government have made their arguments over a number of stages and those who have been calling for this have not been satisfied—they certainly have been following what is going on. I regret that the Minister in the Commons did not address the issue but, apart from the standard financial privilege response, said that the issue had been debated many times. Yes, it has, but no one seems to have changed their position.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Meacher and Baroness Hamwee

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 9th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]]

My Lords, Amendment 22 is the first in a group that also includes Amendments 24, 29 and 31, all relating to asylum seekers’ right to work. On the first day of Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, on a very different amendment, talked about the purposes of work. I noted them down as being to earn money, for self-actualisation and as a matter of reputation. These all apply not just to you and me but to asylum seekers.

All the amendments in this group are variations on a theme. Our Amendment 22 would give an asylum seeker the right to work after three months if there has been no decision on his or her case. It will not escape noble Lords that the “if there has been no decision” is an important part of this.

The amendments are expressed to relate to EEA and Swiss nationals, to bring them within the scope of the Bill, but it is not beyond the scope of one’s imagination to think that there may be people seeking asylum in the UK from EU countries—Poland and Hungary might spring to mind—so it is not irrelevant. This is not just straining to debate a matter that I know has concerned many noble Lords for a long time.

The Minister may tell us that we will soon see a Bill about asylum, which the Home Office is currently reviewing. That is, it is reviewing the issue of asylum rather than a particular Bill. The Committee will be glad of any news not just about the Bill but about the consultation that the Home Office is undertaking with stakeholders about these issues. There are many stakeholders.

I see that the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, has moved to the position from which he will respond—at least it looks that way; I am looking at him on a rather small screen—and I hope he will be able to give some assurances about consultation with stakeholders with regard to the changes in our asylum provisions.

The great majority of asylum seekers are keen to work. Persistence is probably part of the make-up of many of them by definition, their having managed to get to this country. They want to pay tax and to contribute to their new society. They are often very skilled; that will be the subject of the right reverend Prelate’s Amendment 31.

It is very harsh not only to provide such a low daily allowance—I know the noble Lord would be required to disagree with that—but to take a long time in determining claims. In a way, that is the real issue. We picked three months because that gives time for an individual to settle. An asylum seeker may need longer to become comfortable with the English language if he is not already an English speaker, though I am constantly impressed by people’s facility with English. It puts me to shame.

There is also the issue of preventing working. I referred to self-actualisation and reputation, the terms used by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson. We all know the value of work to each of us as individuals: the sense of self-worth and of achievement with a job well done, or at least attempted. We know what it does for our well-being and for good mental health, and how important it is to be able to support one’s family.

I know the Committee will be interested in the right reverend Prelate’s proposal for the displaced talent visa, which recognises the skills that refugees bring with them, but Amendment 31 is not an alternative to the other amendments in this group. It is about a visa and about refugees, not asylum seekers whose status is not yet recognised. It is imaginative, and the Government may consider it something to be pursued. I am sure the right reverend Prelate would be the first to agree that his amendment should not be a sop to distract us from the other issues to which I have referred. I beg to move.

[Baroness Meacher (CB) [V]]

My Lords, Amendment 29 seeks to ensure that asylum seekers from the EEA and Switzerland will be granted permission to take a job from six months of their application for asylum if a decision at first instance has not yet been taken at that point. It is fairly obvious that I support the three-month amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, which is a little more radical than this one, and hope the Government may accept it.

The Minister will be aware that people often wait months, if not years, for a decision. These individuals, having escaped fear of torture or death, are left to live on a pittance of £5.66 per day. As I considered what to say today, I found myself thinking that, of course, six months in this situation is far too long. What are we as a nation doing impoverishing people in our community? Frankly, £5.66 is a disgrace.

The plea for the right to work after six months is endorsed by no fewer than 200 non-profit organisations. This is a very modest and widely supported proposal. Even Sajid Javid recognised in 2019 that it is time for reform. The coalition of these 200 organisations wants the six-month reform combined with the ending of the restriction on asylum seekers from applying for jobs not on the incredibly narrow and restrictive list of highly skilled professions on the Government’s shortage occupations list. I strongly support the abolition of this restriction, which was introduced only in 2010. That is telling; we seemed to manage pretty well before that.

Now, in effect, asylum seekers are rarely enabled to work. Does the Minister really believe that this is morally right and economically sensible? As Sajid Javid recognised, reform should no longer be delayed. Reform would enable asylum seekers to begin to integrate, to support themselves and live with dignity, to support their children to lead healthy, productive lives and, very importantly, to avoid the very real risk of exploitation and modern slavery.

We would all benefit too. The coalition of 200 organisations calculates that taxpayers would save £97.8 million if asylum seekers were enabled to work from six months. In 2019 it polled over 1,000 businesses for their view on whether asylum seekers should have the right to work. Some 67% of those employers agreed that they should, and a similar number believed it would ease the UK’s skills shortages. There is also huge public support for the right to work after six months. The Government would really have a great political benefit if they would only accept this amendment.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Debate between Baroness Meacher and Baroness Hamwee

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.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Meacher and Baroness Hamwee

Tuesday 14th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 11 I shall also speak to Amendment 12, both of which we debated in Committee. I intend not to repeat anything of the arguments we used then but rather to reflect on developments since. The intention of the amendments is to ensure that all legitimate medicines and substances used for any form of legitimate research are exempted from the scope of this legislation.

