Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Lord Bates Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2015 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Bates]

That the Bill be read a second time.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, the objective of this Bill is to protect the public. New psychoactive substances are not merely a bit of harmless fun providing an instant buzz. These substances are untested and unknown, with clear evidence of short-term harms and potential long-term adverse consequences. The trade in these substances is quite simply reckless. Those who perpetrate it have no regard for the welfare of the end user. Indeed, the producers of these substances deliberately seek to evade the controls on drugs by manufacturing products that mimic the effect of controlled drugs.

However, in mimicking the effects, these synthetic copies can also replicate the dangers associated with the original drug. It is not just the manufacturers of new psychoactive substances who take this cavalier approach to public safety. Those who sell them are not open and honest about the products that they are marketing. Instead, they seek to absolve themselves of liability by selling the substances in packages labelled “not for human consumption”, “plant food”, or some other fiction.

We should be under no illusion about the harms caused by new psychoactive substances. They have been associated with paranoia, psychosis and seizures, and tragically have led to the death of too many unsuspecting users. Indeed, the number of deaths has been growing at an alarming rate—from 29 in England and Wales in 2011, to 60 in 2013, with a further 60 deaths reported in Scotland in the year before last.

There has also been a sharp rise in new psychoactive substance-related inquiries by health professionals to the National Poisons Information Service. In addition to the health hazards, a number of local authorities have reported instances of anti-social behaviour in the vicinity of retail outlets selling these products, known as head shops.

The open sale of psychoactive substances on the high street and the internet gives the false impression that they are somehow safe to use. Indeed, it is for this reason that they are commonly referred to as legal highs. The very term seeks to reassure the user that they are both legal and safe. I have already sought to debunk the notion that these substances are safe. As for their legality, research has shown that nearly one in five in fact contain controlled drugs.

In short, many new psychoactive substances present a very real hazard to their users in the same way as controlled drugs. As they are untested, there is no way of knowing which, if any, are benign and safe to use.

Over the period of the last Parliament, we sought to deal with this challenge. We set up an early warning system to monitor closely the availability of these substances. The Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 introduced temporary class drug orders so as to speed up the process of bringing harmful new substances within the tight controls of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. We have used the powers in that Act, as amended, to ban over 500 new psychoactive substances. Although these steps have afforded some protection, we found ourselves sucked into a game of cat and mouse: no sooner do the Government ban one substance than another pops up with a new chemical formulation designed to evade the current controls, with the added concern that these new formulations have greater potency. And so the process continues.

It was against that backdrop that, in December 2013, the Government appointed an expert panel to undertake a review of new psychoactive substances. The membership of the panel included representatives from medical science, social science, law enforcement and other criminal justice agencies, local government and those working in the field of education and prevention. The expert panel was asked to make a clear recommendation for an effective and sustainable legislative response to new psychoactive substances.

In coming to a view on the most appropriate way forward, the panel considered various alternative approaches and looked at how these had been applied in other jurisdictions, such as the United States, Ireland and New Zealand. The panel’s findings in relation to the regulatory approach adopted in New Zealand are instructive, given the interest shown in this approach by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Drug Policy Reform, chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and including, on that inquiry, my noble friend Lord Mancroft, the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee.

In its own 2013 report into new psychoactive substances, the all-party parliamentary group was attracted to the New Zealand model because it afforded the prospect of low-risk substances being licensed for sale. However, the expert panel expressed a number of reservations about a regulatory approach and pointed to the difficulties of defining low risk from a legislative and harms perspective. The panel was also concerned that a regulatory regime would send out confusing messages about the safety of new psychoactive substances. Finally, in relation to New Zealand, it is worth recording that no applications for a licence have been submitted to the regulatory authority. Consequently, in practice, a blanket ban is in operation there.

