Economy: Purchasing Managers’ Index

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord Howarth of Newport

Thursday 11th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

I am sure that those who forecast a figure of zero for GDP in February and then found out it was 0.2% might be a little cheered up this morning. On other reasons to be cheerful, what about the fact that unemployment, debt and taxes are all falling while exports, growth, GDP and real wages are all rising?

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, does not the confidence manifested in the purchasing managers’ index, as the Minister has said, continuously over the past 32 months—pretty much the whole period since the referendum—despite the iterations of Project Fear and the lucubrations of the remain establishment, show that the majority of UK manufacturers are undismayed by a post-Brexit future? If their confidence is to be sustained and new investment is to be unleashed, is it not vital that indecisions and uncertainties about Brexit are swiftly brought to an end by our actually leaving the EU and not allowed to persist for up to another six months, or possibly even longer?

Brexit: Economic Forecasts

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord Howarth of Newport

Wednesday 24th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

My noble friend speaks with great knowledge and expertise in these areas. Of course, one of his points is the one I made right at the beginning: the fastest-growing economies will be outside the European Union. Last year, our exports to India rose by 31% and to China by 15%. Those are significant sums. Not just the UK but the EU needs to wake up to the competition around the world, and to ensure that we have markets that can compete in that new environment.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, what are the Government’s economic forecasts for the next 10 years worth when their forecast of catastrophe in the 12 months following the referendum was so abjectly wrong?

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord will remember the catastrophe that happened in 2008. I do not necessarily want to remind him of that. Growth has continued in every quarter since the referendum. We expect that to continue and that is what we are working for. We are also working for a deal—that is what the Prime Minister is working for tirelessly. She deserves our full support.

Economy: Productivity

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord Howarth of Newport

Thursday 28th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

There are incentives for R&D spend. We know that things such as infrastructure and capital investment—we have had a patient capital review—contribute to improvements in productivity. We know that education and skills are a key part, and that is why we have T-levels and the apprenticeship levy. We also know that investment is very important, and that is why the capital breaks we have for R&D, particularly in small firms, are very important. But this is a whole-economy effort in which small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as the large companies, need to play their part.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

Will the Minister respond to one of the questions asked by my noble friend Lord Haskel about share buybacks and, indeed, excessive dividend payments? There is a management culture that all too often seems more interested in the extraction of wealth than the creation of wealth.

[Lord Bates]

If that criticism were true, we would not see that the UK is regarded as the number one location for foreign direct investment and we would not see companies coming here in the numbers that they are. We have a great strength in our economy. We have an historic weakness in productivity and we need to look at all the possible contributions to that and address them; that is what this review is all about.

Public Sector Pay Cap

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord Howarth of Newport

Wednesday 5th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

I was just about to say that was above my pay grade and then I realised that was probably not the right term to use. The Chancellor set out the policy on public pay in the Budget. That continues to be the case. We listen very carefully to what the review bodies say and watch very carefully to see the impact that has on recruitment. That policy will continue.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, further to the excellent question by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, when you have the Health Secretary, the Environment Secretary and even the Foreign Secretary publicly campaigning against the policy of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what does that do for the authority and standing of the Government? Is not the Cabinet a rabble?

[Lord Bates]

Certainly, the Cabinet is not as the noble Lord describes. The reality of all these things is that we do not have a Cabinet of clones; we have a Cabinet of individuals—a lot of individuals who care very passionately about the areas for which they are responsible. I declare an interest as a Minister for International Development, about which I care very passionately and on which I might occasionally be prepared to make my case. But the fact of the matter is that the collective government policy is as set out by the Chancellor in the Budget. We listen carefully to the independent pay review bodies.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord Howarth of Newport

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Bates]

Forgive me for trying to be reasonable. I was simply saying that this was an interesting argument that I listened to and followed. A number of points were raised from all parts of the Committee, expressing concerns about how this system operates. I want to go back and talk with colleagues about the system and how it operates, and then come back with answers to the points raised or suggestions as to how things could be improved.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

If this does come back, will the Minister share with the House how the Government intend to make their position credible and defensible before this international conference, at which the Prime Minister will claim that Britain is leading in the security of its provisions to prevent money laundering?

[Lord Bates]

Her Majesty’s Government’s position is always credible and defensible. Most people would recognise that this is a sensitive area, but the UK has taken a very strong stand in the international community on tackling money laundering. It does that consistently through raising matters at the G20, which is a prime vehicle for operating on this, and through the OECD, which has its regulations as well. We will continue to do that. I would have thought that everybody would welcome the fact that the Prime Minister is taking this leadership and wanting to see how further things could be done. It is absolutely the role of this House to apply pressure to the Executive to make sure that they are living up to the arguments and principles that they seek that others observe.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord Howarth of Newport

Tuesday 14th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The noble Baroness goes to the heart of the issue; we have a problem with that. We are just not convinced. There are botanicals, to which we have referred. There are other substances, such as nitrous oxide. Does “synthetic” as a term cover what we want it to cover, or will we be reassembled back here at some future date trying to clamp down on another loophole which has been exploited? That is the difficulty. When I say that I am not ruling out the term “synthetic”, that is absolutely correct, but we want to make sure that if the term is used, it is understood in a legal context as achieving the intention of the Bill, which is to uphold a blanket ban. I hope that, with that, I have provided some clarification.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. What is his difficulty about using the apparatus already available to the Home Secretary under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 to deal with botanical substances and, I think, nitrous oxide—natural substances about which the Government are concerned? It is open to them to classify them perhaps as class C drugs and deal with the problem in that way, distinguishing between natural substances and the synthetic substances that constitute this huge social threat by being barraged into our society week after week to the great danger of our young people.

[Lord Bates]

That was the point that I was trying to address in response to my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay, who talked about the speed of this: the cumbersome process that existed before to categorise something, the period of time, and the agility of the criminal gangs behind the production of these substances. That goes to the heart of the purpose of the blanket ban. I know that we may not necessarily agree on that point, but I hope he will understand that that is where we are genuinely resolute: how do we uphold the blanket ban—which is the advice that we received from the expert panel, what similar panels in Wales and Scotland believe to be the way forward and what operates in Ireland—in a way that recognises the nuances we have but does not allow people to escape through loopholes? That is the challenge we are wrestling with. It is a dialogue that we are committed to continuing, both with your Lordships in the remaining process of the Bill and as it goes to another place, should it be your Lordships’ will that it does. That dialogue will continue; it is genuine and we are continually listening to views on this.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, in supporting the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Rosser, I express my welcome to the amendment tabled by the Government. It gives me particular pleasure to support my noble friend but it also gives me pleasure to support the Minister in his tabling of that amendment. It is never really profitable in politics to seek to take credit; it is much more important that there should be results. But there has been pressure from all quarters for the Government to make it clear—and make it clear in the Bill—that they were going to involve the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs in carrying forward the policy for which the Bill would legislate, so this can be nothing but good. If any credit is due to this House, because the issue has been emphatically raised in our proceedings, then it is one more instance of how the Minister has been the most honest of brokers between this House and his department. The integrity, good will and energy with which he has mediated these debates through to his colleagues in the Home Office is something which I think we all very much appreciate. I would like to place that on the record.

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, this may be a short group as we, too, welcome this amendment. I do not think I have ever known an occasion before where all three main parties have put their names to the same amendment. It is a matter of semantics as to whether we have all come around to Amendment 10 or everybody has come around to government Amendment 22. What matters most is that we are all on the same page. In the context of the previous debate, that same page very much underscores the importance which the Government place and should place on the advice which they receive from the advisory council.