I am most grateful for the Minister’s letter to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, in which he says that the Government are looking again at the definition of medicinal products in Schedule 1 to ensure that it is fully aligned with existing medicines legislation. The question is what exactly that means. I seek only an assurance from the Minister that the definition will include all medicines prescribed on a named-patient basis and all unlicensed—or any other—psychoactive substances prescribed by a doctor on the basis that the prescription is believed by that doctor to be in the best interests of the patient. My clear understanding is that a doctor can prescribe any medication, even if it is unlicensed or not recognised, so long as they believe that it will help the patient. Many medicines come on to the market which may have been tested in other countries or in other ways but which have not been through UK systems.

Amendment 12 deals with research. It would be helpful to have an assurance that all legitimate research, including laboratory research, involving psychoactive substances in academic institutions or undertaken by industry will be fully exempted from the scope of the Bill. Alternatively, perhaps the Minister could assure the House that the Government will seek an assurance from the ACMD that whatever wording is used will achieve that objective. We just want all noble Lords to be completely satisfied that these two objectives will be achieved.

I have added my name to Amendment 24, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. The aim here, as I understand it, would be to ensure that the regulations exempting medicines and research are in place by the implementation date of the legislation. The wording in the amendment itself is slightly different, but I am sure that that is the intention. No doubt the Minister will comment on this in her response to this group of amendments.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, Amendment 24, to which the noble Baroness has added her name, comes from my noble friend Lord Paddick and me. Like the noble Baroness, I will not spend long on this, because I am optimistic about where the Government are going with it. I was concerned that the current provisions of the Bill are too limited, because they are limited to medicines. However, I will repeat one comment that I made at the last stage. Professor Val Curran, in her report for the all-party parliamentary group that the noble Baroness chairs on regulating cannabis for medicinal use, referred to a “stranglehold on research”. She sets out, quite pithily, the “costly obstacle course” involved in undertaking any research, because of the time taken by licence applications. Import licences are being granted for so short a time that they expire before the arrangements for the research can be made, so I welcome the Government’s further consideration of this. As Professor Curran says, at the moment, UK research into this area is a “massive uphill struggle”.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Meacher and Baroness Hamwee

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, in moving my amendment I will speak also to my and my noble friend’s Amendments 65, 65A, 68, 68A, 85A, 85B and 85C. The first of these amendments would provide for a right of appeal against prohibition and premises notices, with judicial oversight. The amendment is based very closely on Section 46 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act, which provides for an appeal against community protection notices. I am not suggesting that a subject of the notice should have free rein to produce or supply a psychoactive substance, and so on, but it could be argued that the steps required by, let us say, a premises notice, are not reasonable.

We are talking, perhaps, about someone’s livelihood here. Whatever we might think about head shops, if what they are doing is legal, we need to be very careful about precluding someone from carrying on a business, and certainly we must be careful that we give him the opportunity to appeal when he considers that the notice is inappropriate and undeserved. I appreciate that a breach of a notice would take us through procedures to an application to the court for an order, with surrounding protections. However, an appeal against a notice seems to us to be right—and, properly, a right—and it should be available so that someone can avoid having what I could loosely call “a record”. It is not for us to argue for it; it is for the Government to explain why the right of appeal is not included.

The other amendments are all about the standard of proof for prohibition and premises orders and changing them from the civil to the criminal standard. The orders would be made by the criminal courts, and so the criminal rules of evidence, and so on, should apply. This is also the thrust of my Amendments 85A, 85B and 85C to Clause 28, which is about the nature of the proceedings—essentially turning them from civil to criminal proceedings. Again, given the subject matter of this, it is for the Government to explain why what they are proposing should not be required to meet the criminal standard of proof and be dealt with in the way that we are accustomed to through the criminal courts. I beg to move.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I will not take up the House’s time, but I wish to express my strong support for these amendments. It is eminently reasonable to have right of appeal, as the noble Baroness said, bearing in mind the considerable penalty that somebody will suffer if their livelihood is suddenly withdrawn from them. It also seems eminently sensible to set the standard of proof at the criminal level. I support these amendments and hope very much that the Minister can comply with those two proposals.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Meacher and Baroness Hamwee

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My concern is that research in that area should not be impeded.

[Baroness Meacher]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her response, which was very positive. I was particularly pleased that she agreed that these matters should be dealt with in the Bill, which suggests agreement that they are sufficiently important for them to be dealt with there, and said that the Government will be bringing forward amendments before Report on the medicinal matter and may bring forward amendments on the research matter. I understand from the experts—the scientists—that it is important that there are amendments before Report on that issue. I hope the Minister may be able to respond immediately to that point because it will be difficult to leave this one unless we have that assurance.

On the low-dose issue, her reply was interesting because I tend to agree with her that surely these things are not for human consumption. On the other hand, the matter has been raised with me by people who know about these things, and I must express my gratitude for the willingness of Ministers to meet the experts and cover that issue and the others because they are the people who need to advise Ministers about exactly what the wording should be on all these matters. I express my gratitude, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Meacher and Baroness Hamwee

Tuesday 23rd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, this amendment is also in the name of my noble friend Lord Paddick, and I will speak to our Amendments 50 and 110. Amendment 50 is the substantive amendment and is about the use of cannabis for medical purposes, which was trailed in the previous debate by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher.

