European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Lord Howarth of Newport

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard continued) & Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 15th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord hits the nail on the head, because one might ask what Section 17 was about in the first instance. I said at the beginning of my speech that Clause 37 could not have existed, and we could have deleted Section 17, but Section 17 is, in most part, as it was originally, and is amended to include the reporting to Parliament and not the seeking to negotiate. It goes above our obligations and commits the Government to lay that Statement to Parliament on our policy regarding future arrangements with the EU for the family reunification of unaccompanied children seeking international protection, providing Parliament the opportunity to scrutinise our progress.

The clause makes it clear that supporting the most vulnerable children remains a priority, along with restoring the traditional division of competences between Parliament and government, as the noble Lords, Lord Howarth and Lord Butler, pointed out. The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, said that Parliament cannot give the Government their marching orders in negotiations. I hope that I have quoted him correctly.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

As long as the Minister does not suppose that I do not fully support the spirit of the amendment of my noble friend Lord Dubs.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

No, I was not making that inference. I was trying to point out both consistency and inconsistency within some of the debates we have been having today, as noble Lords seem to have contradicted themselves depending on what the issue is. On the division of competences between Parliament and Government, noble Lords will have seen, and will continue to see, changes being made across the Bill. It does not undermine our policy intent and rightly ensures that Parliament is informed of our policy intentions in respect of our future arrangements. The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, said that we have already written to the Commission, and that is correct. It shows our intent and commitment in the coming year.

The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, spoke of Clause 37 killing Section 17. It does not; it amends it, as he went on to outline.

Children: Criminal Exploitation

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Lord Howarth of Newport

Tuesday 9th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The right reverend Prelate makes an important point. The Serious Violence Strategy, which we published in April 2018, contains a government definition of child criminal exploitation, which is commonly used to describe child exploitation associated with county lines drug dealing. There is robust legislation alongside that to prosecute those who exploit children for criminal purposes.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

Does the noble Baroness recognise that as long as the Government persist with policies that hand control of the drugs market to organised crime, we will continue to see the appalling exploitation of children through county lines?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The approach we have taken over the last few years has been central to government policy and a major priority of the Government; indeed, the Home Secretary chairs the serious violence task force. That demonstrates that we are not only taking this seriously but exploring all the routes into county lines and drug activity from young people.

Drugs Licensing

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Lord Howarth of Newport

Tuesday 19th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness has listened sympathetically to representations in this area in the past, and that has been much appreciated. Does she accept that the issue of cannabis-based medication for children with severe epilepsy, which has aroused intense sympathy and concern on the part of the public, should be part of a wider review? Does she agree that that review should look at the substantial body of existing evidence that cannabis-based medication might have significant and, in some cases, unique benefits for people suffering from cancer, multiple sclerosis, Tourette’s syndrome, chronic severe pain and other distressing conditions?

Will the noble Baroness recognise that the Government’s position on rescheduling that she has described creates something of a Catch-22 situation? The categorisation of cannabis as a Schedule 1 drug of no medicinal value has, in the past, proved to be a considerable impediment to the advancement of research. Therefore, will the Government straightaway reschedule cannabis to Schedule 4 in order to unblock the barrier to research? May we take it that the involvement of Professor Dame Sally Davies that she described is indeed the prelude to the transfer of lead responsibility from the Home Office to the Department of Health?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

Of course, Sally Davies will be advising on the review. The scheduling of cannabis will be looked at with a fresh pair of eyes, being mindful of the international research on this subject. In talking about the benefits of cannabis-based medication for epilepsy and multiple sclerosis and as pain relief in some forms of terminal illness, the noble Lord has precisely laid out the point of the review. It will look at all the benefits to be gained in all areas of medical consideration, but it will be clinically and scientifically led. As I said, I think that today the Home Secretary has prompted a first in the consideration of cannabis and its medical benefits.

