Oral Answers to Questions

Dan Jarvis Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Lynne Featherstone]

I am happy to join my hon. Friend in commending front-line officers in Surrey, and I congratulate all police forces that, with their police and crime commissioners, are rising to the challenge of driving efficiency and cutting crime. Effective policing plays a key part in reducing crime, and PCCs are ensuring that forces focus on the issues that matter most to local people. My hon. Friend is right that money is not the only thing that we need in order to cut crime; dedicated officers are our greatest resource.

[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

There is no doubt that the huge increase in the use of so-called legal highs has an impact on crime rates. I have seen that in my constituency. The Government have agreed to ban legal highs, but have not yet acted to do so. Will the Government take action in this Parliament, and if not, why not?

[Lynne Featherstone]

Given that this Government have actually banned and outlawed 500 legal highs, I do not think it is accurate to say that we have taken no action. We obviously want to move to a general ban on legal highs—lethal highs, as I call them—and that is on the shelf, ready for the new Government.

Oral Answers to Questions

Dan Jarvis Excerpts

Monday 17th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Lynne Featherstone]

I could not agree more. Our focus absolutely has to be on those who deal, smuggle and do the most harm. That is where police time needs to be spent.

[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

I was pleased with the Minister’s confirmation, in a response to a recent parliamentary question, that the Government have accepted a recommendation to develop proposals for a blanket ban on the sale of new psychoactive substances—so-called legal highs. What work will now take place to ensure that that is a reality?

[Lynne Featherstone]

As the hon. Gentleman says, we accepted the panel’s recommendation to develop proposals for a blanket ban. We have already initiated statutory consultation on the proposals with the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and we will consider its advice carefully. Work has begun and is moving swiftly. We will develop proposals for a blanket ban and set out further detail in due course.

Legal Highs

Dan Jarvis Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2014 Westminster Hall

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope. I have had rather a lot of experience of that recently, and long may it continue.

I want to offer some definition and context to the discussion about legal highs, spell out some of the problems that they are causing for my constituents in Chesterfield and push the Government to act on this appalling blight. Legal highs are a growing menace in our communities, endangering the health of young people in particular, breaking the hearts of their families, leading to crime as users steal to fund their habit and terrifying shoppers and shopkeepers in the surrounding areas. The truth is that some retailers are mocking the law, laughing at powerless regulators while visiting misery and mayhem on our communities, and the time has come for us to decide whether we are willing to have that happen or whether we are seriously and finally going to act.

I will start by defining legal highs. They are often referred to as “new psychoactive substances”. They are chemicals that have been synthesised to mimic the effects of conventional illegal drugs. People often think that because they are legal, they are safe. That is a dangerous myth and a message that the Government must be much stronger at combating. People selling these substances on the high street next to respectable chemists, photography and chocolate shops only underlines the impression that they must be okay. Legal highs are called “legal” only because they have not been banned yet. People need to be aware that the name in no way indicates that they are safe to use.

Legal highs are being developed at a speed never before seen in the drugs market. They are now widely available from a range of shops, takeaways and petrol stations. Legal highs are often even more dangerous than currently illegal substances. That has been clearly demonstrated by the spate of deaths from fake ecstasy, which is the name for various kinds of new psychoactive substances that are extremely dangerous.

Deaths are not caused just by overdoses. Legal highs can also cause accidental deaths and suicides, which is why it took several years to reveal the true death statistics for mephedrone. Only in 2012, following a review of all the different causes, did we get the true figure for mephedrone deaths in 2010, which was 43—43 lives pointlessly wasted as a result of something that was legal at the time.

The number of drug-related deaths in Britain is more than double the average across Europe, according to a report from the European Union drugs agency. The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction warned that so-called legal highs are involved in a growing number of deaths.

We know that there are more than 100 legal highs on the UK market. We have found out that these drugs are now available from more than 200 head shops on UK high streets. Today, we can see that they are also available from a range of other local shops and takeaways. It is estimated that 670,000 young Britons aged between 16 and 24 have taken legal highs. In the “European Drug Report” of 2013, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction said that the average mortality rate in Britain due to overdoses of all drugs was 38.3 per million of population—more than twice the average for Europe. The agency found 73 new synthetic drugs in 2012. It surveys the number of internet sellers in the UK, which rose from 170 in 2010 to 690 in 2012. Just in those two years, the number went up by more than 500. The UK’s market is now the biggest in the EU and the second biggest in the world. There are also estimated to be hundreds of high street legal high sellers.

Legal highs are a relatively new challenge in drugs policy and are difficult to control under traditional drugs legislation such as the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, because new versions of substances are developed at a swift rate to avoid the current controls. I would like now to talk about what the situation means to us in Chesterfield.