The Explanatory Notes made it clear that we expected to consult fully the council on Clauses 3 and 10. However, in bringing forward these amendments to turn such an expectation into a statutory duty, we have been mindful not just of those views and its opinion but of the deliberations and the views expressed in your Lordships’ House. These amendments reaffirm the value we place on the independent expert advice from the advisory council and our commitment to a constructive working relationship with it on the provisions of the Bill and the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. We will continue to work with the council to achieve our common purpose of reducing and preventing harms caused by psychoactive substances to individuals, especially young people, families and communities. For these reasons, I am happy to support Amendment 10 and similarly to commend Amendment 22 to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord made a good point on stop-and-search powers and I know that a significant body of work is going on in relation to it. I was going to quote some of the reports on it and the actions that the Home Secretary has requested and taken on recording the data on how stop-and-search powers are used, particularly vis-à-vis black and minority ethnic communities. Perhaps I can undertake to write to the noble Lord and set that out in some detail. Because it is such a serious point, the ACMD was right to raise it in its letter, and the Home Secretary was right to acknowledge that point in her response. However, that does not take away from the wider point that allowing a defence or allowing for a provision relating to social supply of new psychoactive substances would provide a loophole that would be open to exploitation. It is for that reason, rather than the other, that I ask the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, I am grateful to everyone who has spoken. We know and applaud the Home Secretary’s drive to reform stop and search, and her desire that its incidence should be greatly reduced, not least in light of the findings that a high proportion of stop-and-search operations have been conducted illegally. However, the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, with all his experience of policing in Brixton, has raised a fresh point in our debates that is exceedingly important. It is that stop and search is producing a disproportionate incidence of cautions and charges among BME communities. I hope that the Home Office will reflect carefully on what the noble Lord had to say.

The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, put it to us that the charge that a young person might receive for supplying a psychoactive substance to their circle of friends, although not doing so for profit, might actually be more damaging than the effect of the psychoactive substance. That would often be the case. She mentioned Portugal, where the health-led approach is very different from the comprehensive prohibitionist approach that the Government have espoused and are reinforcing in this legislation. It is interesting that the European monitoring centre’s statistics show us that Ireland, which has used the approach that the Government are now seeking to legislate to provide in this country, has the highest incidence of consumption of new psychoactive substances among the many European countries covered by this survey; and Portugal has the lowest. There are lessons to be learnt from that.

The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, reminded us of the dangers of a criminal charge getting on to a young person’s record and being carried through into adulthood—and what a millstone that is around their neck. I should imagine that that is dangerous psychologically and in all sorts of practical ways.

I take seriously the intervention by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, who asked us to consider the extreme circumstances in which someone, perhaps with innocent intentions, had provided a substance to a circle of friends but it had all gone horribly wrong and someone had died. The noble and learned Lord said that the right solution was to leave the question of prosecution to the judgment of the prosecutor. I was pleased that the Minister indicated that that, too, would be his view—that discretion, which can be used by the police and the prosecuting authorities, is provided in the Bill. The intervention underlined how important the exercise of that discretion is.

I understand why the Home Secretary would not want to create a large loophole in the coverage of the legislation, and I was pleased that the Minister told us that the Government were seeking as far as they could to minimise the criminalisation of young people through this legislation and that he shares the concerns expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. I am sure that the House of Commons will want to think further about this issue. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord Howarth of Newport

Tuesday 14th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

The Minister will know from reading the report that some of the very significant practical difficulties for research arising from the fact that cannabis is in Schedule 1 are described in that report. He will also be aware that whereas cannabis is in Schedule 1 and is that much more tightly controlled, heroin is in Schedule 2 and is also very tightly controlled. The Minister said he had looked at the totality of the evidence. Does he have any evidence of leakage of heroin from hospitals, which are allowed to hold it because it is a Schedule 2 drug, into the illicit market? It is no more likely that cannabis would leak from its proper medical research uses into the illicit market than that heroin would. Heroin does not, I believe, so why would cannabis?

[Lord Bates]

That is an interesting point which will, of course, be considered by those committees which advise the Government on these important issues. I would imagine that that factor has been considered, and if it has not, I am sure that the noble Lord will ensure that in future it should be considered in making decisions on this issue.

Home Office records confirm that no university that has applied for a Schedule 1 licence has so far been refused one, and we have not seen any evidence that licensees have been unable to comply with the Schedule 1 licence requirements. About 70 Schedule 1 licences are currently held by universities and hospitals enabling them to undertake research with all substances in Schedule 1 under the terms of that licence, as opposed to being limited to a single drug.

Where that research involves live human subjects, there are other, non-Home Office requirements, such as ethics approval, and I think there is some anecdotal evidence that the ethical demands, processes and commitments that must be gone through are more onerous than the licensing ones and may in practice present greater challenges to researchers than the requirements of the 1971 Act.

I have no doubt the debate on the legal status of cannabis, including its scheduling, is one we will return to from time to time as the evidence develops. For now, I hope I have been able to present some evidence to the noble Baroness that while we carefully considered her proposal, we do not regard it as necessary and do not see the case for there being a change in the Government’s position at this time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bates]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, for moving this amendment and for the debate that we have had. Education is a critical element of this. It is right that we focus on education programmes, and I will come to those in a minute.

Probably the worst impact on a child’s education is what happens in places such as Canterbury, where there is a head shop across the road from a school. Young people can wander past that shop and obtain new psychoactive substances without any production of proof of age. Those substances are easily available and accessible. I cannot think of a worse signal to send to young people about what the Government’s position is. They may have had the most wonderful, textbook PSHE lesson from an inspiring teacher but, if that is their experience when they walk out the door, it is significantly undermined. Therefore, we need to keep this in context, and I will respond to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. Although education clearly needs to be robust and measured in its effectiveness, the overall purpose of the action being taken—with support from the Official Opposition—will have a far greater effect, particularly in relation to NPSs.

Prevention and education is a key strand of our balanced drug strategy, and it is vital that we prevent people, especially young people, using drugs in the first place and intervene early with those who start to develop problems. We have recently refreshed our approach to reducing the demand for drugs, enabling us to take a broad approach to prevention. The approach combines universal action with targeted action for those most at risk or already misusing drugs. It includes investing in a range of evidence-based programmes which have a positive impact on young people, giving them the confidence, resilience and risk-management skills to resist drug use. This refreshed approach is very much in line with the goal of building character, which was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth. Nicky Morgan had raised this.

While good practice is highlighted, the advisory council report also acknowledges strong evidence that some prevention approaches are ineffective in reducing drug misuse. These include stand-alone, school-based curricula designed only to increase knowledge about illegal drugs, fear arousal approaches, and stand-alone mass media campaigns. That was backed up by the evidence that we received in the all-interested-Peers meeting.

It is therefore vital that we ensure that our young people are equipped with the best possible tools and skills to make positive choices about their health. We have implemented a range of activity to support this approach—for example, a new online resilience-building resource, Rise Above, aimed at 11 to 16 year-olds; developing the role of Public Health England to support local areas; sharing evidence to support commissioning and delivery of effective public health prevention activities; and launching toolkits. I was grateful for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, for the tone and content of the toolkit which is available in the pack and on the website.

The Government have also invested in resources to support schools; for example, the development of the Alcohol and Drug Education and Prevention Information Service, which provides practical advice and tools based on the best international evidence, including briefing sheets for teachers. In addition, Mentor UK, which runs the service, manages the Centre for the Analysis of Youth Transitions database, which hosts evaluations of education programmes aimed at improving outcomes for young people.

As part of its inspections programme, Ofsted will from September make a judgment about the quality of a school’s provision for pupils’ personal development, behaviour and welfare. The criteria for an outstanding judgment in this area include: that pupils are safe and feel safe at all times; that they understand how to keep themselves and others safe in different situations and settings; and that they can explain accurately and confidently how to keep themselves healthy. As part of judging the quality of leadership and management, Ofsted also evaluates the effectiveness and impact of provision for pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, which includes understanding the consequences of their behaviour and actions and recognising legal boundaries.

We have also taken specific action to address the threat of psychoactive substances by publishing a resource pack, which I have referred to already.

As we will come to in a later debate, the Government already review annually their activities and progress under the Drug Strategy 2010, with the most recent review published in February this year. That is a cross-government, cross-departmental approach; it is published on the Home Office website. I am happy to undertake to write to colleagues who are in charge of that process drawing attention to this debate and the interest taken in monitoring the effectiveness of education on new psychoactive substances, because, as we have heard, be it in prisons or in children’s homes, the problem is growing.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

I am very grateful to the Minister for giving that undertaking. When he writes to his colleagues, will he broaden out the remit, or the request, so that he invites them to respond across the whole field of drug education and not simply in relation to new psychoactive substances?