Having considered the approach in New Zealand and elsewhere, the expert panel recommended that the Government develop proposals for a general prohibition on the supply of non-controlled psychoactive substances. Last October, the then Minister for Crime Prevention, Norman Baker, accepted the expert panel’s advice on behalf of the Government. This indeed has been the position of all three parties, reflected in the manifestos on which they stood in the general election.

The Conservative manifesto said:

“We will create a blanket ban on all new psychoactive substances, protecting young people from exposure to so-called ‘legal highs’”.

The Labour manifesto said:

“we will ban the sale and distribution of dangerous psychoactive substances, so called ‘legal highs’”.

The Liberal Democrats said that they would,

“clamp down on those who produce and sell unregulated chemical highs”.

I now turn to the detail of the Bill. Clauses 1 and 2 and Schedule 1 define a psychoactive substance for the purpose of the Bill. The definition is purposefully wide; it encompasses any substance that,

“is capable of producing a psychoactive effect in a person who consumes it”.

In defining what we mean by a psychoactive effect, our definition draws on scientific advice and international precedents, including the 1971 UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances. As I have indicated, we make no apologies for the breadth of the definition. If we were to adopt too narrow a definition, we could, in a few months’ or years’ time, find ourselves having to bring forward further legislation because we were faced with a new generation of harmful substances that escaped the controls provided for in this Bill.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

The Minister is arguing for the broad definition that is in the Bill. Will he clarify one point? If the Bill were already on the statute book as presently drafted and he felt moved today to send Lady Bates a bunch of flowers, the perfume of which would make her feel much more benevolent towards him and much happier about his absence on ministerial duties, would he be in breach of the law?

[Lord Bates]

We will come back to this many times in Committee, I am sure, but we are confident that that would not fall into this category. Clauses 2 and 3, as I am sure the noble Lord has read, set out very clearly that this is something that is taken and consumed for the purpose of achieving the psychoactive high to which I referred. So I do not accept his point, although I am sure that we will come back to it many times during the passage of the Bill.

While starting with a wide definition of a psychoactive substance, the Bill then seeks to narrow it, as in the Irish model, so as to exclude certain substances and activities—perhaps the noble Lord was slightly pre-empting my text—that are not the target of this legislation. The Bill does this in two ways. First, it provides for a list of exempted substances. This covers substances that are either already subject to regulation, such as controlled drugs, medicines, alcohol and tobacco, or those where their psychoactive effect is negligible, namely caffeine and foodstuffs. The Bill includes a power to add to or vary this list by regulations, subject to the affirmative procedure.

The second means by which legitimate activities are excluded from the ambit of the controls in the Bill is through the power, in Clause 10, to provide for exemptions to the main offences. Similar provision is included in the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and has been used successfully, for example, to ensure that healthcare professionals, when acting in a professional capacity, are not caught by the offences in that Act.

Let me also assure noble Lords that if there is legitimate research into new medicines to tackle any number of the conditions that afflict the human race, the Bill will not be a barrier where such research involves the testing of psychoactive substances.

Having defined a psychoactive substance, Clauses 4 to 9 go on to provide for the key criminal offences. As the expert panel recommended, these focus on the trade in psychoactive substances rather than on the users. The Bill achieves this by making it an offence to produce, supply, offer to supply, possess with intent to supply, import or export a psychoactive substance. The maximum penalty for these offences is seven years’ imprisonment. I should add that the way these criminal offences are constructed excludes psychoactive substances that are not intended for human consumption. So no offence would be committed, for example, where a person produces or supplies a psychoactive substance for veterinary or industrial purposes.

I want to stress that there is no offence of simple possession. This mirrors the position with substances subject to a temporary class drug order. That said, if a new substance comes along where the evidence of harm is such as to warrant it being added to the list of controlled drugs under the 1971 Act, the personal possession offence in that Act would then apply.