Chesterfield is a town that is performing well. Our town centre famously has fewer empty retail units than Windsor, and we outperform the local and national averages considerably. We have retained an old-style cobbled market feel with one of the UK’s largest outdoor markets, and we have an award-winning new indoor market. We have a successful fusion between the new retail offer and the traditional high street.

However, for retailers and traders on Packers row and Knifesmithgate, the existence of the Reefer store and the antisocial behaviour that surrounds its sale of products such as Clockwork Orange is turning trade, which is difficult enough in the present climate, into a total nightmare. No one should be frightened to go to work or to support shops on our local high street, but that is the reality for many retailers and shoppers in that area. Local cafés have had to deal with users falling asleep on their floor. Retailers have had the experience of terrified friends of users rushing in demanding that they call an ambulance. Market traders have been abused. Police have arrested those causing trouble only to find that the miscreants were back on the streets before the police had even finished their paperwork. Teenagers at the bus stop have been urged to buy legal highs for users who have previously been banned and have been asked for money to support the drug habit of those users. Shoppers have heard appalling language and witnessed much worse levels of antisocial behaviour. Shopkeepers have now branded Packers row a no-go zone, saying that it has become overrun with antisocial behaviour and drug use.

Chesterfield borough council and the community safety partnership have endeavoured to get the tenant’s landlord to take action using the immoral use clause in their tenancy agreement, but the landlord does not feel sufficiently empowered to do so. I feel that the landlord is wrong, but we need to do much more to support commercial landlords who want to get rid of antisocial retailers but do not feel able to do so.

I place on the record my thanks to Councillor Keith Miles, who is here witnessing the debate, and Councillor Sharon Blank. They continue to work on the issue with me. They, the community safety partnership and the police are rightly looking to us, as legislators, to back them up. I hope that we will not continue to disappoint them.

To give a sense of the impact that the problem has on the retail sector, let me read the words of Bridget Jones from Chocolate by Design, a retailer in Chesterfield:

“It’s absolutely horrendous, the shop”—

Reefer—

“is attracting an unsavoury group of teenagers that are hanging around here day in day out, their language is absolutely appalling and they are abusing old and young people…Just recently an ambulance had to be called out to somebody who had collapsed from taking these substances, somebody was actually treated in the shop next door too, after taking some sort of powder.

People won’t come up to this part of the town because they are ruining it, this behaviour isn’t just a one off, it happens all the time, we have just had enough.

My business is being affected tremendously, somebody is going to get killed out here from the stuff, that’s a definite.”

Bridget runs a store that holds parties for children who want to make chocolate and other confectionery. People come in to buy chocolate for their family and friends. Let us imagine someone trying to run a business in which they are trying to encourage young people to come from right across the east midlands to have an exciting birthday experience, and being greeted with that sort of conduct outside the store.

David Hilton-Turner, whose 14-year-old son almost died in Chesterfield as a result of legal highs, wrote to me to say:

“My son has been a victim of a legal high drug which he was lucky he survived. The shop in Chesterfield ‘Reefers’ sold it to a 17 year old who made an inhaler (bong) and gave it to my 14 year old son. He had never done this before but he ended up with a crowd of people who had. What I want is the shop closing down and somebody in government to ban this drug. It is sold as an herbal essence to over 18s but the shop does know what happens. Because of a legal loophole they get away with it. The police cannot do anything because of the loophole and I’m hoping you can before it causes fatalities. The substance in question is known as Clockwork Orange.”

In addition to the impact on the community, the police say that the problem around Packers row and Knifesmithgate is draining officers’ time and taking them away from solving other crimes. Nick Booth, police sergeant for the town centre, said that a lot of time was being spent in that troublesome area. He said:

“This is an area we are having to target for anti-social behaviour and perceived drug use. Kids are buying legal highs from Reefer and using them there.

Members of the public believe it is a big drug problem and it is still causing people harassment, alarm and distress.

Some of these young people are actually turning to criminality to fund this drug habit.”

Retailers are under siege from people who have taken legal highs or are involved in their distribution. This is a blight on our town centre, is frightening for the vast majority and brings shame on all those involved in it. Sergeant Booth said that the police had “their hands tied”, as the issue is difficult to manage. He said:

“Ideally we could do with a change in the law at government level that enables us to tackle them effectively.

Although the drugs are legal, they are similar to illegal drugs in the effects they have.”

The police are busy trying to educate people about the dangers of legal highs, and have made it one of the local policing priorities for Chesterfield, but they face an uphill battle. The Derbyshire constabulary sent out a warning about legal highs in May 2014 following the admission of two teenagers to hospital, but the Government’s current approach of attempting to ban them individually, substance by substance, which means that they are always one step behind the vagabonds who market these products, is clearly not working.