[Lord Bates]

I am trying to be helpful by responding particularly to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, who asked what we were doing on evaluation. I have not consulted officials—perhaps they will be waiting for me in the corridor afterwards to tell me—but it seems to me sensible and appropriate to reflect the concerns expressed in this debate on how we evaluate.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord Howarth of Newport

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth for introducing this amendment. Perhaps I may structure my response by first putting on the record some important comments which might be helpful to the House and then, at the conclusion of those remarks, seeking to address some specific issues and questions which have been raised.

The Constitution Committee drew to the attention of the House the fact that the power to vary Schedule 1 could be exercised so that something which, on the enactment of Schedule 1, is an exempted substance ceases to be exempted. A similar point was raised by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in its report on the Bill. The Constitution Committee also commented on the absence of a statement of purpose or purposes for which the Clause 3 power may be exercised. At this point, I would put that in the context of assuring my noble friend that the Constitution Committee has concentrated our minds. I think that the report was published last week, on 18 June, and we will be considering it carefully. We will have a full response to the committee ahead of Report.

As we indicated in our delegated powers memorandum, the list of exempted substances needs to be robust and kept up to date so as not to unintentionally criminalise the production, supply and so on of psychoactive substances that may legitimately be consumed for their psychoactive effect. Following on from one of our debates last week, I can assure the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, that the regulation-making power indeed enables substances to be added to Schedule 1. To take an example, alcohol is both a substance and a description of a substance. It may also be necessary to vary an existing entry: for example, if the regulations mentioned in paragraphs 2 to 5 of the schedule relating to medicinal products were revoked and replaced with new regulations. While we expect the list in Schedule 1 to remain reasonably stable, the regulation-making power affords the necessary flexibility to make required changes relatively speedily should it be appropriate to do so.

We have deliberately drafted this regulation-making power so that it will not be possible to exercise it to remove any description of a substance that is contained in Schedule 1 on enactment. But I would be wary of further narrowing the scope of the regulation-making power, as Amendment 15 seeks to do. I stress that the power is subject to the affirmative procedure, so any regulations would need to be debated and approved by both Houses. I will of course reflect on this debate before responding formally to both the Constitution Committee’s views and the Delegated Powers Committee’s report.

Amendments 20 and 47 would require the Home Secretary to consult the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs before making regulations under Clauses 3 and 10. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, spoke in support of these amendments and has added his name to Amendment 20. I begin by saying that the Home Office continues to greatly value the scientific advice provided by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. Following its advice over the last few years, we have controlled more than 500 new psychoactive substances under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. The advisory council will continue to have its central role in assessing the harms of specific drugs, including new psychoactive substances, for control under the 1971 Act and in providing advice to Ministers.

In drafting Clauses 3 and 10, the Government included a requirement for the Home Secretary to consult with such persons as she considered appropriate prior to making any regulations: for example, regulatory bodies and relevant experts. This was to account for the fact that the Government may need to consider different types of substances and so wanted to tailor their consultations to organisations with specific expertise. For example, if it was thought necessary to change the description of food, we would want to consult the Food Standards Agency. In this example, the advisory council would not necessarily have much to contribute to any consultation. None the less, as noble Lords will have seen from the Explanatory Notes to the Bill, the ACMD was included as an example of the type of consultee the Government had in mind. That being the case, I am happy to take away Amendments 20 and 47 to consider the matter further in advance of Report.

The Government are, again, supportive of the principle behind Amendments 21 and 48, but I question whether we need to specify such a requirement in the Bill. There are many examples on the statute book of requirements to consult before a Minister exercises regulation or order-making powers. It is taken as read that the outcome of any consultation would be published —a point mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood —alongside the making of the relevant regulations or order. We do not need to clutter the statute book with express duties of this kind. There is a joint working protocol between the advisory council and Home Office, which commits us to open and transparent dealings. The advisory council routinely publishes its advice to the Home Secretary and I fully expect it to continue to do so. We will encourage other bodies responding to any consultation on these regulations to do likewise.

Any regulations made under Clauses 3 and 10 will be made by the affirmative resolution procedure. It is standard practice to publish an explanatory statement alongside draft regulations. Such a statement would, among other things, summarise the outcome of the consultation. Therefore, one way or another, Members of both Houses will be able to consider the consultation responses in conjunction with the draft regulations to be made under Clauses 3 or 10. In the light of this explanation, and on the understanding that I will give a sympathetic consideration to Amendments 20 and 47, I hope that my noble friend Lord Norton would feel able to withdraw his amendment.

I now turn to some of the specific points raised. On Clause 3(3), I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, that it is difficult to conceive of circumstances where the Home Secretary would reach the conclusion that there were no appropriate persons to consult. We have had some excellent work by the Delegated Powers Scrutiny Committee and the Constitution Committee on the Bill. Were there not to be an adequate and full demonstration of the experts who had been consulted, that particular measure—which might be before the House on an affirmative basis—would clearly be in for a very difficult ride. In reality of course, the Government would not seek to do that.

The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, made the point that he was very concerned about whether this was some kind of attempt to downgrade or sideline the ACMD, which I understand. The council does of course have a statutory duty under the Misuse of Drugs Act, which is very important, and it was consulted. It has been looking at the area of psychoactive substances. I cannot remember the exact date of that but I am happy to get details. One of its recommendations was that the Government ought to consider and explore a legislative response to this. I do not say this in order to unearth a previous relationship, but it was Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat Home Office Minister, who decided to put this out to an expert panel.

To make a serious point, the purpose there was not to deal with a question on the science, which is just one component of this. Another part of it is then to say, “How do we deal with the science?”. Whereas we have an eminent group of scientists on the ACMD, the expert panel is particularly constituted so that it has expertise on enforcement at local authority level; forensics; prosecution, from the Crown Prosecution Service; medical science, of course, with three members of the ACMD on the expert panel; social sciences; an international dimension, with drug addiction; and, very importantly, education and prevention, with representatives from Mentor UK and DrugScope. So it was constituted to address a different stage in the problem, the issue having been identified earlier.

I want to deal with the points that have been made, although I shall provide a fuller response to the Constitution Committee. My noble friend Lord Norton of Louth made a particular reference to the term “vary”. It might be helpful if I add some words to the record at this stage on that point. “Vary” is given its natural meaning in the Bill: the ability to amend individual definitions within Schedule 1. It does not stretch to changing the principle of an exemption, nor to removing it. Schedule 1 exempts groups of substances; the ability to vary the definitions is important to future-proof the legislation against regulatory changes, which may change how particular substances are legally defined. It may be that a definition in the Bill is varied in the way in which it narrows its scope. However, this would be the case only if the scope of the underlying regulation was also narrowed. A similar approach has been taken in Ireland—without wanting to reopen that particular canard at this stage. Since the passing of the Criminal Justice (Psychoactive Substances) Act 2010 in Ireland, they have not needed to make any amendments to their exemption list. We therefore anticipate a stable list.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, mentioned a point that she had raised with officials and which we had tagged under the Clause 10 stand part debate. These offences are modelled closely on those provided by the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, which has been in force for 45 years. Although it was enacted before the Human Rights Act 1998, the compatibility of the 1971 Act with the human rights convention has been tried and tested thoroughly in both domestic courts and the European Court of Human Rights. By following closely the existing law and statute, we have endeavoured to draft offences that we believe are compliant with the ECHR. In view of this, and to avoid restating old arguments in the memorandum that are already well accepted by the courts, the decision was taken that the ECHR compliance of these offences did not require rehearsing in the memorandum. Instead, the memorandum focuses on those issues that may properly be described as new or significant. We look forward to any observations on these and other provisions from the Joint Committee on Human Rights; in the usual way, a full response to the committee’s report will be possible once it has been received.