As with the legislation in the Irish Republic, we have designed the enforcement framework so that the police, local authorities and other law enforcement agencies can adopt a flexible, proportionate response depending on the particular circumstances of a case. We need a system that is nimble enough to be able to nip problems in the bud before they escalate. In addition to the core criminal offences which I have described, the Bill therefore also provides for four civil sanctions: prohibition notices, premises notices, prohibition orders, and premises orders. Let me be clear that there is no requirement to escalate enforcement action through the civil powers before a criminal prosecution is considered. If the criminality is of such a serious nature as to justify an immediate prosecution, it is right and proper that the relevant enforcement agency should adopt that course.

Where the civil sanctions are an appropriate response, the prohibition notice and the premises notice will act as a final warning to those engaged in the production, supply, importation or exportation of psychoactive substances. A prohibition notice issued by the police, the National Crime Agency, the Border Force or a local authority will require the respondent to desist from undertaking relevant prohibited activities, such as selling psychoactive substances from a particular head shop or through a website. Where the prohibited activity is taking place on particular premises—again, the head-shop example comes to mind—a premises notice could be issued separately to the landlord so that they take reasonable steps to stop the prohibited activity taking place on the premises in question.

If the respondent fails to comply with a notice, the relevant enforcement agency can then move swiftly to apply to a court for a prohibition order or a premises order. Again, I should make it clear that there is no requirement to escalate a case through the civil powers. If the breach of a prohibition notice is so egregious, it is then open to the police or other enforcement agency to pursue a prosecution for one of the main offences in the Bill. A prohibition order or premises order will be made by the court, normally on an application from the police, a local authority or other relevant agency. It will be open to the court to attach such prohibitions, restrictions or requirements to an order as the court considers appropriate. Clause 21 gives some examples of these. This is by no means an exhaustive list and should not be read as such, but the examples given are significant—hence their inclusion in the Bill. A prohibition order could include a requirement on the respondent, perhaps the proprietor of an online business or of a head shop, to hand over any remaining stocks of psychoactive substances.

It would also be possible to attach to either a prohibition order or a premises order an access prohibition. This would operate much like the premises closure powers in the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. An access prohibition could bar all access to premises for an initial period of up to three months, extendable to a maximum of six months. An access prohibition is most likely to be used against commercial premises such as a head shop, but could relate to any relevant premises. Where the premises are used as a dwelling, it would be open to the court to allow limited access for those who habitually reside on the premises, but the decision will be one for the court to take. Breach of a prohibition order or premises order will be a criminal offence, punishable by up to two years’ imprisonment. The Bill provides for a right of appeal against these orders, and the respondent or other persons significantly affected by the order may apply to the court for the order to be varied or discharged.

Also included in the Bill are bespoke enforcement powers that will enable the police, National Crime Agency officers and customs officers to stop and search persons, vehicles and vessels. The powers to stop and search a person will apply where the officer has reasonable grounds to suspect that a person has committed one of the main offences in the Bill: namely the offence of producing, supplying et cetera a psychoactive substance, or the offence of breaching a prohibition order or premises order. In such a case, the officer may search the person for evidence of such an offence. The powers to search vehicles and vessels will apply where an officer has reasonable grounds to suspect that there is evidence of one of these offences in or on the vehicle or vessel.

Additionally, there are powers to search premises for relevant evidence and to seize such evidence. These powers are subject to judicial authorisation and extend to local authorities as well as to the police, National Crime Agency and Border Force officers. The Bill sets out other safeguards, including protecting material subject to legal or journalistic privilege. Further safeguards in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, including those in the relevant PACE codes of practice, will also be engaged.

Finally, the Bill makes provision for the forfeiture of seized items. Given that the whole premise of the Bill is that psychoactive substances are, or are potentially, harmful, we should not be allowing these substances, once seized, to re-enter the supply chain or to be returned to users. There is, therefore, a clear presumption that any seized psychoactive substances will be destroyed. Where there is evidence of an offence under the Bill, or the seized item is not a psychoactive substance, the Bill provides for a judicially authorised forfeiture process. There is also a fast-track procedure for the disposal of small quantities of a psychoactive substance where, for example, this is consistent with personal use and there is no evidence of an offence being committed under the Bill.