Manchester Arena Attack Review

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Lord Howarth of Newport

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord is absolutely right to again bring up the issue of communication. Certainly moves are afoot to upgrade the mobile phone network but, of course, the police might use underground, which is another possibility. I will keep the House abreast of some of the updates in innovation that are taking place as they come forward.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, may I invite the Minister to respond to the second question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, on mental health care and a consistent quality of response?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I knew that I had left something out in my response to the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake. That was, of course, the mental health and other problems that victims may face in the aftermath of an attack and the short-term, medium-term and long-term effects. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, we rapidly put together a cross-government Victims of Terrorism Unit to work closely with Manchester. It identified and resolved issues affecting the provision of an effective and co-ordinated response to victims of terrorism. That runs alongside the work we have done across systems, including in the third sector and the private sector, to improve and strengthen the support that is so vital to victims in the aftermath of a terrorist attack.

Cannabis

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Lord Howarth of Newport

Thursday 7th September 2017 Grand Committee

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

My Lords, first, I also declare an interest in MS. As the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, knows, I worked with MS patients for many years before I got involved in politics—I do not know quite how I made the transition, but that was the case. Some of the noble Lord’s anecdotes from patients chime with things that I heard. I know that there is significant feeling in the House on this issue. It is also clear from noble Lords’ remarks that they are keen that government policy on this issue should be led by evidence—as my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth said, I confirmed that yesterday—but also should not prevent patients from obtaining relief from symptoms using effective medicines.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, said, the WHO’s Expert Committee on Drug Dependence has committed to reviewing the scheduling of cannabis under the UN’s 1961 convention. The review will consider therapeutic use as well as dependence, and the abuse potential of several constituent parts of cannabis, including the cannabis plant itself and cannabis resin, cannabidiol, or CBD, THC, isomers of THC and extracts and tinctures of cannabis. The review is due to conclude by early 2019 and I, like most people here today, am very interested in its outcome and look forward to future opportunities to debate this issue—as I know we will—as and when the WHO concludes its work. I must add that the recognition of CBD as having medicinal application necessarily means that the other constituent parts will do so as well. Each compound ought to be assessed on its merits.

As noble Lords have said, cannabis in its raw herbal form continues to be listed in Schedule 1 to the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001 as a substance with no recognised benefits in the UK, but I must underline that this is in its raw form. The system of scheduling does not preclude medicines based on cannabis from being developed. The Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 regime, along with the associated regulations, enables the availability of controlled drugs which have recognised medicinal uses in UK healthcare—of which there are many.

We are already able to rely on a process, administered by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, MHRA, in parallel with the Home Office’s licensing system, to enable medicines, including those containing controlled drugs such as cannabis, to be developed, licensed and made available for medicinal use to patients in the UK. In the case of a Schedule 1 drug such as cannabis, the Home Office is willing to consider applications for research licences to facilitate the development of new medicines, as long as the appropriate ethical approvals have been given, as we have done in the past. I am very happy to meet again with the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, as we do regularly, to discuss this issue.

In the case of the cannabis-based drug Sativex, the Government have, as noble Lords have said, placed the product in Schedule 4 of the Misuse of Drugs Regulations to allow it to be legally supplied on prescription. Sativex was granted a marketing authorisation by the MHRA and was rigorously tested for its safety and efficacy before receiving approval for this application. This rigour should equally be applied to future medicinal products containing cannabis.

As has also been pointed out today, the MHRA has offered an opinion that products containing CBD, when used for a medical purpose, should be regulated as medicinal products. A CBD or cannabidiol product in its pure form is not controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, so where it can be extracted and isolated from the controlled substances in cannabis it would not require a licence from the Home Office. However, a CBD product that contains any trace of psychoactive compounds that are found in cannabis, such as THC or tetrahydrocannabinol, is considered to be a controlled substance under the 1971 Act and therefore unlawful to possess and supply unless it fits the criteria for an exempt product under the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001. The MHRA is working with individual companies and trade bodies to make sure that products containing CBD used for a medical purpose which can be classified as medicines satisfy the requirements of the Human Medicines Regulations 2012.