I understand that the Minister has appealed to the Chinese and Indian authorities for help in preventing the production of such products. Although I wish him well in that endeavour, surely we need to do more to target the retailers of the substances. On 27 February, he was reported to be within two or three months of publishing a review on legal highs, but four months on there is no sign of that review. I am informed—I hope that he can assure us that this is not correct—that he is considering the option of regulating rather than taking action to try to get rid of such substances. I think we need a much more robust approach.

[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. He is making an excellent contribution. He has described the situation in Chesterfield, and it is one that I absolutely recognise in Barnsley. He has spoken about what Government can do to resolve the issue. Does he agree that part of the way to tackle legal highs nationally is through cross-departmental co-operation? We are not just talking about the Home Office, although it clearly has an important role to play; we are talking about the Home Office working in partnership with the Department of Health, the Department for Education and the Department for Communities and Local Government to tackle the challenge. Does he agree that cross-Government working is important in resolving the problem?

[Toby Perkins]

That is an important point, and the problem has an impact on all those Departments, as my hon. Friend says. We must get cross-Government and cross-party work on it. I pay tribute to him for the work that he is doing in Barnsley to try to rid his constituents of this nightmare, and we will look at that and learn from it.

The owner of Reefers, the store in question in Chesterfield, apparently told the Derbyshire Times that the packets of Clockwork Orange that he sold made it clear that the product was not for human consumption. However, his store has a provocative name, graphics of spliff designs were originally painted on the side and it sells products that are used in the consumption of drugs. It mocks the law by claiming that it does not encourage drug use.

The Minister is on record as saying that we are ahead of other countries in our response, but Ireland, through the Criminal Justice (Psychoactive Substances) Act 2010, has already sought to ban legal highs. I would like councils to be given much greater powers to stand up for their local communities. I would also like us to take a lead and say that we are not willing to try to pursue the problem on a substance by substance basis, because the people involved are always one step ahead of us. They change the compound marginally, change its name and say, “You have not banned this.” I want us to get on the front foot and say that the producers of psychoactive substances know what they are doing and we know what they are doing, and that we will work collectively to get such substances off our streets.

We have rightly, over many years, taken the approach of refusing to legalise illicit and illegal drugs, despite the call from some quarters to do so. It is absolutely right that we treat legal highs, which are just as dangerous in many cases, in the same way. It is no good saying that products such as cannabis are illegal, but allowing producers of legal highs effectively to mock the law by creating new substances that have the same effects while we attempt to chase them item by item. It is time for us all to work together to develop a more constructive approach.

Oral Answers to Questions

Dan Jarvis Excerpts

Monday 28th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

T2. There were at least 68 deaths from legal highs in 2012, with more likely in 2013 and 2014. It is simply madness that children can walk into a shop and buy these harmful products. I know that the Minister has launched a review of legal highs—he referred to it earlier—but given that people are dying as a result of consuming these products, when can we expect meaningful action on this issue?

[The Minister for Crime Prevention (Norman Baker)]

There has already been a great deal of meaningful action, including a month of action from police forces, which resulted in the successful seizure of products, and a number of arrests and prosecutions. I have also issued guidance to local councils on how they can deal with these so-called “head shops”, which has led to successful interventions to seize more material, so we are in fact taking strong action. I hope that the review panel, which will report very shortly, will recommend even stronger ways to tackle these chemical highs. However, we must not get this out of perspective, because the number of deaths from what we might call “traditional drugs” is still very high, and we need to concentrate on that.T5. Early one Sunday in September 2011, Bedfordshire police deployed 200 officers to free 24 people who were being kept in slavery, some of whom had been there for more than 20 years. Such operations are very expensive. In order to encourage the police to undertake more of them, what are we doing to make sure that they are refunded from the often considerable assets of the slave traders?

Oral Answers to Questions

Dan Jarvis Excerpts

Thursday 20th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

Absolutely. The Government’s investment in culture and the arts will ensure that those start-up firms have the necessary stimulus to enable them to thrive.

[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

A key element of any strategy for the arts and the creative industries must include support for all regions of the country. In these challenging economic circumstances, the Government should be working with local authorities to make the case for culture and to explain its social and economic benefits. Will the Secretary of State tell us what she is doing to help councils to support the arts and the creative industries in their local communities?