The words of the expert panel were that there was no silver-bullet approach to tackling this issue. The criminal justice response to the trade in psychoactive substances, as provided for in this Bill, must be seen in the context of our wider strategy to tackle the harms they cause. Alongside law enforcement activity to restrict the supply of new psychoactive substances, we are driving forward another key recommendation of the panel that we enhance our efforts to reduce demand, including through effective prevention programmes, and provide the right health-related services supporting individuals to recover from substance misuse. The dangers posed by new psychoactive substances are widely recognised, and there is now a broad consensus that the current approach is failing to provide timely protection where it is clearly needed.

The three main political parties represented in your Lordships’ House differed on many things in the recent election but, as I have indicated, there was welcome agreement on the need for a general ban on new psychoactive substances. That view is widely shared, including by the police, the Local Government Association, the Royal Society for Public Health and others. However, there is one further organisation that I should like to add to the list: the Angelus Foundation. Angelus was founded by Maryon Stewart to campaign on the dangers of new psychoactive substances following the tragic death of her daughter, Hester, in 2009. The Angelus Foundation knows more than most about the potential fatal consequences of these substances, so we should heed its words with care. It said this of the Bill:

“Angelus has led the call for a strong legal response to the easy availability of these legal substances and has long campaigned for fundamental measures to disrupt the supply of these legal drugs”.

The Bill is intended to help prevent further tragedies so that other parents do not have to suffer what Maryon Stewart and her family have had to endure.

During the later stages of the Bill, noble Lords will properly want to scrutinise its detail carefully, but I trust that the House will overwhelmingly be able to join me today in endorsing its core purpose. On that note, I commend the Bill to the House. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, this has been a debate of characteristic quality in your Lordships’ House. Immense expertise from around the House has been brought to bear on this issue—by people who have actually devoted their lives to trying to understand and tackle this issue of drugs. I was very struck by the words of my noble friend Lord Mancroft, who talked about the common approach shared by all sides of the argument about seeking to protect our children and the community from the effects of these harmful substances. In that we are united. How we go about that will be a matter of some debate as the Bill moves into Committee, should your Lordships choose to grant it a Second Reading, and the Government will welcome that.

Your Lordships’ expertise has raised some very thoughtful points. I summarise them as falling into two broad categories: those that look at the particular issue of psychoactive substances and those that relate to wider drugs policy. The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, touched on that when he said that effectively there were two debates going on here. The all-party group has done some excellent research and taken great evidence—I read its report and recommendations very carefully before this debate, as your Lordships would expect—and I think it is almost quorate in this debate, with the noble Lords, Lord Rea and Lord Howarth, my noble friend Lord Mancroft and the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady Meacher, all present and all making points.

Another view points to the growing threat of these new psychoactive substances. The early warning system in the European Union—among our European friends, with whom we are working closely on these issues— identified 24 new substances in 2009; in 2010 there were 41; in 2011, 49; in 2012, 74; and in 2013, 81. We are on an exponential rise in the number of these new substances. As my noble friend Lady Browning made clear, this amounts to playing Russian roulette.

I found one of the most telling contributions to be that of the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, because he came at it from the perspective of pharmacology. I hope that does not impinge on his street cred among his colleagues. He talked about the challenges of dosage and of manufacturing these compounds. Things are coming into this country and being identified at the moment which people are consuming when they have absolutely no understanding of how they have been produced or what is being put before them. People are looking at that and saying, similarly to my noble friend Lord Farmer, who talked about families, that things must be done. That approach is not lacking in intellect.