I cannot pretend to be an expert on the scientific and medical details of this issue, but politicians are not expected to be experts. We are generalists, here to represent strands of opinion and concern. As I cannot pretend to be an expert, it may therefore be that I will not understand the response from the Minister, except that I will almost certainly understand what will come as a no, judging by his Answer to the Oral Question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, last Wednesday. On that occasion, the Minister said that the steps that she was inquiring about and that I am proposing in this amendment would,

“undermine … efforts to reduce drug harms”.—[Official Report, 17/6/15; col. 1158.]

But our concern is to enable cannabis and cannabis resin to be used for good and to reduce the danger of harm—we have many other amendments aimed at harm reduction. The matter was considered in 1998 by the House’s Select Committee on Science and Technology, which noted that it was rejected by the then Government on the day of publication. There have been other reports since, and very recently a report for the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Drug Policy Reform by Val Curran, professor of pharmacology at University College, London, and Frank Warburton. I am very grateful for such a readable report. It is so readable that I was tempted to read the whole of it out because it is quite short, but I will not. I will spare your Lordships that and attempt to pick out the points that I think are particularly salient.

Professor Curran writes that the problem of,

“a significant number of people”,

who,

“are not authorised to receive medication which they believe will alleviate their condition … are compounded by: An inflexible legal framework … A stranglehold on research into cannabis”,

and, as she puts it:

“A determination when considering medical licensing to equate cannabis, a well known substance in terms of its effects on humans and used medically for around 4000 years … with an entirely new chemical introduced by a pharmaceutical company”.

Therefore, Professor Curran and this amendment propose that these substances should be moved from Schedule 1 to the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001, which deals with substances perceived as having no recognised medicinal use, to Schedule 2, which would allow a doctor to prescribe them. They would be in the same class as heroin or diamorphine. I understand that there is no evidence of significant diversion of heroin from medical supplies to the illicit market—to anticipate one possible argument. They would be subject to strict controls via medical regulation, so the diversion to recreational use would be unlikely—to anticipate another possible argument.

Medicinal herbal cannabis is available in the Netherlands, in 23 states of the USA, in Canada and in Israel. Its most-established uses include the relief of pain and muscle spasms or cramps associated with many diseases and conditions, including multiple sclerosis and spinal cord damage, nausea and other responses during treatment for cancer and AIDS; and to deal with nausea and vomiting associated with chemotherapy and radiotherapy used for that treatment. The particular cannabis substances are being exported from the Netherlands to eight other European states, including Germany and Switzerland.

In the exchanges on the Oral Question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, last week, the Minister referred to the drug Sativex having been licensed here. Indeed it has been, but it is very expensive and NICE recommends that it is not used to treat spasticity in multiple sclerosis sufferers because it is not cost effective. However, specialist prescribers can and do make individual funding requests, which has led to wide variations across England, and in Wales its use is approved.

It is no wonder that, given no access to legal cannabis-based treatment in a practical sense and no access to herbal cannabis legally, an estimated 30,000 people in the UK find their own sources, with the concomitant risks of severe side-effects, greater potential harm, and no benefit because most street cannabis is skunk with a different make-up from Sativex and from the drug that is manufactured and exported from the Netherlands and elsewhere.

In the Netherlands there has been a genetic alteration to maximise the benign substance, CBD. There is no THC in the drug that is produced there. Professor Curran also reports on a “Stranglehold on research”, as she puts it, and that Schedule 2 status for cannabis and cannabis resin would “greatly facilitate research”. In her report, Professor Curran talks about the “costly obstacle course” and the delay taken by licence applications for use in research. She refers to practical problems such as the need to import cannabis, with import licences being granted for 12 weeks and expiring before all the arrangements for the import licence to be implemented can be made. She said at a meeting that I attended a couple of weeks ago that it is,

“a shame not to allow talent to fly”.

I could have suggested a more caveated amendment—for instance, starting with clinical trials—but I wanted at this stage to get to the heart of the matter. This is about facilitating and stimulating research in the UK into the drug and its constituents, above all by allowing the import of a drug that is widely used—and much less expensive—in the Netherlands, to enable patients to access it without breaking the law and without risking the harms of an unlawful drug without medical supervision or quality control. I beg to move.

[Baroness Meacher]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly to this amendment because the noble Baroness has said most of what I was going to say. The aim, of course, is to decriminalise the 30,000 patients in this country who currently take cannabis not because they want some sort of high—they do not—but because cannabis, they say, is the best drug for their particular pain, seizures or discomfort. It seems to me that that is important.

The types of illnesses that can be helped have already been stated: multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, Crohn’s disease, epilepsy, chronic pain, glaucoma, and nausea and loss of appetite caused by chemotherapy. That is a lot of illnesses—disturbing and distressing illnesses—the symptoms of which can be alleviated by cannabis, so it does seem strange that there is such a resistance to reschedule cannabis from Schedule 1 to Schedule 2. Any substance from Schedule 1 has no recognised medicinal use. I just do not understand this, but maybe the Minister can comment on how any Government—it is not this Government; it is every Government—can continue to maintain that cannabis has no recognised medicinal use when Germany and Italy make sure that people with these illnesses can gain access to it. Germany and Italy and many countries across the world know that this is important for their populations. It would be really helpful if the Minister would consider that point.