With those assurances, which I reiterate are on important issues which we undertake to consider very carefully and come back to on Report, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

I listened carefully to what the Minister said about the Government's consultation with the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs on the subject of psychoactive substances, and I think that I heard him tell the Committee that the ACMD had urged the Government to do something about psychoactive substances. An expert panel, which is not the same as the ACMD, was then set up. It would be helpful if the Minister could tell the House, in response to the points that I put to him in my contribution, what dealings the Home Office had with the ACMD on this legislation on psychoactive substances, following receipt of the advice from the expert panel, up until the letter that the Home Secretary sent to the ACMD on 26 May. Given that the ACMD has a statutory duty to keep under review the situation of the UK in regard to drugs, surely it would have been appropriate—and I should have thought a statutory requirement—to seek its views as to the wisdom of the policy that the expert panel recommended and on which the Government were proceeding to legislate. What consultations took place on this specific Bill?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

Will the Minister help us just a little bit further, because I know the Home Office knows a good deal about what has happened in Portugal? Much earlier in his speech, he was very dismissive of the benefits of decriminalisation on the Portuguese model, as I understood him to say—that is, possession of small amounts of drugs precisely defined for personal use. How, then, does he account for the success of the Portuguese policy?

[Lord Bates]

I did not mean to be dismissive about that. The Drugs: International Comparators report, which was referenced by several noble Lords, is clear that the success in Portugal cannot be attributed to decriminalisation and dissuasion panels alone. While drug use went down and health outcomes went up, there was at the same time a significant investment in treatment, which has already been referred to. That is an important part of it. That report could have looked at some of the—albeit modest—successes which we have had in this country with our approach. What is beyond doubt is that it is not just enforcement or the law but also education and health treatment which are at the heart of our being able to deal with this problem.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, for introducing this amendment. The amendments in this group relate to the personal use of such substances. Let me assure the noble Lord at the outset that the Bill does not make possession of a psychoactive substance for personal use a criminal offence. Similarly, it is not an offence to possess for personal use a drug subject to a temporary class drug order. In that sense, the current process is consistent with the way in which we have tackled such issues in the Misuse of Drugs Act, in that the intention is to catch the suppliers and manufacturers of the products.

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, whose apologies we note, have argued that the Bill is internally inconsistent in making it an offence to import a psychoactive substance for personal use but not criminalising personal possession. I hope I can persuade the Committee that this is not the case. The very principle of this Bill, as recommended by the expert panel, is to tackle the supply of these substances. Given that the vast majority of these substances are imported from abroad, clearly, if we are to tackle the supply, we need to ensure that we have in place a robust importation offence and that the Border Force has sufficient powers to effectively stop these substances crossing the border. On that point, I advise the Committee that the Government intend to table further amendments to ensure that the Border Force can access the powers under the Customs and Exercise Management Act 1979 when it intercepts psychoactive substances coming into the UK.

We cannot have a robust importation offence if we permit small quantities of psychoactive substances to be imported for personal use. We want to stop all these dangerous substances entering the country, not facilitate their use. The expert panel was clear that the Bill should focus on the supply of these substances and target all sources, even social supply, which can be a gateway for people into regular drug use. Any supplier of a new psychoactive substance is contributing to the overall drugs problem.

The substances caught in this Bill are deliberately being treated differently from the drugs controlled by the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. The 1971 Act controls drugs where we have expert evidence of specific harms and therefore apply the full ban on possession and supply for public protection. For those not—or not yet—controlled under the 1971 Act, we are targeting the trade alone. However, allowing possession of a psychoactive substance is one thing; deliberately weakening the controls by creating a loophole that allows the importation of small quantities is something else, both in principle and in practice.

I have already outlined one risk in allowing importation of personal quantities—that of creating the possibility for individuals to import multiple packages of small quantities of psychoactive substances, which on their own are consistent with personal use but could enter the supply chain when combined. There is a raft of practical challenges with this approach: how much would constitute personal use? Would it cover all substances? Would you allow someone to import a year’s worth of substances for their personal use? That could, depending on the substance, be a significant quantity.

Another concern would be the enforcement challenges that this new approach would create. A blanket importation ban simplifies enforcement by the Border Force: any psychoactive substance found at the border and which is evidently intended for human consumption can be seized and destroyed, unless it is an exempted substance or for an exempted activity. Allowing smaller packages for personal use would impose significant demands on the Border Force, requiring it to investigate the importation in each and every case to determine whether the seized substances are for onward supply or personal use. It would simply be unrealistic and an unnecessary burden to put this measure in place.

On the website question, which is a fair point, it should be said that there were two effects of the Irish experience: one was immediately to close down the head shops in the Republic of Ireland; the other was to allow the Government to take down the websites that were supplying these substances, which were on a Republic of Ireland domain. On the offences committed when there is the intention to import, if you can prove that you did not know the website was overseas and that you were importing, you would not have intentionally imported. Is that clear? Perhaps it is just not clear to me. Let me read it again: on the offences committed when it is intentionally imported, if you can prove that you did not know the website was overseas when you were importing, you would not have intentionally imported. Yes, that is very clear.

Finally, I should add that the importation of psychoactive substance offences in both Ireland and Australia also apply to all quantities imported: there is no exemption for personal consumption. Amendment 52 would stand or fall with Amendment 45, as it seeks to make a consequential amendment to the list of prohibited activities to replicate the change in the importation offence.

I hope that I have been able to provide some comfort to the noble Lord, Lord Howarth. I suspect I may have been unable to persuade the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. However, having given the issue a good airing, I hope that he and other noble Lords will not feel the need to press their amendments.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, the groupings were perhaps not quite right, at least as far as Amendment 39 is concerned. That is probably my fault, but I am grateful to noble Lords for their participation and presence in this short but worthwhile debate.

The Minister’s charm is such that he would almost persuade the Committee to agree to what is palpably bad legislation, and I congratulate him on his manner at the Dispatch Box. In seeking to refute the proposition put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, he said that we could not have a partial relaxation of a ban on importation for personal use because it is very important that the Border Force has powers—those powers will be further supplemented in amendments to come—to ensure that, in the phrase I think he used, all these dangerous substances do not get through. He went on to say that there is also the Misuse of Drugs Act, which would allow the proscription of individual substances where there is evidence that they are dangerous. There is quite a tension, if not an inconsistency, between those points. We can think about that a little further.

As to the practicalities for the Border Force, I hope that at some point in proceedings the Minister will be able to give us some statistics about the number of packages that enter this country. We all know that there has been an enormous increase in mail order, online retailing. He mentioned that the Irish-based websites had been closed down by their legislation, but we know that the Irish have become big consumers of new psychoactive substances, even more than they were before the prohibition legislation was brought in. How are they getting them? Where are they coming in? What means are there to prevent the entry of all these packages, which Postman Pat then takes up the garden path and pops through the front door? I cannot see how the Border Force will inspect all these packages. I understand that a few years ago, it was able to inspect only some 2% of shipping containers. The Minister is landing the Border Force with a completely impossible task.

[Lord Bates]

That is one of the reasons why the Republic of Ireland Government are pleased that we are following their lead in this regard. Naturally, when you make a blanket ban, as they have done, people find it very easy simply to cross the border—which, of course, is not really there—to obtain these supplies in the north of Ireland. I can give the noble Lord some quick statistics. More than three and a half tonnes of new psychoactive substances were seized by Border Force officers in 2014-15—a 75% increase on the previous year. Officers undertake targeted physical checks, supported by technology such as X-ray and new portable FirstDefender devices, to intercept suspected packages out of the 250,000 parcels that come through the UK’s depots.