There is a growing number of substances so, effectively, we have a choice before us. Do we go down a route where we have base legislation in the Misuse of Drugs Act and then the Government come forward with 500 individual measures and temporary banning orders on banned substances, but their manufacture is unshown? It is almost like a Whac-A-Mole game in the arcade; once one is stopped, another pops up somewhere else. Or do we go down the route of a blanket ban? I know that that is not supported in many of the contributions that were put here, but let me offer some of the places where it is supported.

The Home Affairs Select Committee took a lot of evidence, and a lot of the people who gave evidence to it also gave evidence to the all-party group on the misuse of drugs. The Select Committee said in its summary, first, that:

“We conclude that there is currently an epidemic of psychoactive substances and it is highly likely that the creation of new psychoactive substances will continue to increase in the future unless immediate action is taken”.

It went on to recommend that,

“new legislation, brought in to address the problem of ‘legal highs’, is specific and focused. The law must ensure that the police and law enforcement agencies can take action comprehensively against those who sell new psychoactive substances and remove the reliance on existing legislation which is ill-suited to comprehensively tackling this problem. The legislation needs to allow sellers of new psychoactive substances to be prosecuted for an offence which is equivalent in sanction to that of the Misuse of Drugs Act”.

In addition to the Home Affairs Select Committee, support comes from: the expert panel appointed by Norman Baker, as was mentioned; the similar panel appointed by the Scottish Government to look into this, which came to the same conclusion; the Health and Social Care Committee of the National Assembly for Wales; several countries, including Ireland and New Zealand, which were mentioned; and each of the main political parties in England and Wales at the election. I am simply saying that it is not an inconsequential body of opinion and we are, rightly, trying to follow the evidence in legislation. I suggest that even if it is not compelling in some areas, that is quite a comprehensive body of evidence.

I want to address some of the specific issues raised.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

Before the Minister departs from what he has just been discussing, I would be grateful if he would answer one point. He suggested that there is a binary choice: either we carry on attempting to swat these new psychoactive substances as they arrive in our midst or we have a blanket ban. However, there is a third option, which is selectively to legalise and strictly regulate certain drugs of which society has long experience, which are less dangerous and which society on the whole knows how to deal with. Is that not an option that ought to be considered? It is a market solution. People would be interested in and attracted to taking those drugs if they were looking for some psychoactive experience, but if they found that they could get satisfaction from a range of carefully selected, legalised substances, they would be much less interested in buying what the online merchants were offering them. It would be a market way to address the problem.

[Lord Bates]

I hear what the noble Lord says and once again I appreciate the passion that he feels about the topic and his knowledge of it, but in a sense that debate went before this piece of legislation. We looked at that. I do not want to run through the whole list again but other people, including the Home Affairs Select Committee and the expert panel, all looked at that and came to the view that that was not the case. That is a point of wider drug policy. It is perfectly legitimate to continue to have that debate, but not in relation to the Psychoactive Substances Bill now before us, which is seeking to tackle a very specific problem in a way that we believe is in keeping with the expert opinion that we have had.

I recognise that the noble Lord, Lord Patel of Bradford, and many others—I keep saying this—have an immense level of expertise. I should, in mentioning expertise, say that I am very grateful to be assisted on the Front Bench by my noble friend Lady Chisholm, who also brings immense experience to this, from her understanding both of drugs and of their health effects. The noble Lords, Lord Rosser, Lord Patel, Lord Kirkwood and Lord Rea, asked about the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. Its 2011 report called on the Government to explore legislation for new psychoactive substances. The Home Office set up a six-month policy review, with a primary focus on looking at how law enforcement powers could be strengthened. Ministers informed the ACMD in October 2014 of the Government’s plans to develop the blanket ban approach. The Home Secretary has written again to the ACMD, and welcomes its views on how we strengthen the UK’s forensic capacity and capability to support the implementation of the legislation in 2016. The ACMD continues to provide expert scientific advice which is greatly valued by the Government. The Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 will remain the cornerstone of our response to dangerous drugs and the ACMD will continue to have the central statutory role in assessing the harms of specific new psychoactive substances and provide advice to Ministers.