I also want to draw the attention of the Minister and your Lordships to the extraordinary case of a little seven year-old boy called Jayden. Jayden suffers with Dravet syndrome—an extremely severe form of epilepsy—where he has at least 500 fits a day. He was on 22 pills a day including benzodiazepines. These medications plus the seizures resulting from the illness were giving him hallucinations and terrors. The poor child would scream for literally eight hours at a stretch until he was exhausted and presumably would fall asleep. His mother left home because she could not take it, so he was being looked after by his father.

When the child was four and a half, the father was told that he probably would not live another week. The father asked whether he should try medicinal cannabis. The doctor said that he should try anything, and so he did. The day after the child was given cannabis that the father had found in a chemist’s—this was in the United States; it could not happen here—the child suffered no fits, and then no fits on the following day. Since then he has had a small number, but nothing like before. He is now being painfully weaned off all the drugs that he had been taking, including the benzodiazepines. Anyone who knows anything about those drugs—I do not, actually—will say that it is excruciating to come off them. The poor boy has been put through all this, but he does now smile, walk and play in the water. But, of course, after all those seizures, I imagine that his brain is very damaged.

I have a five-minute clip, and I would ask the Minister to take five minutes of his precious time to look at it. I know that that is a lot of time in a Minister’s day, but even if one child is spared from going through the hell of that illness, I would suggest that that is well worth five minutes. This is a slightly cheeky request to make of a Minister, but it may be an important piece of work that the Minister could do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Meacher]

My Lords, in moving this amendment, I will also speak to Amendment 8. I apologise that these have all come one after another and I was not anticipating that, but I will speak extremely briefly, noble Lords will be pleased to hear.

These amendments seek to limit the scope of the Bill to those substances that are synthetic—produced by chemical synthesis rather than grown naturally. The Government’s manifesto commitment, if I understand it, was to ban new psychoactive substances. All such substances identified by the EMCDDA have been of a synthetic nature. To broaden the scope of the ban beyond the limits of substances that are synthetic will create far more unintended consequences than I believe the Government really had in mind.

The point behind this amendment is that the Bill as it stands is disproportionate and will engender an intolerable degree of legal uncertainty for an awful lot of people—researchers, medical people or whoever—who have no interest in consuming these substances but may be involved in handling them. Actually, one should extend that to people who are in the commercial sector trading, producing and so forth who may need to use these substances and really do not want to be questioned by the police.

It would be helpful to know why the Government have extended the scope of the Bill to include natural psychoactive substances. Are the Government aware that there are many natural substances, included in perfumes and other products, for example, which could be caught unintentionally by the Bill as it stands? We had a debate earlier about the whole business of definition and in a sense that comes up here again. Things might be a bit simpler if the Bill were limited to synthetic substances. Will the Minister explain to the House what investigations have taken place to establish the unintended consequences of the extension of this definition to include natural substances? I beg to move.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, my noble friend and I have Amendments 9 and 10 in this group. Amendment 9 presents me with a dilemma, given the comments that we have been making about what has been happening in Ireland. Amendment 9 would import into the Bill the Irish definition in terms. Given where we are and given that the definition in the Government’s Bill is more telegraphic than the Irish one, I would nevertheless like to hear what the Government have to say about the differences.

I and other members of the Committee will have received from the Minister a response to points made at Second Reading, for which I am grateful. In response to one point that I made, the Minister wrote that,

“we have retained core elements of the Irish definition but sought to refine it so as to make it more concise”—

given the length of most of our legislation, that is not the most persuasive argument that I have heard—

“by removing reference to different substances and behaviour changes, and remove the element of subjectivity inherent in … the word ‘significant’”.

I understand that the Government do not want this to be read subjectively, but can I add a thought? Different people react differently and they react differently to different drugs. We have heard that. There is something in the connection between that and subjectivity and maybe neither of us is quite right, but there is an issue there. The Minister talked about removing reference to behaviour changes. The point about the Irish definition is the impact on behaviour changes.

The second limb of Amendment 9, which is not an addition to the first because it does not qualify the first, refers to the substance having the capacity, as in the Irish definition, to,

“cause a state of dependence, including physical or psychological addiction”.

We are told that that has been removed because the Government have,

“concluded that this was captured as part of affecting a person’s mental functioning or emotional state and was unnecessary duplication”.

That surprises me. The Irish looked on it as an alternative in their definition. Perhaps the way I can best put it is to ask how the scientists look at this. I would have thought it was completely separate from affecting mental functioning or emotional state and is therefore not an unnecessary duplication.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Meacher and Baroness Hamwee

Tuesday 23rd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My noble friend and I also have in this group Amendments 19 and 22. This takes us to the exemptions from the substances which may be the subject of the commission of an offence, and the other provisions in the Bill.