[Lord Bates]

We can, but the whole purpose of the legislation is to try to close the loopholes. As I explained, if there was a loophole that meant you could import for personal use, how do you actually track that? Whether it is one packet or multiple packets, what is an appropriate amount for personal use? That makes it very difficult for Border Force officials. We are taking a blanket approach, as we have with other substances, because it gives clarity to the purpose of the policy.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

The noble Lord has provided us with some helpful information. I am still left puzzled as to how he thinks people will obtain these psychoactive substances, which it will not be a criminal offence to possess for personal use. Either they will have chemistry sets and synthesise them themselves, or his system of border controls and so forth will fail to work. Anyway, I am grateful for the thoughts that have been offered and the information that has been provided, and I beg leave to withdraw the proposed new clause.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bates]

Well, I have given a couple of examples of things that may have been included by mistake. We know from the European monitoring centre that there are hundreds of new substances and chemical compounds that have been identified in the course of each year. Over 500 substances have already been banned in the past five years alone. Therefore, because of that fast-moving change, we have an enabling power in the Bill to allow us to respond quickly and effectively should a threat or an oversight with an unintended consequence come to light. I would have thought that, in good legislative practice, the fact that the Government would seek to respond in that way would carry a great deal of support.

I am conscious of time, but also of the fact that we dealt with a number of these issues under Amendment 19, when we discussed risk. We had a very good and thoughtful debate on that issue, and it was clear from that why, when the expert panel looked at the New Zealand licensing example, it felt that there were weaknesses in it because of how low risk or low harm would be defined. Therefore, the panel chose not to recommend going down that line but instead chose to follow the example of the Republic of Ireland and a blanket ban.

I come to the point raised by my noble friend Lord Blencathra, who asked whether I had seen the new report produced by Trinity College Dublin, an eminent academic source, on the ban on head shops and how it was actually impacting. One of the authors of the study, Dr Bobby Smyth, claims that,

“the results of the survey show that the kind of drugs being sold in headshops are not being used to the same extent any more”.

That would seem to challenge one of the arguments that has frequently been put forward—that somehow the incidence of usage has increased. That is not what has been found. Dr Smyth also claims that those drugs have not been driven underground, as has been feared, stating that,

“the findings have shown that the implementation of legislation, targeted primarily at the vendors of NPS, did indeed coincide with a fall in NPS use among this high risk group of teenagers who attend a drug and alcohol treatment service … The study found that, among the two groups surveyed, not only did the problematic abuse of headshop drugs fall but that the use of cocaine and amphetamines also fell”.

Consumption of so-called legal highs fell sharply after the Government cracked down on head shops that sold them, according to new research. Researchers studied two groups of young people attending a drug and alcohol treatment centre in Dublin. The first group attended the service immediately before the legal changes designed to drive head shops out of business were introduced, and the second attended a year later, after the ban came into effect. The percentage of problematic users of head shop drugs fell from 34% in the first group to zero in the second. The percentage who had taken any such drugs in the previous three months fell dramatically from 82% pre-ban to 28% after the ban was introduced. The study was published in the International Journal of Drug Policy. That clearly produces some evidence, which I know was sought by Members of the Committee earlier when they asked whether the ban was having any effect.

Was the expert panel’s recommendation to take a different approach from New Zealand a sensible way forward? I think it probably is. Just last week, the state of Western Australia passed a blanket ban as well. There is a gathering view that this is having some effect in tackling a very difficult problem, and that licensing, however well-meaning and thoughtfully presented the arguments for it may be, is not as effective in achieving the outcomes that we all want.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

Whatever policies are introduced on head shops—whether a wholesale ban, a crackdown, some degree of tolerance, supervision or licensing—we will not end up with the state of affairs that might well be desired by all of us: that there should be no more importation and consumption of new psychoactive substances. The Minister spoke earlier about the difficulties of defining “low harm”. I agree with him that these definitions are very hard to pin down. However, I also put it to him that in this field we are looking for the least bad solution. There is no ideal solution. We are looking for a practical set of measures that will, as far as possible, protect young people and society from the perils of dangerous psychoactive substances. There is a strong case for doing more work to achieve a workable, practical definition of “a low degree of harm”, and the approach advocated by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, in this amendment should not be discarded.

[Lord Bates]

I respect the noble Lord in taking that position but it is a different position from that which the Government have arrived at after taking advice on this. The Local Government Association, which has to wrestle with these problems, has seen numerous examples over recent months of local authorities using a range of powers to shut down head shops in, for example, Lincoln, Portsmouth, Newcastle, Kent and Medway as a result of anti-social behaviour in and around these premises. I am not aware of any local authority or police force that welcomes head shops in its community.

Before I have letters flooding my way from the Australian high commissioner, I should point out that the government of Western Australia introduced legislation last month but it has not yet been passed. I hope that clarifies the position, and I hope that the noble Lord is reassured and feels able to withdraw his amendment.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord Howarth of Newport

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, for moving his amendment, which gives us an opportunity to return to the big picture on the issues we face, namely the global work which is happening on tackling drugs. Let me start by outlining the importance that the Government attach to the special session and our approach to influencing its form and outputs. The 2016 session will be the highest-level UN meeting on international drug policy since 1998. It represents a unique opportunity to engage with all UN member states, international organisations and civil society, to see how they can improve the global response to the harms caused from drugs. We very much appreciate the work undertaken by the All-Party Group on Drug Policy Reform.

The Government are committed to taking a leadership role at that special session. We are working with our international partners to share our national expertise and to advocate a modern, balanced and evidence-based approach to drugs within the UN conventions—an approach which delivers prevention and recovery, alongside proportionate action to restrict the supply of drugs.

Part of our objectives for the special session will be to enhance international action on new psychoactive substances. This is an area where the UK is recognised as a global leader and our long-term plan is delivering significant successes. In April, the Government secured international controls on mephedrone, the first new psychoactive substance to be banned at an international level. We will continue to work with the World Health Organization and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to strengthen the UN’s scheduling system and ensure that the most prevalent, persistent and harmful new psychoactive substances are banned at an international level. We will also use the special session to enhance information-sharing about the latest forensic and public health evidence. I am sure that the Committee will welcome the UK’s ongoing work to fund and support the UN’s global Early Warning Advisory and the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.

We will also encourage international law enforcement co-operation to tackle the production and supply of new psychoactive substances. This includes supporting China and India to enhance their interception of psychoactive substances for export. We will use the special session to share the lessons we have learned on the need for a balanced and evidence-based approach. We will build on our work through the UN, G7 and EU to share our experience of delivering targeted prevention campaigns.

The Committee will understand the important contribution that civil society and international organisations, such as the World Health Organization, could make to the special session. I reassure noble Lords that the Government are focused on ensuring an open and inclusive preparatory process. We are working closely with our international partners and civil society. We must not, however, allow international discussions to delay for one moment UK action to tackle the pernicious psychoactive substances harming our communities right now. That is why we do not accept this amendment. But in saying that, I would also say to the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and to the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, that I am of course very happy to arrange a meeting. It would perhaps be beneficial to have one with my right honourable friend Mike Penning, who leads in the Home Office on this particular area, to offer some reflections about what the Government’s position should be going into that important set of negotiations.

This might be the last time I am on my feet in Committee, so my final point is to thank noble Lords for their contributions. It has been an excellent process and has given us a lot of food for thought, which we will reflect on between now and Report. This might be the only contentious part of my closing comments, but I do think that we have a rational approach to drugs policy. It may not be the one that some Members would choose, but it certainly has a rationale to it. In addition, it is not without success: we can all take a modicum of encouragement from the fact that overall drug use, particularly among young people, is falling. That is to be welcomed. Given the context of the earlier debates, I would point out that the use of alcohol and tobacco is also falling among young people. That offers some hope that we are on the right track, although of course we have a very long way to go.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, perhaps on behalf of the Committee, I can say again how much I believe all of us have appreciated the way the Minister and his colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Chisholm, have dealt with the proceedings in the Committee. There are profound differences of view as to what the right policy should be, but we have managed to debate these difference of view in, I think, an amicable and constructive fashion. I certainly value that very much and am most grateful to him. I am not so enthusiastic about the Minister’s response to this specific amendment and, when he said that the Government do not intend to delay implementation of the Bill for one minute, I thought he showed himself to be uncharacteristically hard-line.

