Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Bishop of Peterborough and Lord Mackay of Clashfern

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

Before the noble Lord says what he wants to do about his amendment, does not the fact that certain matters have been selected for aggravation make it somewhat more difficult for a judge to take a factor which is not made specific and give it the same weight? It slightly worries me that if you do not mention prisons and vulnerable children, while a section in the Bill does mention specific aggravations, that will tend to reduce the possibility of the two factors that we are interested in being regarded as aggravations. I assume that the judges’ reaction would be, “Parliament has not thought to mention these, and therefore it is not really quite so serious”. Whereas if Parliament has mentioned it—and prisons strikes me as an issue of particular importance—that is something we should emphasise for the judge who has to deal with this matter.

[The Lord Bishop of Peterborough]

My Lords, I support the aggravated category for prisons and the particularly vulnerable children who are, in one way or another, in care. I am very grateful for what the Minister said about having a meeting on children in care. That is good and I am happy to accept it, but from my fairly regular visiting of prisons in my diocese—I have visited the four that were there but two of them are now closed—I know that the great majority of prisoners are themselves highly vulnerable and need to be treated as such. It seems that so many young men and young women find themselves in prison having started off with drugs in one way or another. They have been used and abused, often as vulnerable young people, and end up in prison still as relatively young people. They are extremely vulnerable to exploitation through drugs, so this really should be another aggravated category.