Our first amendment would allow the Secretary of State, by regulation, to add other substances to the list in Schedule 1. I wondered whether that point was covered by,

“add … any description of substance”,

but I do not think that normal language would mean that, and the Constitution Committee—I suspect the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, is going to mention this—did not think so either. If it is not going to be possible in the Bill as drafted for other substances to be added, then why not? That seems to fly in the face of the respect that we all pay to the scientific process.

Dealing with certainty of provision and ministerial authority in respect of exempted substances, the Constitution Committee commented—I will mention just this one paragraph—on the powers of the Secretary of State being,

“unconstrained by any explicit statement of the purpose or purposes for which that power may be exercised”,

and suggested that:

“The House may wish to consider whether it is appropriate to confer upon the Secretary of State a power … unconstrained by any textual indication as to the purpose”.

That is part of the theme of certainty, which we touched on earlier. Amendment 19 would require the Secretary of State to exercise that power to add any substance—my addition—or to add or vary any description, or remove any substance, on the basis of recommendations of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency; in other words, to implement its recommendations. The Secretary of State must also use the power to include a substance where that body or the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs,

“determines that the substance poses a low overall risk”.

As regards the bodies which would make recommendations or a determination under this amendment, more than respect has been paid to both those bodies during this debate. The ACMD should be at the front and centre of this debate; it seems to have been somewhat sidelined in some of the consideration of the Bill. Our amendment in the next group, which we will look at next week, addresses that point.

In proposed new subsection (2B) in Amendment 19, we refer to the determination of a substance which poses a low overall risk. I can see that phrase might be thought to be rather woolly and insufficiently tough on drugs. However, it comes straight from Section 1 of the Misuse of Drugs Act, which sets out the role and responsibilities of the ACMD, whose duty is to keep under review drugs, the misuse of which,

“is having or appears to them”—

the ACMD—

“capable of having harmful effects sufficient to constitute a social problem”.

It goes on to talk about,

“preventing the misuse of … drugs or dealing with social problems connected with their misuse”.

I take that to be very wide indeed, and to include health. We think that that phrase would properly link assessments as to what should be exempted with terminology which must now be understood in this field. I beg to move.

[Baroness Meacher]

My Lords, in speaking to Amendment 16 I will also support Amendments 14, 17, 18 and 19. Amendment 19, on low-harm substances, links very closely with Amendment 16, and I will concentrate on Amendment 16 because of that particular focus.

Amendment 16 seeks to exempt from the scope of the Bill substances deemed to pose low health, social and safety risks. One of the objectives is to take a small step towards harmonising the Bill with the EU regulation. The Government have every right to opt out of the EU regulation, and of course they did so. However, there are very good reasons for attempting to move towards a degree of harmonisation. Paragraph 1.1 of the EU regulation says that,

“national restriction measures, which may differ depending on the Member State and on the substance, can hamper trade in the internal market and hinder the development of future industrial or commercial uses”.

So there are free market issues where the UK may cause problems for our own industries, and indeed trade, if the Bill goes ahead unamended. Amendment 16 goes some way towards reducing those obstacles to trade. Does the Minister know how significant the commercial and trade implications of the Bill will be for the UK if it is not amended in the way that Amendment 16 suggests and, if not, will he have these barriers assessed before introducing the Bill?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I do not know whether I missed it, but the response seemed to be almost entirely to the noble Lord, Lord Howarth. I clearly need to go back and read what the answer was to the first of the amendments and my other amendments in the group. Given the time—

[Baroness Meacher]

I feel awful intervening at this time of night. We all need to go home. I just want to raise the point that the expert panel was established, as I understood it, rather than referring to the ACMD for its advice on some of these issues. I do not want the Minister to reply right now—perhaps he can do so when we next meet—on the question of how the expert panel was selected. It seems extraordinary to me that any set of experts would advise against having a calibrated system of low, medium and high risk and risk-associated penalties and responses to drugs. At this late hour I do not wish to say more, but I would be grateful if the Minister thought about this before we meet.

Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2014

Debate between Baroness Meacher and Baroness Hamwee

Monday 12th May 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I have difficulties with both the substance of the order and the amendment. It seems that we may be in a world of policy-based evidence and an amendment that is being brought to the House because the Opposition are looking for something to object to without objecting to the ban itself. The matters identified in the amendment seem to be good reasons to oppose the ban, but the Opposition support it.

The ACMD not only recommended no change in the status of khat—that it not be controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act—but set out a number of other recommendations dealing with local needs assessments; education and prevention initiatives; culturally specific and tailored treatment and recovery services; partnership working; addressing the problems through engagement and dialogue with the local community and interagency working; working through community safety partnerships; and regular monitoring and returns. It also made a specific recommendation about data to form the basis of future research. Those would themselves have formed a very good amendment, but that is not what is before us.

The ACMD was quite clear on the merits of the ban. The Secretary of State, on the other hand, seems to be saying—if I can summarise it—that since it is banned in the rest of the EU, it must be banned here. The ban was announced last July. Will the Minister tell the House what evidence there has been of the drug’s use since that announcement? Some time has now gone by. Indeed, it has been banned in the rest of the EU since January of last year, so if there are concerns, some of those might have come to light.