[Lord Mancroft]

I am most grateful to my noble friend for giving way. In the course of what he was just saying, he talked of the Misuse of Drugs Act being a cornerstone. I understand that, but the Misuse of Drugs Act’s primary purpose was to restrict the supply of certain drugs—heroin, cocaine et cetera—and it has completely and utterly failed to do that. It has not restricted the supply; we have a massive oversupply. You could say that that is because time has passed, but the fact is that the Act has failed. If that is the cornerstone, and we are moving on to another stone in the same pavement, it is completely logical to ask why this new stone would succeed where every previous measure has consummately failed.

[Lord Bates]

My noble friend asserts that the Misuse of Drugs Act has failed. You can of course observe and point to the availability and prevalence of drugs within society and draw some conclusions, but one cannot make a direct comparison because, had the Misuse of Drugs Act not been in place in 1971, perhaps that situation and the situation that we are trying to address might be a whole lot worse.

What can you do in government? You can look at issues. We have parents, including Maryon Stewart, and the Angelus Foundation coming to us and urging us to take action and clamp down on these drugs. We read in our regional and national newspapers of horrendous situations—young lives lost and blighted. We see new drugs come on to the market branded as “plant food” and “not fit for human consumption”, as if that gets the sellers off the hook of their moral responsibility for what they are selling. Are we supposed to say “No, we do not take any action”, simply because there is an availability of drugs in society? Well, the Government do not take that view and nor did the expert panel, the Home Affairs Select Committee or any of the mainstream political parties in their manifestos. I am sure that this debate will go on, and it is good that we do this. I will now try to address some more of the particular points raised.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, and my noble friend argued the case and called for a more regulatory approach. As I indicated in my opening remarks, the expert panel considered the regulatory model along with others in operation in different jurisdictions, and concluded that it presented significant practical difficulties. Trying to define what we mean by low-harm substances would be a legislative and scientific minefield. For many substances, the evidence of chronic harm can take years to emerge, as can dependence potential. It is not clear how the harms could be properly assessed to medicine standards without animal and human trials. Do we really want to contemplate further animal testing for these purposes? I also remind the House that there have been no applications for licences in New Zealand—further evidence, if it were needed, of the difficulties of going down the regulatory route.

The question of definition was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Patel. The Bill is designed to capture substances supplied for human consumption that have a psychoactive effect. Its aim is to capture substances that are not currently controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 but that, as with all drugs, carry health risks when misused. Many new psychoactive substances are still legal due to the speed at which they are produced, with manufacturers inventing new substances by tweaking chemical formulas, as I already mentioned.

The point about criminalising young people was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, again from her deep experience in this area. I assure her and other noble Lords that there is no question of criminalising the users of psychoactive substances. As proposed by the expert panel, the Bill is focused on the trade in these substances: those who manufacture, import, distribute or sell new psychoactive substances. The Bill contains no offence in relation to simple possession—a point welcomed by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. As she suggested, for young people tempted to use new psychoactive substances our focus must be on prevention and, where necessary, treatment. I look forward in Committee to setting out in more detail the comments in that expert panel report on the work that will need to go hand in hand with education and health prevention available to people.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, argued in favour of the Irish approach. The Bill is closely modelled on that approach. I will come back to that specific point about the Irish definition.