The Minister then went on to be a little modest about the success of the Government’s policies, saying that they had been “not without success”. That did not seem to me to be a very large or confident claim. He then did make a rather large claim, and I am not convinced that it is a justifiable one. He said that drug use, especially among young people, has been falling. I just wonder whether he or any of us really knows—it is peculiarly difficult to find out what is really going on. The drug scene constantly mutates: you can monitor usage of some particular drugs but you can be pretty sure that if you find that there is a dip in the use of cannabis, it is because there is an increase in the use of ecstasy or whatever. It is very hard to keep track of it. I notice that in the report on new psychoactive substances that Mr Penning’s predecessor, the coalition Minister Norman Baker, produced, it was evident that the experts consulted were really finding it very hard to get a handle on what was actually going on in the field of new psychoactive substances.

The Minister, in his response, uttered a great many decent sentiments and used some encouraging words. He spoke of the Government taking a “leadership role” with international partners and of working towards “balanced”, “evidence-based” and “proportionate” policy—who could do anything other than cheer that? He said that there would be a wide-ranging “sharing” of information and talked of partnership with the World Health Organization and with civil society. That I find genuinely encouraging. If the Government really are intent on developing an open and inclusive preparation process, as he told us, that will be helpful, because a lot of people have a contribution to make.

I was a bit more nervous when he spoke of partnership with China. I have myself advocated that the Foreign Office develops its relationship with China in relation to drugs, but none of us should forget that China uses the death penalty and that one of the problems about prohibition is that it leads to constant infringement, of the direst kind, of human rights.

This is complex territory, but I am very grateful to the Minister for agreeing to meet us. He has proposed that we should have a meeting with Mr Penning. If he can persuade the Home Secretary herself to meet the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, myself and some others, that would be even more desirable, but I shall leave that with him. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord Howarth of Newport

Tuesday 23rd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

These substances are available. For example, a grandmother told me about the death of her grandchild, although it was not directly related to this. She expressed absolute despair that across the road from a school in Canterbury, 100 yards away from it, was a head shop selling “legal highs”. She believes that they are lethal highs. They are allowed to be traded, on the high street, to children way below any age of consent. There are no restrictions, as there are with alcohol and tobacco. Anyone can go in there with cash and come out with a brightly coloured package which actually says “not fit for human consumption” or “plant food”. Are we supposed to stand idly by when the Local Government Association is telling us that and when the police are telling us that they lack the powers to act? The Republic of Ireland has closed these shops down altogether. We need to get a clear and important message to young people that these drugs are not without risk.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

No one is suggesting that we should stand idly by. No one is suggesting that these new psychoactive substances do not carry hideous dangers. No one is suggesting that urgent action is not needed. The question at issue is whether the policies in this legislation are well framed and well designed to address what is undoubtedly a very grave and serious problem.

[Lord Bates]

That is not exactly what the amendment says and we see a risk there to the prospects for the Bill, which carries the support of the Official Opposition and was in their manifesto. It was in the Conservative manifesto that we would bring forward this legislation. Norman Baker, who was the Liberal Democrat Minister in the Home Office, wrote to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs in the following terms:

“As our response makes clear, we will explore the feasibility of a UK wide new offence(s) by which the distribution for human consumption of non-controlled NPS is prohibited, based on the approach taken by the Republic of Ireland in 2010. This would give law enforcement greater powers to tackle NPS in general, rather than on a substance by substance basis. The international experience shows that it would have the most impact on the open availability of non-controlled NPS in high street ‘headshops’ and on UK domain websites, placing downward pressure on NPS related harms”.

That was from a Liberal Democrat Minister in the Home Office, not in history but in August 2014. Lynne Featherstone, who was then the Minister at the time, said on 11 March:

“I will be working right up until the dissolution of Parliament to ensure we have done as much as we possibly can to pave the way for a general ban. This will mean the next government can act quickly to clamp down on this reckless trade”.

Those are not the comments of some distant academic but the words of another former Liberal Democrat Minister in Her Majesty’s Government.

Action needs to be taken urgently to tackle new psychoactive substances, but we have not acted in a knee-jerk way, as has been suggested. The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs looked at this in 2011 and issued a report saying that we should explore legislation to introduce a ban because it was clear that temporary banning orders were not working on an individual case-by-case basis. We then said that we would set up, in addition to that, an expert panel to take a broader range of views, including from law enforcement. That expert panel came to the view that there should be a ban on new psychoactive substances. That view was supported by the Home Affairs Select Committee and by the other committees in Scotland and Wales that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, referred to. It was also of course endorsed by action by the Government in the Republic of Ireland. This is not a knee-jerk response: it has been gathering pace over a period of some three to four years. We have been steadily building up and testing the case, listening to the police and local government, and finding out what is working and what is not working. This is what they have recommended that they want to see.

This is not the end of the matter. In the wider debate, there is no reason there cannot be ongoing exploration of the effectiveness of the Misuse of Drugs Act. The All-Party Drug Misuse Group frequently produces excellent and thorough reports looking at the effectiveness of that overall policy. The Home Affairs Select Committee has the ability to look at this, and has done so. I think that there have even been specific reviews of the Misuse of Drugs Act; for example, in 2001 under the Labour Government. I am going from memory there rather than the official note, so I have to be very careful, but I think it might have been Dame Ruth Runciman who led a review of that nature. This is about timing, and if we need something further, there are many excellent avenues through which that exploration can take place.

The Government’s response is that we have a piece of legislation—the Misuse of Drugs Act—and we have a cross-government policy, which involves health, education and law enforcement. We listened to that advisory committee, took further evidence from the expert panel and recommended the course of action which we are now taking and which this amendment would delay coming into effect. That is why we do not want this amendment to be agreed and why I urge the noble Lord to withdraw it. We have made our case and built the evidence, and we have a mandate from the electorate on the manifesto to act in such a way—as did the noble Lord’s colleagues who served in the previous Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, first, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, for giving us the opportunity to have this debate. In some senses, it is a rehearsal of our discussion following the Oral Question she asked in your Lordships’ House last week.

The Government’s position is that we have no plans to reschedule cannabis. There is clear scientific evidence that cannabis is a harmful drug which can damage people’s mental and physical health, and which can have a pernicious effect on communities.

Let me deal with a couple of the points that were raised in the debate. In responding to these amendments, I remind the Committee that cannabis is a controlled drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, and listed in Schedule 1 to the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001. The 1971 Act will continue to regulate the availability of controlled drugs, and Schedule 1 to the Bill specifically excludes drugs controlled under the 1971 Act.

To move herbal cannabis and cannabis resin to Schedule 2 to the 2001 regulations, and thereby enable their prescribing, would amount to a circumvention of the established evidence-based regulatory process that successive Governments have had in place to ensure that products made available in the UK as medicines are as safe and effective as possible. My noble friend Lord Ribeiro made the point about the importance of rigorous clinical trials.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

How, then, does the Minister explain that heroin, which is a far more dangerous drug, is in Schedule 2?

[Lord Bates]

I shall come to that a little further on. The point made by the noble Lord about diamorphine, which is prescribed in this country, is perfectly fair. Interestingly, in some other countries it is not prescribed. There will be a difference of view. That is one reason why, from a government and policy point of view, it is important that we have the best possible scientific advice and give due regard to it. The advisory council is specifically charged with that under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971; that categorisation is its view. Should there be derivatives—I shall answer my noble friend Lord Blencathra’s point on that in a minute—we have the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, which can offer some advice as well. Beyond that, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence can decide on the deployment.

That is not a case of policymakers passing the buck but of their basing policy on the evidence that comes before them. The Government’s position, based on the advice of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, is that cannabis in its raw form is a harmful drug and its use should not be encouraged. The advisory council has reported that there is clear evidence that cannabis has a number of acute and chronic health effects, and that prolonged use can induce dependence. Even occasional use of the drug can pose significant dangers for people with mental health problems.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bates]

I will come to that in just a minute because it is a specific point which the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, raised in the earlier debate on the issue of the “Newsnight” report, of which I have read a transcript although I did not actually catch it last night. I want to address some of the points in there. What I am going through is the methodology by which we arrived where we were. Taking the amendment at its word, we are effectively deciding whether we should delay the progress of the UK introducing the new psychoactive substances legislation and the blanket ban in order to undertake an assessment of how effective the 2010 Act has been in the Republic of Ireland. Our view on that is no, because that assessment has already taken place in the expert panel review and—

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

The Minister invited us to look at page 38 of the expert panel’s report, where it recognised that there were some risks. It said that:

“A precautionary principle would now be used rather than one of acting proportionately in response to evidence of harm”,

and went on to suggest that very significant difficulties would attach to this approach. It was by no means unambiguous in its recommendation of the blanket ban.