One of the reasons that we are given for the proposed ban is the risk of this country becoming a regional hub or a haven for criminals. I was interested to read some of the characteristics of khat, one of which is that it has a very short life. The active ingredient declines a couple of days after being picked; it needs to be fresh for it to have an effect. I have no doubt that the users of it, as consumers, are as demanding as consumers of most products, so is it a genuine concern that we would become a regional hub, if what might be distributed through the hub has, in fact, lost its efficacy by the time it is traded on?

The risks identified from a ban include the users moving towards more addictive, harmful and expensive substances; a black market; and organised crime stepping in to supply the drug and criminalising—inevitably—the users. I appreciate the proposals about applying an escalator to how offences are dealt with, but we would be criminalising users and suppliers, and we know that one crime leads to another.

Of course, I am aware that the Minister in the Commons and the Home Secretary, in her response to the Home Affairs Select Committee, have presented the matter as finely balanced, and that the communities where use is widespread are divided. Looking at the reports, I have been wondering how broadly women in those communities want a ban and men do not. I wonder whether that is rather simplistic reporting. I find it difficult to believe that a ban would instantly lead to such a considerable behavioural change and make model husbands of former users. I have my doubts about that. There is one view that clearly comes from the Somali community, and that is that they would prefer their children to use khat rather than alcohol or tobacco. The ACMD has reported that the use of khat has been decreasing over recent years.

In the Commons, there was very little discussion—nothing from the Minister, I believe—about the broader issues of drugs policy or the wider context, to which reference has just now been made, of the economy of Kenya and the potential instability and risks associated with that. I would be very wary of banning something of cultural significance, with the risk of driving a wedge between the police and the already quite marginalised communities. The references in the reports to the use of khat at weddings made me think of sugared almonds at weddings in some other traditions and how one might respond to any suggestion that that tradition be changed. In summary, I am not persuaded by the orders, but I am not persuaded by the amendment: I would leave the balance as it is.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendment to the decision of Home Secretary to ban khat under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, although I identify with the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, in relation to the amendment. There are very good reasons to oppose this ban. I make clear at the outset that if khat presented a serious health risk to users, I would support a ban on the importation and sale of the substance. On the other hand, we now have sufficient evidence to show that banning the possession and use of psychoactive substances—even dangerous ones—is counterproductive. Of course, the excessive use of khat by small groups of Somalis needs to be tackled; the question is how. We know that bans on possession and use delay treatment. They divert resources away from public health and education initiatives and into the criminal justice system. We also know that a criminal record is extremely damaging to anyone’s employment prospects. The criminalisation of these people will therefore tend to lead them to continue with their drug habit or—if they ever get away from it—to return to it. There are very severe and negative consequences of banning, particularly on the consumer side.

That is the evidence framework within which I have thought about the Home Secretary’s decision to ignore the advice of the ACMD and ban not only the supply but the possession and use of khat. This is a most serious decision for the communities involved, people principally from Somalia, Yemen and Ethiopia. The small but vociferous group of campaigners from Somalia believe that a ban on khat will get rid of the problems as they perceive them—social problems within families and so on. In reality, those using khat will continue using the substance at a vastly increased price. The Home Affairs Select Committee’s ninth report suggested that a hundredfold increase in price could be expected from a ban on khat. The khat user who continued to use khat would also risk, as I said, a criminal record. The alternative, to which other noble Lords have alluded, is that khat would be replaced by alcohol in particular. We know that alcohol is far more dangerous and would have all sorts all sorts of consequences that khat does not have. Either alternative, therefore, would be much worse than the status quo. I am not suggesting that the status quo is wonderful, but it is nothing like as serious as the possible consequences of a ban. The idea that the household would have more cash to spend on food is, sadly, a delusion. Some women might see their husbands spending £25 on khat and think, “I could do with that to buy some shoes for the kids”, but it is a little more complex than that.

The ACMD had clear, scientific reasons for advising the Home Secretary that,

“the evidence of harms associated with the use of khat is insufficient to justify control and it would be inappropriate and disproportionate to classify khat under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971”.

These are very strong words from the ACMD and, particularly, a council led by Professor Leslie Iversen, whom I know quite well and who is a highly regarded scientist known for his incredible moderation, gentleness and so on. He is not a wild man; if he allows such words to go forward to the Government, we really need to take note.

The two central findings concern the medical and social harms, as others have indicated. The ACMD concludes that khat has no direct causal link to adverse medical effects, other than a small number of reports of an association between khat use and significant liver toxicity—a small number and an association. In scientific lingo, as we know, “association” simply means that the two things tend to happen alongside each other. There is no indication of a causal link between the use of khat and medical consequences. On the question of anecdotal evidence of social harms, the ACMD concludes that its research into these has found no robust evidence that demonstrates a causal link between khat consumption and any of the harms indicated.

Professor Iversen emphasised in his letter to the Home Secretary that the council’s recommendations were based on a rigorous and systematic process of evidence-gathering and subsequent analysis of what was submitted and presented to it. In other words, as I understand it, the recommendations should not be set aside other than for matters of serious national security or national interest. Now my understanding is that the main reasons for the Home Secretary’s decision have nothing to do with medical and social risks, and are twofold. First, as others mentioned, Sweden and the Netherlands in particular have banned khat and would find it helpful if the UK took the same step in order to avoid this “hub”. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, dealt very effectively with that point, bearing in mind the very short life of the substances within khat that people are interested in.