We continue to facilitate forward-looking research involving cannabis and cannabinoids. There were 19 cannabinoid clinical trial authorisations granted between 2005 and 2015. These trials cover MS, dental applications, psychotic disorders, addiction to cannabis, type 2 diabetes, epilepsy, interaction with other medicines and brain diseases. Research in this area is ongoing.

The noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, asked about research into synthetic cannabinoid changes. I know that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary has commissioned the ACMD to look into whether there are barriers to research into Schedule 1 drugs as a result of changes to synthetic cannabinoid generic legislation. The Home Secretary has asked the council to provide its advice before the end of this year.

The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, asked about Epidiolex. Our position on it is that, as for any other medicine and as we did with Sativex, it must be put through the same stringent process to ensure its safety and efficacy, for the benefit of patients.

My noble friend Lord Crickhowell suggested that the Department of Health and not the Home Office should be responsible for this. I quietly nodded there. Like the previous strategy, the 2017 drug strategy takes a cross-government approach that reflects the need for co-ordinated action to tackle the problem in all its dimensions. Given the strong link between drug use and offending, the Home Office has and will continue to provide the governance and accountability essential to the effective delivery of this cross-departmental approach. The Department of Health leads on the building recovery strand of the strategy and, together with the Home Office, leads on the reducing demand strategy, along with Public Health England. To ensure that we are doing all we can—and following my meeting with the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher—I have recently written to my noble friend Lord O’Shaughnessy, who is the Minister for Health in your Lordships’ House, to ask him to consider how the Government can facilitate the development and availability of cannabis-based medicines such as Sativex.

We are open to the development of new products based on cannabis and look forward to the review from the WHO’s expert committee. I am sure that the ACMD will follow its conclusions with great interest.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

The Minister has not made any mention of Bedrocan in her response to the debate. Does she think it reasonable that TW, in the circumstances I described, has to make these visits to Holland to collect her medication, which has been prescribed for her in Britain but which she is not permitted to obtain from her local pharmacy? Is that a reasonable state of affairs and if the Minister thinks it is, why? If she thinks it is not, what will the Government do?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I noted the noble Lord’s mention of Bedrocan. I had not heard of it and I am very willing to look into that specific drug. There are of course many drugs available in other parts of the world that are not necessarily available here and vice versa. I will write to him on that point. I will also take up the point about Alfie separately.

Psychoactive Substances Act 2016

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Lord Howarth of Newport

Wednesday 6th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

To ask Her Majesty's Government, in the light of the failure of prosecutions brought under the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016, whether they will review the legislation.

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

My Lords, the outcomes from the two recent cases involving nitrous oxide are not legally binding, and the Government have no plans to conduct a formal review of the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 following the two recent cases. We are working closely with the Crown Prosecution Service and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency on our approach to future prosecutions involving this substance.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, it has not taken long for the courts to expose the unworkability of part of the legislation. Faced with the very serious and pressing problem of new psychoactive substances, will the Government now see reason and accept that prohibition—the orthodoxy of the last half-century and reiterated, on a peculiarly crude model, in the 2016 Act—has failed, with disastrous consequences for the growth of crime and the blighting of innumerable lives, not to mention the chaos in our prisons? Will the Government now base their policy not on wishful thinking and populism but on the evidence of science, the analysis of specific harms and the experience, here and in other countries, of what does and does not work?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I disagree with the noble Lord about the Psychoactive Substances Act not working because we have managed to close down more than 300 retailers across the UK which sold psychoactive substances. In 2016, there were 28 convictions in England and Wales and seven people were jailed under the new powers. Additionally, coming from Manchester, I would have to disagree with him, having seen some of the sights that I have on the streets of Manchester recently.

Busking

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Lord Howarth of Newport

Thursday 12th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Baroness has got to the nub of the point. I often enjoy listening to some of the buskers in Underground stations. They really enhance the journey, and calm people down on their way to and from work; I find that they do. It is nice to hear people singing and playing music, and that should not be mixed up with people who genuinely cause distress and disturbance to others.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, may I encourage the rest of the Government Front Bench to follow the noble Baroness’s example and make the best of their present opportunities to busk at the Dispatch Box? They are not going to last much longer.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I am not aware of my noble friends’ abilities at singing or dancing, so I do not know whether I would want to put them at the Dispatch Box in front of your Lordships.