[Lord Bates]

Let me try to avoid the ambiguity in it. The expert panel recommended that there should be a blanket ban. A blanket ban in the Republic of Ireland had been operating for three years, so it had had an opportunity to look at that. It looked at New Zealand and what had been happening there as another example. I can also point to the report in March from the Health and Social Care Committee of the National Assembly for Wales, in which recommendation 13 of its inquiry said:

“The Committee welcomes the Home Office’s expert panel’s recommendation of a ban on the supply of NPS in the UK, similar to the approach introduced in Ireland”.

I also have a quote from paragraph 4.23 of the report from the similar expert group set up by the Scottish Government:

“The Group agreed that there are a number of benefits to the Irish model, which could strengthen the tools that are currently available and being used by agencies to tackle NPS supply in Scotland”.

What I am doing here is piecing together the information to show that we did not whistle this out of thin air. Some serious people—whether you agree or disagree with them—looked at what was happening in Ireland, and this was their conclusion on which they based their recommendation.

To the next point, I am very much with the noble Baroness. I happen to think that one of the things with which we got close to this, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, was the Modern Slavery Act. It is without doubt the piece of legislation in either place with which I am most proud to be associated. One reason why was because of the process in which it actually engaged. It listened to the people who were on the ground, it talked to people, it talked to the experts, it framed legislation, it had pre-legislative scrutiny and there was an ongoing system of monitoring. Also, the Government committed themselves to proper post-legislative scrutiny; we will need to look at that. Should your Lordships and Parliament determine that the Bill gets on to the statute book, in our plans, although there is no set time for it, in a period of three to five years and certainly within the lifetime of this Parliament there will be some post-legislative scrutiny.

The other point which I make in passing here is that, if our friends in the Republic of Ireland were to undertake an impact assessment of our politicking to tackle this, it might not look so sharp. They would say, “Well, what has the UK been doing popping around with temporary banning orders, and every time they tweak one molecule the perpetrators and the traffickers simply change the packaging and change the molecule? What a ridiculous system that is”. In a sense it can go both ways and we must be conscious of that critique of us.

[Lord Bates]

I am very happy to do that. We are in Committee and this is where the Government listen to the arguments—

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

Should the Irish Government take post-legislative scrutiny of their legislation, will the Minister take that into account?

[Lord Bates]

Of course we will take it into account, but should we necessarily stop taking our own advice and implement what has been recommended to us until that time happens? Of course this is a fast-moving world in which there are very devious forces—“ingenious forces” is the correct term—using their dark methods to perpetrate these drugs, which are blighting the lives of communities. That was a key message that came out of the “Newsnight” documentary. Here was a community that was absolutely blighted. Unless I actually misread the transcript that I saw, the people there certainly were not saying, “Hey, listen, let us just have a free-for-all”. They were saying, “Where are the Gardai? Where are the police? We want them to come down, because these drugs are running rife in our community”.

Of course, there will always be chancers—we will come up with one answer to this, then people will come up with something in response, whether it is on the dark web or elsewhere. One of the wonderful things about this House is that the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, who is an acknowledged expert in drug policy, mentioned the dark web, while behind her sits the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, who can offer her a tutorial on the dark web if required. The point is that we are all moving in the same direction.

I am conscious of the figures that have been put out in the Eurobarometer poll, which talked about the level of usage. This figure should be viewed with caution, because: the sample for each member state is relatively low, at 500 respondents; the questions used have changed over the years, making comparisons over time less reliable; and the Eurobarometer survey tends to overestimate usage when compared to more robust surveys.

As I touched upon earlier, we can say categorically that prior to the introduction of the Irish legislation in 2010, 102 head shops were operating in Ireland. After the legislation came into force, the trade virtually disappeared, and the Garda drugs unit told the BBC just last week that the head-shop trade has gone. Furthermore, no Irish-domain web pages selling NPS are still in operation. Those are examples of concrete progress. They may not address all the points, but I hope that they might demonstrate to the noble Baroness that the Government have considered this.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

The noble Baroness explained that she was a chocolate addict. However, chocolate is exempted in Schedule 1 and she need not have worried. I am worried that Lady Bates is not going to have the pleasure of floral tributes from her husband.

[Lord Bates]

I will send her chocolates.

I can assure noble Lords that we are dealing here with the trade in new psychoactive substances. In looking at the workings of the Bill it is necessary to consider the definition of a psychoactive substance alongside the elements of the offences in Clauses 4 to 8, which we will come to shortly. It is not correct to equate the effect of a scent wafting through the air with the direct inhalation of fumes, such as from a solvent, and the offences apply only where a substance is likely to be consumed for its psychoactive effect. We may all appreciate the sight and smell of a fine bouquet of flowers, but we are not consuming the flowers or their scent for their psychoactive effect.

The noble Baroness asked whether the reference to “allows” in Clause 2(3) goes further than the recklessness test in the offence clauses. The noble Baroness is, I fear, seeking to compare apples and pears. In Clause 2 we are not dealing with the mental elements of criminal offences. The phraseology in Clause 2 is designed for a wholly separate purpose compared with that used to determine the mens rea of the various offences, so the question whether “allows” is a higher or lower test than recklessness does not arise.

I shall respond to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. The ban will come into effect as soon as the Bill is brought into force. What we are debating here is the quality of evidence required to pursue a successful prosecution. As I have said, we have asked the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to provide advice on how we can strengthen our forensic capacity to this end. It goes without saying, therefore—given that we are consulting widely on this— that the opinions and views of your Lordships’ House will also be helpful at arriving at that definition of minimal harm.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord Howarth of Newport

Tuesday 23rd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, I am grateful as these are important amendments and I pay tribute to the noble Lord for introducing them. When we had our meeting of all interested Peers, he said that it was vital that we spaced our time in Committee to allow in-depth debates on the key themes which run through drug policy. To me one of the key themes, along with enforcement, must be the value and importance of education. The noble Lord has afforded us that opportunity, along with the Official Opposition, and I am grateful for that.

I want to address some specific concerns, but a number of the points that I will raise were touched upon by my noble friend Lady Chisholm. She was good enough to say something about me but, behind the scenes, the great joy which your Lordships cannot see is that when we are having our briefings, because of her distinguished background in nursing and her volunteering within a drug rehabilitation unit, she brings great sensitivity and understanding to this issue. I have drawn on that many times myself and I am grateful for it.

I want to start with the big picture on education. The more that I have looked into it, the more I think that the most difficult thing in winning the battle in education has been the term “legal highs”. The fact that we have seen this sort of heading everywhere—it is pervasive, even on the high streets—saying there is somehow a high which is not age restricted, and which you can walk into a shop to get without being prosecuted for it, has been one of the most dangerous things for the policy of education. One of the groups which came to see me and officials at the Home Office in support of the Bill said that, above all, they wished that we could get the message out to young people that these are often not legal highs but lethal highs. Because of the point that the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, made at Second Reading about the pharmacology of these drugs, the term used was that people are often playing Russian roulette as to which part of the batch they receive. Added to the fact of their being able to get these substances on the high street through a store, without producing any ID or proof of age whatever, it does immense damage to the education cause to which we are all committed.

As in other parts of the legislation, we have sought to draw upon expert opinion where we can. A number of recommendations were made in the report by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, Prevention of Drug and Alcohol Dependence. It highlighted the importance of embedding universal drug prevention actions in wider strategies to support healthy development and well-being in general. It also recognised that targeted, drug-specific prevention interventions remain a valid approach to those individuals considered to be at risk of harm. That came on board along with the expert panel’s report. When the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, spoke at Second Reading, he really tried to put me on the spot by saying that there was a substantial section in the expert panel’s report about education. While that was published under the coalition Government, he wanted to know whether it would remain government policy. I made the point that that was absolutely the case and that we remain committed to it.