The other issue raised, which I find utterly peculiar, is that there is some relationship between khat use and terrorism. That is quite remarkable. I will deal with the terrorism issue very quickly. A very small trade in a perfectly legal, low-cost substance in a few BME communities is just not a serious candidate for a terrorist threat or interest. Indeed, the ACMD was not provided with any evidence of al-Shabaab or any other terrorist group’s involvement in the export or sale of khat, despite consultation with the relevant national and international official bodies. I understand that the Home Secretary has claimed that the ACMD would not have been aware of these things. However, it was aware of the people who are aware of them—and consulted them. The fact that the ACMD picked up nothing in this area should be taken seriously. On the other hand, banning a substance such as khat and increasing its value a hundredfold or more really might interest terrorists. Even on that count, this ban could be—and could be expected to be—counterproductive.

The first question one must ask on the hub possibility is whether the bans in these other countries are working. There is apparently no evidence that they are, or that they are even helpful. I would not expect them to be helpful. The idea that we follow other people simply because they want us to seems a little wrong.

I want to put a proposal with respect to khat. The Government introduced temporary-class drug orders for the purpose of controlling new psychoactive substances. I will not go on for very long on this but I want to put it forward. I applaud the Government for their policy. Its great strength is that these TCDOs do not criminalise the possession and use of these drugs while the TCDO remains in place. However, it provides for the ban of production and sale of substances that may prove dangerous. These orders were designed to enable the ACMD to analyse new drugs and determine whether a full ban under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 could be justified. The only possible justification given by the Government and Home Secretary—I emphasise that—for a ban of khat concerns the supply of khat to other European countries or supply involving terrorists, not that that point needs to be taken seriously. An order along the lines of a TCDO, which avoided criminalising users of khat, would fulfil the Government’s objectives while avoiding unnecessary and severe consequences for the BME communities affected.

The 12-month review proposed in the amendment would then evaluate a narrower issue: the supply ban and, for example, the price increase and illegal activity that will inevitably result. The ACMD could do that work, its findings could be put to the Home Secretary and, if the supply ban was seen not to be in the national interest, it could be dropped. If the ACMD recommended education and preventive initiatives, tailored treatments and other social interventions could then be funded instead of that money going into the criminal justice system. There is an awful lot to be said for that approach. The ACMD thought about this very carefully and that is what it came up with.

The above proposition is relevant even at this stage, if I may say so. We know that some 40% of legislation is never implemented. It is surely possible for the Government to implement only the supply side of their ban and defer—I hope indefinitely—the implementation of the ban on possession and use of khat. Such a plan would enable a more focused 12-month review, as I have already mentioned. I hope the Minister will be willing to take this idea away, even at this late stage: a supply ban only could be introduced and then evaluated to see whether it should continue.

Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Baroness Meacher and Baroness Hamwee

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, in speaking to Amendment 56NA, I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, for tabling it. We need government and, indeed, all political parties to get together to try to create a safer world for our young people while new psychoactive substances are so readily available to them. The amendment has merit on two grounds: first, it seeks to remove these substances from the shop window, as one might put it, which has to be helpful; and secondly, a feature of the amendment is that it focuses exclusively on suppliers and does not seek to criminalise the users of these substances. Those are two important points in favour of the amendment.

However, we need to be aware of some of the potential problems with the amendment. My only qualification for speaking today is that I chaired the APPG inquiry into new psychoactive substances, which received evidence from all the major governmental and non-governmental organisations involved in this field, as well as academics and those working on the front line, who really understand the implications of policies and perhaps their ineffectuality. As a result of that work, I have a number of concerns.

The first is the absence of proportionality or logic in the proposal. We have to accept, albeit reluctantly, that a sizeable proportion of young people will use drugs that may harm them. Our aim must surely be to reduce the incidence of addiction to any dangerous drug and, in particular, to reduce addiction to the most dangerous drugs, whether legal or illegal. We also need to reduce as far as possible the risk of a young person having a single dose of a substance that can cause death or serious injury.

Our drug policies must face reality. We will not stamp out drug use through bans and punishment. Our only hope is to create a rational system which makes abundantly clear to our young people those substances that are seriously dangerous, those that cause medium harm and those with short-term and relatively mild ill effects. We have not even begun to go down the road of proportionality in our drugs policy and, unfortunately, this amendment does not adopt this essential principle. Some other countries have done so, with impressive results, and even the US is beginning to take steps in a rational direction.

My comments on this amendment reflect my increasing conviction of the need for proportionality in our drug policies, combined with extensive information, education, treatment and psychological support for those who need it. Only with such an approach will we have a chance to achieve a safer drugs policy.

We need young people to respect the law. If the law is an ass, young people will get round it or simply ignore it. The amendment does not offer a proportionate response to these substances. There is also a lack of logic in the amendment, if I may put it that way; for example,

“a herbal substance with the appearance of cannabis”,

would be banned under this amendment. Why those particular herbal substances? They may in fact present a far lower risk and be far preferable for the health of young people than legal drugs such as tobacco and alcohol, and certainly the many other drugs that are available.