[Maria Miller]

I am not doing what the hon. Gentleman is doing in supporting a council such as Newcastle, which wanted to cut its arts budget by 100%. I hope, given his question, that he now realises that that was a big mistake. I am glad that the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) intervened and overruled the decision that he had made. I could give him many examples of the work that we are doing to support the regions in this way, and I draw his attention in particular to our comments yesterday on the Arts Council, which is investing £174.5 million this year in national portfolio organisations outside London. It is of course the Arts Council that has the role of supporting regional culture and arts, and I think it is doing a good job.

Oral Answers to Questions

Dan Jarvis Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There are countless examples of Conservative councils up and down the country making tough decisions to ensure that they continue to provide front-line services for their residents at the right cost.

[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

I welcome the Government’s decision to fund six libraries to become business incubators, but it comes at a time when unfair local government funding solutions mean that, since 2010, 640 libraries have closed, are under threat or have been left to volunteers. Why are the Government not developing a survival strategy to support local authorities? Why are the Government not recommending alternatives for the delivery of services? Where is the vision? Where is the leadership?

[Mr Vaizey]

I sometimes wonder whether the Labour spokesman looks at a single thing that I am doing. We have given responsibility for libraries to the Arts Council, we have set aside a £6 million fund, we have published the CIPFA statistics and we are piloting automatic membership for school children. He simply rolls over when Newcastle proposes to cut its culture and its libraries, and says, “I back Newcastle.”

Hillsborough Disaster

Dan Jarvis Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

May I begin by paying tribute to the dignity of the families of the 96 and to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) for securing today’s debate? May I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) and many other colleagues for their tenacious pursuit of the release of these files over many years? I know that the people of Liverpool and also the people of south Yorkshire and Nottingham, where I grew up, are proud of the work they have done to secure today’s debate. I think I speak on behalf of hon. and right hon. Members on both sides of the House when I say that, having heard their passionate and moving speeches, even more people across the country will be just as proud tonight.

I take this opportunity to congratulate the Government on the introduction of the e-petitions scheme over the summer. I believe that this debate is evidence that we should see petitions not as a gimmick, but as a tool for informing debate on what the public want us to think and talk about. I commend the Backbench Business Committee, chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), for its determination that the debate should take place.

I would like to say clearly from the outset that no one in this place should be in any doubt whatever that today’s debate is about reconciling a major injustice. What happened at Hillsborough was a tragedy first and foremost for the families, but also for the great city of Liverpool, a city that has come together and shown a unique solidarity over the past two decades that we should all recognise. It was also a tragedy for our police, our politicians and our media, because the myths that my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton has described were allowed to surface, fester and, for many, become ingrained as the truth. Today, in this House, we have a chance to put that right. In order for that to happen, we need to know beyond a shadow of a doubt what the Government documents say. Cabinet minutes to briefing papers, speeches and drafts—all need to be given to the independent panel and all must be uncensored and without redactions. Only then can the panel make a full assessment of what happened, who knew what and why they chose to do what they did. I very much welcome the statement that the Home Secretary made tonight.

Fifteen years in the British Army means that I am, sadly, no stranger to the loss of close friends and colleagues. If I learned anything from those difficult times, it is that part of the grieving process for the families involves getting to the truth and knowing all the facts that surround the deaths of loved ones. Although I support the release of any uncensored Government documentation from 1989 to the present day, I wish to make it clear that I believe that it is right, as the Home Secretary and other Members have said, to allow the families to see that information first. It should be the job of the independent panel, in conjunction with the families, to use its discretion over what files should be released into the public domain. I am of the opinion that the release of distressing images of those who tragically died and personal information, such as contact details and medical records, is clearly not in the public interest and would serve only to inflict greater distress on the families.

Sadly, for over two decades we have allowed the families’ questions to go unanswered. For over two decades we have allowed them to suffer. I believe that that is unacceptable and falls short of the standards that we in Britain should expect from the police, our media and, yes, our politicians. I was delighted that nearly 100 MPs from nine political parties signed the petition requesting a debate on this issue. It showed the public that we understood the depth of feeling, and my hope is that it shows the families that we as a Parliament are finally serious about securing justice and clearing the names of those who tragically died.

Back in April 1989, I was a Nottingham Forest Junior Red, a devoted supporter of Brian Clough and a great admirer of Kenny Dalglish. I tried my best to get a ticket for the semi-final but I was not able to, so my family and I were spared the ordeal of being present on that fateful day, but the horrors that the fans who were there felt, and the anguish that their families have suffered since, have resonated with people throughout the country.

I believe now that the people have spoken: in just three short weeks over the summer, 140,000 mobilised and signed the petition. The depth of feeling is overwhelmingly clear, and now we have not only the chance but, more important, the responsibility to act. The time has come for the families to have their most agonising questions answered. The time has come for full disclosure. Put simply, the time has come for justice for the 96. I very much hope that the whole House will support this motion.