Serious Crime Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Lord Howarth of Newport

Tuesday 8th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, I am aware that the Committee is hungry. I am hungry myself, so I shall be extremely brief. This amendment, helpfully tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, provides us with the only opportunity to debate the provisions in the Bill that deal with cutting agents used to bulk out illegal drugs. I simply want to draw to the attention of the Committee the law of unintended consequences. Cracking down on relatively harmless cutting agents such as benzocaine runs the risk that you drive criminals to use much more damaging cutting agents. A case was reported in Scotland recently in which six people died. They had used heroin that had been bulked out with a cutting agent contaminated with anthrax. Criminals are entirely unscrupulous. I hope that, when under the terms of this clause, the police, customs and courts are considering whether to return or retain cutting agents that have been seized, they will think very carefully about the consequences of impounding relatively safe cutting agents, thereby providing an incentive for criminals to use much more dangerous cutting agents.

I will also, although this is a painful thing to do, draw to the attention of the Committee the utterly tragic case of Martha Fernback, a 15 year-old girl who died nearly a year ago after consuming ecstasy—MDMA—which was 91% pure compared to the average street-level purity of 58%. Had that MDMA been cut and the purity been what it would normally be when it came into her hands, she would still be alive today. Her mother, Anne-Marie Cockburn, has campaigned with tremendous courage and great wisdom asking that the Home Secretary and the shadow Home Secretary think deeply about whether it would be right to move from the system of prohibition that trapped that girl towards a system of legalisation and strict regulation as well as vastly better education in this field. I will not enlarge on that theme because the Minister and the House know my views well, but as the House determines whether to approve these clauses we ought to bear in mind that legislation with the best of intentions, which the Government have, can lead to horribly counterproductive effects.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, if a court approves the further retention of a suspected drug-cutting agent beyond the initial 30-day detention period, it is only right that the responsible police or customs officer makes reasonable efforts to inform the person who may be entitled to the substances if the person was not present or represented at the court hearing. A person entitled to the substances is defined in Clause 53 as the person the substances were seized from or the owner of the substances. It is important that all those persons who are entitled to receive notice do so. This provides additional protection for the legitimate trade, ensuring people have sufficient time to consider and act upon the notice, if appropriate.

I commend my noble friend Lady Hamwee for ensuring that we continue to minimise the impact on the legitimate trade by setting out in clear terms who should be informed of the court’s decision. I shall therefore give further consideration to extending the provision to ensure that notice is given to the person from whom the suspected drug-cutting agents were seized, if different from the owner. I will reflect on this point and let her know the outcome in advance of Report.

On the two points made by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, about switching to more dangerous cutting agents, the proposals include a general seizure power which covers any substance suspected of being intended for use as a drug-cutting agent. Therefore, we do not anticipate that they will lead to drug traffickers using cutting agents that are more dangerous than those currently being used. I have heard of dangerous cutting agents being used currently. Any new substances that traffickers begin to use would be equally subject to seizure under these powers.

On the risk that the powers to seize cutting agents would place drug users in danger because of purity issues, by restricting the ability of drug traffickers to cut drugs we anticipate that the new powers will reduce harm by limiting the availability of drugs on the street. Lower availability should increase prices and therefore reduce use. The powers will also attack the profits of drug traffickers, which they use to fund a range of other harmful criminal activities. Moreover, the most common cutting agents are far from harmless. There has been a move away from inactive cutting agents to more dangerous pharmaceutical agents, such as benzocaine, lidocaine and phenacetin. Toxic doses of benzocaine and lidocaine can decrease the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood and can cause convulsions that mimic the acute toxicity of cocaine. Phenacetin, a painkiller, is no longer used in the UK due to its carcinogenic and kidney-damaging properties.

I hope my response has addressed the issues that my noble friend and the noble Lord have raised and that my noble friend will be content to withdraw her amendment.