The impact on research was raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Meacher and Lady Hollins, the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, and my noble friend Lady Browning. A number of noble Lords sought reassurance about the impact of the Bill on legitimate research. I can indeed offer such reassurance. Research that does not involve the human consumption of a psychoactive substance would not be caught by the provisions of the Bill. Where research has reached the stage of clinical human trials, Schedule 1 to the Bill exempts investigational medicinal products from the scope of a psychoactive substance. This includes active substances being used in such trials. If further latitude for research were needed, the regulation-making power in Clause 10 enables us to exclude specified activities from the ambit of the offences.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, raised the issue of keeping the list of exempted substances under review. He asked about the process for ensuring that the list of exempted substances in Schedule 1 is kept up to date. We believe that the list will be relatively stable. Indeed, Ireland has not needed to amend its equivalent list in the five year since its legislation was enacted. I should add that we are not legislating here for a regulatory regime for new psychoactive substances; there is no provision in the Bill to enable the licensing of so-called low-harm substances, and the regulation-making power in Clause 3 is not designed for that purpose.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and my noble friend Lord Farmer asked about the implementation of the Bill. We are working with the police, the National Crime Agency and the Border Force on implementation, including the development of appropriate guidance, and we will extend those discussions to the Local Government Association—another organisation that is actually being supportive of the Government’s approach here. We are also ready to work with other bodies, such as the Association of Convenience Stores, to provide bespoke guidance for their members. A very good point was made about what we are doing to engage with countries that lead in supplying these things, such as India and China. I do not have an answer to that, but I shall write to noble Lords about that in further correspondence.

I mentioned the cross-European approach. The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, asked whether we could be more specific about when the ACMD is due to report. NICE and the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency have published advice to clinicians on how to help people to withdraw from medicines to which they are addicted. Public Health England has produced advice to commissioners on how to assess the need in their area for specialist services to help people to withdraw from medicines to which they are addicted.

I am conscious that there are a number of issues that I have not had time properly to address here, and I shall be very happy to write a follow-up letter to begin a discussion with colleagues, and perhaps to arrange, ahead of Committee, meetings between interested Peers and some of the experts from whom we have taken our opinion. I am very happy to give an undertaking to do that. With those assurances—

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

The Minister has been very solicitous in answering the legitimate questions that have been asked. It would help me enormously to prepare mentally for Committee if he could give me some idea of what he would consider success to look like over the next five or 10-year period, should this Bill become an Act.

[Lord Bates]

There is some of that in the impact statement, although I accept that it may not be as much as noble Lords would like. However, I am very happy to see whether we can go back and see what extra we can produce in answer to that very specific question. I shall write or provide further comment in Committee. But in the light of those remarks and those commitments—

[Lord Patel of Bradford]

I have just one question about the Department of Health and Public Health England. Many noble Lords have said that they would prefer to see this legislation under the health remit. I just cannot see where Public Health England and the Department of Health have been engaged or involved in taking this Bill forward, and it would be useful to have a view on that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bates]

That is a very fair point, because what we are talking about here is the legislative response, and what we are passing into law here is in relation to the Psychoactive Substances Bill. That is an element of the stick that is part of government policy, but it cannot be set aside from the carrot—if I can express it that way—set out in the expert panel’s report, which said that the health elements must be equally strong and robust. I have not dwelt on them as much because that is not the subject of the Bill, but it is the subject of government policy. I would certainly be very happy to set that out in greater detail for other noble Lords.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

I apologise for interrupting at the end of the debate. I was held up at Imperial College, which is why I did not put my name down to speak. When I was chairman of the Science and Technology Select Committee some years ago, we looked intensively at the medicinal uses of cannabis. One of the pieces of evidence was very compelling and enabled us to think about rather permissive legislation. It was that a number of people who had medical conditions, such as glaucoma and multiple sclerosis, took cannabis, which was not prescribed, to relieve their symptoms. They were very clear that they did not want a high. They did not want to get intoxicated. They monitored how much they were taking so that they were in complete control. Will the Minister clarify the position? Possession of those drugs would still be legal, but any attempt to obtain them would involve those people in an illegal act, would it not?

[Lord Bates]

I am very cautious in responding to the noble Lord, who has a well-deserved reputation for knowledge in these areas. I will write. He will be reassured to know that other noble Lords are planning to bring forward an amendment in Committee to allow a more substantive debate on that point, which they are perfectly entitled to do. I assure the noble Lord that at that point I will outline the Government’s position in more detail.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.