I am pretty sure—and I will write on this if I am wrong—that the relatively small amount of £180,000, which was quoted in the Written Answer, will be part of a breakdown of the £7 million. The majority of that is a health lead and we were talking about what the Home Office spends, not on overall drug prevention, but specifically on new psychoactive substances. That is a key element.

I know this may sound strange but the legislative programme has a place in provoking awareness. I know this from my own Twitter account, where I now have a large number of new followers who do not necessarily agree with the policies of HMG in respect of new psychoactive substances. I am also realising that saying that might also get me trending on social media. I welcome this, because it is part of people engaging with the debate and the legislative process. People are asking, “Should they be banned?”, “Should there be a universal ban?”, “Should we be having partial bans or temporary banning orders?” and “Should we be widening the debate?”. The more young people who engage with the type of debate we have in this House the better.

In a similar vein, my noble friend Lord Blencathra talked about people in suits not being taken seriously when they talk in schools about drug prevention. I must be careful what I say here, given her presence in the Chamber, but the Lord Speaker’s schools outreach programme is very effective and I had the privilege to take part in it. People engage with it and talk about legislation and about the fact that legislating is not easy.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, when the Minister takes part in the Lord Speaker’s outreach programme, does he wear a suit?

[Lord Bates]

That is mandatory, is it not, at least for the male Members? I would certainly not dream of turning up in our ceremonial gowns. They would probably think it was Christmas and misunderstand what was coming.

Education is not just for teachers and it is for all of us, including the media, to ensure positive role models. As a parent and grandparent, I think children often respond best to very clear messages. Ambiguous messages which say, “This might be okay or it might not—take it along to a testing station”, or “This might be against the law or it could be legal”, spread confusion which is unhelpful to pupils and teachers.

Drug education is part of the national curriculum for science at key stages 2 and 3. My noble friend Lord Norton of Louth said that if we made this a key performance indicator then schools would start taking in seriously. It is already, in a way, because to be judged outstanding by Ofsted you must be able to demonstrate with great clarity that pupils are safe and feel safe at all times and that they understand how to keep themselves and others safe in different situations and settings. We need to explore further whether inspectors follow that in every school but the bones of what is necessary are there.

We have had some excellent contributions and discussions. As I flagged up earlier, we have a further meeting on 7 July. We have invited Public Health England to be represented at that, as well as the Department for Education. That will be a useful opportunity to explore these issues.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bates]

I understand where the noble Lord is coming from, and we will look at this. The Bill is primarily a law enforcement measure, setting out definitions et cetera, although it is part of a wider context that includes education. As to whether we should have references to education or treatment programmes in the Bill, I personally favour things that are very clear and focused about what they want to do. What we hope to achieve through education is a very important part of the context. I undertake to reflect on that between now and Report.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, the debate produced a very beautiful meeting of minds between the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, which once again demonstrates the supreme value of Committee proceedings in your Lordships’ House. I am extremely grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken, all of whom have emphasised the fundamental importance of education and the critical need to get it right.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, that children do not take kindly to being preached at. I was suggesting not that they should be preached at but that they should be taught, with real professional skill. I would certainly envisage that appropriate role models—the kind of people who can talk to young people in their own language and whom young people will be able to identify imaginatively with—are of course the sorts of people who will be able to play a very valuable part, if schools have the imagination and skill to find them and bring them into the schools programme.

However, there have to be more systematic pressures on schools. I very much agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Norton, when he said that having performance in respect of drug education forming part of the data that go to establish league tables will give a salutary shock to quite a number of schools. The noble Lord, Lord Bates, suggested that that is almost the case, and I drew some encouragement from the quotation that he gave us about the requirements of Ofsted. Yet I have a sense that the prevailing culture in our schools is such that they are not taking that point from Ofsted sufficiently seriously, and if they fail to perform in this regard they may not be able to qualify to be rated “outstanding”. I am not sure that enough of them know about it or that enough of them are being seen to act on it.

The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, made the point with which I so much agree: that the funding so far provided for the system is—I do not think this was his word—derisory. That is sending a signal from government that this is a second or third-order issue. I know that the Minister does not think it is at all but I hope he will reflect on how he can, tactfully as always, bring more effective pressure to bear on his ministerial colleagues in the Department for Education. He undertook that he would talk to them. I also understand that it is very difficult for them to persuade the system as a whole that it has got to take on yet another task in a new way. There are endless pressures on schools. New Ministers and officials are for ever coming up with new policies and asking the people on the front line to implement their bright ideas. I understand all those difficulties, but having acknowledged that, we have all recognised and are all fully persuaded that we have got to do better on education and that that is going to be fundamental to the success of the overall strategy.

I am glad that my noble friend Lord Rosser drew attention to a significant section in the report of the expert panel which should give strength to the Minister’s elbow. I was grateful for the remarks from the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, who survived her education, which is something that everybody has to do. I was grateful to the Minister for a series of thoughtful and helpful points. Of course he is right that the term “legal highs” has been profoundly unhelpful, and I have every sympathy with the Government in their creation of an aggravated offence of supplying psychoactive substances in proximity to schools. I think there is an amendment which adds other institutions where children may be present.

If the Minister would be kind enough to write to us clarifying the figures—what is being spent on what, on public account in this field—that would be very helpful. I was also much encouraged by what he said about wanting young people themselves to be involved in the debate, as it were owning the issue and the problem and to help us all to find better ways to deal with it. I look forward to returning to this broad issue at Report and in the mean time beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Drugs: Cannabis

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord Howarth of Newport

Wednesday 17th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

My noble friend and other noble Lords are experts in the medical world, and I am realising very quickly that the problem is that there are many different types of medical research and science, some bits of which are contradictory. For example, the Institute of Psychiatry and Cancer Research have taken a different view on this. That is why we need to have a process which clearly and openly evaluates the introduction of these drugs, primarily to ensure that people are kept safe.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, in continuing to list cannabis in Schedule 1, on the basis that it is a drug of extremely limited medicinal value, are the Government not flying in the face of much academic and expert medical opinion, contrary to the principle of basing policy on scientific evidence just enunciated by his noble friend Lord Gardiner of Kimble? Why should patients who have been prescribed a cannabis-based medication, because nothing else relieves their chronic pain so effectively, be obliged to make repeated trips—at heavy cost in cash, stress and fatigue—to Holland to collect it, when under a sensible and humane regime they would be able to pick it up at a local pharmacy in their own country?

[Lord Bates]

Part of the argument here is that one of the reasons why Sativex is not widely prescribed, although it has been licensed for marketing, is that general practitioners believe that there are other drugs which are more effective in tackling the issues it is meant to deal with. That is a point for debate, but we are acting on the advice of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and abiding by the decisions of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency. It would be a derogation of duty for the Government to do anything other than that.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord Howarth of Newport

Tuesday 9th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[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.

Higher Education: Overseas Students

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord Howarth of Newport

Monday 19th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord is sharp, as ever, in spotting the issue. We will have exit checks in place by the end of this Parliament, as was promised. Of the figure which I gave—about 70,000 people going missing—some of those will have reapplied to go onto the tier 4 system. Some of them will be here and working illegally. The point is that at the moment we do not know. If we counted them in and counted them out and made sure they were on the appropriate visa, we would be able to know.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

In his first Answer the Minister spoke of a policy to attract “the brightest and best” to study in our higher education institutions. Does that mean that the policy is to attract academic high fliers and people of outstanding personal virtue? I do not think that is the limit of the policy, is it? What does he mean by the phrase “the brightest and best”, which Home Office Ministers invariably use when talking about this subject?

[Lord Bates]

It simply reflects that such is the quality of education institutions in this country that they attract some of “the brightest and best” academic and skilled people from around the world. We want to continue to ensure that they do that and, in so doing, contribute to the success of the growing British economy.