The Angelus Foundation, the organisation behind this amendment, argues in its briefing that the ban should apply only to synthetic psychoactive substances. It accepts that head shops have sold a number of substances that are non-addictive, do not cause significant social problems or are mild in their effects. It rightly says that such substances should not be caught by this amendment. But why should synthetic substances of similarly low risk and lack of social consequences be banned? Young people will very quickly realise the inconsistency in the situation.

Turning to a different issue, I find myself in agreement with the Home Office concern that the amendment completely bypasses the ACMD—the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. That august body of scientists should be at the heart of drug policy-making, assessing risks and actually making decisions—if I had my way —on the classes of different drugs. If we had scientists making these decisions, we would arrive at a more sensible set of policies.

Another and quite different concern is that if this amendment were passed it might be seen as a solution to the problem of NPS. Of course, a proportion of these young people will immediately go to the web if they cannot get what they want from the local head shop, and that proportion could be very close to 100%. Young people know all about the web—far more than I do—and it would not take them many minutes to realise that that is all they have to do to get what they want.

A very different question is whether the authors of the amendment explored the implications for research of this measure. Already, serious psychopharmacological researchers are having incredible difficulty obtaining the substances they need to undertake their research.

Also, have those supporting the amendment considered its cost implications? Trading standards representatives who gave evidence to our APPG on Drug Policy Reform made clear that if they are to take responsibility for policing head shops, they will need money to do it. That money has to cover the testing of those substances. It is no good their picking up a substance from a head shop if they have no idea what it is and no money to test it.

In conclusion, I applaud Angelus for its untiring work to try to reduce the access of young people to dangerous psychoactive substances. I welcome the attempt to reduce the risks to our young people of NPS. Whatever is agreed on the amendment, I hope that all political parties will work together to achieve improved policies to deal with the considerable risks presented to our young people by new psychoactive substances.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I well understand the concern expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. For instance, I recognise what I can think of only as collusion between sellers and buyers of substances labelled bath salts, plant food, and so on. The noble Baroness says that this is her only qualification—come on, it is some qualification. We are very lucky to have her explain her point so clearly and, to my mind, so persuasively. As she says, trading standards authorities are as concerned as everybody else and struggling to find a way to deal with this. Has the noble Lord had comments on the proposal from the Trading Standards Institute?

Like the noble Baroness, the points that occurred to me, which I will not repeat but simply support, are: is this risk-based, is it evidence-based, will it bring the law into disrepute, does it recognise the psychology of the consumer? Chemists in China will stay ahead of the game and will use the internet. Of course we have to be smart, but we have to be smart differently, not try to beat them in the way that they are working.

Children and Families Bill

Debate between Baroness Meacher and Baroness Hamwee

Wednesday 16th October 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, the noble and learned Baroness says that the judges would cope with Section 1 of the 1989 Act being amended by this but I do not think we want to wait for a judicial review as to exactly what would be meant if the new words were inserted in Section 1. If they were inserted in the form that we have in Clause 11, we would have Section 1(1) saying that welfare shall be the court’s paramount consideration—if that is not a presumption, I am even more concerned about it; then Section 1(2) saying that in dealing with delay the court shall have regard to that general principle; and then proposed new subsection 2A referring to presumption unless the contrary is shown.

I have never practised in this area so maybe it does not matter, but I am very unclear as to how weighty the contrary needs to be. To put it in different terms, are we talking about the contrary shown on a balance of probabilities or beyond reasonable doubt? The noble and learned Baroness has those words in her amendment, to which I and my noble friend Lady Walmsley, who is not in her place, have added our names. I do not think they would have the same difficulty when tied to having particular regard as they would to a presumption. I become more and more confused as to what Clause 11 means by a presumption unless the contrary is shown. A presumption is a presumption.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I rise with some trepidation to speak very briefly to Amendments 54 and 55. I welcome the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, who both recognise that there are times when fathers are locked out of contact with their children. I applaud the Government for recognising that the involvement of both parents in a child’s life, all things being equal, will further the child’s welfare. No one would question that the child’s welfare has been and must continue to be of paramount importance. There is no question about that, but there have been times when that has been lost and the feeling has been that as long as a child has a mother, perhaps that is okay. That is my concern. I fully recognise what my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss said about the research. I am not suggesting here that there have been wholesale miscarriages of justice but every single miscarriage of justice in terms of parenting one’s own children is a personal tragedy and we therefore need to take these things extremely seriously.

This is being made worse in the modern world because fathers are often intimately involved in their child’s upbringing from birth. In my day it did not happen. Father was a long way away for quite a long time so the big bonding went on with mother, not with father. Often parents are genuinely sharing the parental role. At times a father will be the primary carer—I cannot remember fathers being primary carers in my day—or maybe a better parent than the mother. On occasions a mother may be neglectful, selfish and unloving. They may even emotionally abuse their child. Of course, all these things can apply to fathers, except that fathers, instead of emotionally abusing their child, will tend to hit out. That has been one of the big problems in decision-making on parenting, separation and childcare. As a former social worker, I can say that we found it quite easy to see a bump on someone’s head but found it very difficult to identify and to codify emotional abuse of children.