Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Blencathra and Baroness Meacher

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 7th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. As a member of the Delegated Powers Committee I strongly support all the points made in our report and, along with other noble Lords, I very much look forward to hearing from our chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra.

I am aware that part 6A of the Immigration Rules sets out the points-based system which applies to migrants from the rest of the world. EEA citizens will move from a position of free movement to having to find their way through a thicket of literally hundreds of pages of rules and guidance currently applying to the rest of the world. Will the points-based system be adjusted for EEA citizens? If so, in what ways will the EEA rules diverge from the current system set up in part 6A? The framework should surely be in the Bill.

Clause 4 has potentially life-changing consequences for a large number of people—an issue raised by the Delegated Powers Committee report. Ministers are given the power to modify primary legislation or to modify retained EU legislation, which has a similar status to primary legislation, as noble Lords know. These provisions, together with the power for Ministers to introduce regulations on any subject in connection with Part I of the Bill, provide incredibly wide powers for Ministers.

I want to take just one example of an issue which needs to be dealt with in the Bill and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, will raise a number of others. Tier 3 of the PBS which applies to unskilled workers has never been opened. We know that the UK is likely to face severe shortages of so-called unskilled workers in some sectors, most particularly health and social care but a number of others as well. Can the Minister press her colleagues to spell out in the Bill the key changes envisaged to the PBS, at least for the short to medium term, to keep the UK economy functioning adequately? Then, of course, Ministers could have the powers to introduce regulations to adjust the system over time. I fully recognise that there would be a need for that.

We all understand the need for Ministers to be able to introduce consequential amendments through secondary legislation, such as removing the references to free movement scattered across the statute book. Typically, however, most consequential amendments are put in the Bill and then regulations are used to tidy up the bits and pieces that were somehow missed during its passage.

We are invited by counsel to the Delegated Powers Committee to consider whether Ministers’ powers to make consequential amendments through regulations should be restricted by a test of necessity. Can the Minister convince the Committee that the wide powers to make consequential amendments to this Bill are in fact necessary? It would be very interesting to hear the Minister’s defence, if you like, of the breadth of those consequential amendments left to regulations. Why cannot most such amendments be included in the Bill before Report? I am sure colleagues would support a short delay before Report to allow that to be done.

Even more serious than the power to make unlimited consequential amendments is the power to make regulations in connection with Part I of the Bill, as other noble Lords have mentioned. I strongly support the amendment from the Baroness, Lady Hamwee, to deal with that issue. This would of course become redundant if Clause 4 were replaced with a string of substantive clauses.

Can the Minister provide an adequate justification for the broad discretion given to Ministers to levy fees or charges on anyone seeking leave to enter or remain in the UK who until the end of the transition period would have had free movement rights under EU law? If not, then these matters must surely be in the Bill with provision for Ministers to adjust the fees or charges over time. As others have said, transitional protections for EEA nationals who are resident in the UK before the end of the transition period are surely known. Why are they not in the Bill? Perhaps the Minister could explain that.

Finally, I had understood that Brexit was all about restoring the sovereignty of the UK Parliament. This is just one of a series of Bills transferring powers from the EU not to the UK Parliament but to Ministers. We know that even where the affirmative procedure will be used, Parliament has no real power to influence the shape of those regulations. I hope the Minister will do all she can to achieve a more democratic outcome to this Bill, even at this late stage, by replacing Clause 4 with a series of clauses spelling out the Government’s policies, or at least the framework of those policies, to adjust the points-based system to meet the needs of the UK economy in the post-Brexit world.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

It is a delight to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, one of the most distinguished members of the Delegated Powers Committee. I am particularly grateful that she has not stolen all the sexiest bits of our report and has left me some original bits to quote, although a number of noble Baronesses and the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, also quoted extensively from it. Perhaps I should sit down and say, “I agree with everyone who has gone before me”, but since I have been here in the Palace for about eight hours, working upstairs, I feel I should earn my crust.

I am speaking on Clause 4 stand part only to draw attention to some of the key points of the Delegated Powers Committee report on the Bill. I am privileged to chair that committee but, in view of some of the highly critical reports we have made recently, my noble friends may be pleased to know that I will be standing down as chair. My term is up by Christmastime, so there may be a more emollient chairman in future.

Last week I spoke on the Delegated Powers Committee report on the medicines Bill and quoted extensively from it. Our report then was hard hitting and I make no apology that I was robust—I suppose I was not robust but scathing—in my condemnation of the delegated powers, which in my opinion were an affront to democracy. I said then that the Bill was “not unique”, just another in a long line of skeleton Bills with all the blank spaces to be filled in by delegated legislation—much of it negative, of course.

Today I will not be as vicious in my remarks, but I report in sorrow that this Bill also has some fundamentally excessive delegated powers. Clause 4(1) confers on the Secretary of State powers to make regulations containing

“such provision as the Secretary of State considers appropriate in consequence of, or in connection with, any provision”

of Part 1 of the Bill, including Henry VIII powers to amend primary legislation. The combination of the permissive concept of whatever the Minister thinks appropriate, as opposed to necessary, the words “in connection with” the Bill, the subject matter of Part 1, ending free movement, and the number of persons who will be affected make all this a very significant delegation of power from Parliament to the Executive.

With regard to those provisions, my Committee said:

“As we said in our earlier Report, we are frankly disturbed that the Government should consider it appropriate to include the words ‘in connection with’. This would confer permanent powers on Ministers to make whatever legislation they considered appropriate, provided there was at least some connection with Part 1, however tenuous; and to do so by negative procedure regulations (assuming no amendment was made to primary legislation).”


As for the scrutiny of regulations, we are concerned that the first set of regulations would be made by the “made affirmative” procedure, avoiding legislative scrutiny before they come into effect, but subsequent ones would be draft affirmative—but only if they amended primary legislation. Everything else would be negative, even if the regulations amend or repeal what is known as retained direct principal EU legislation. By contrast, the approach in the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 is that the affirmative procedure is mandatory where regulations modify retained direct principal EU law.

We were also concerned that delegated legislation could alter fees and charges enacted in primary legislation. As mentioned by noble Baronesses earlier, it is usual for legislation to have a schedule at the end listing consequential amendments and a provision that regulations can tidy up any missing bits or loose ends with further consequentials, but in Clause 4 the bulk of the consequentials will be done by regulations afterwards.

So we concluded, overall, the following:

“We remain of the view, expressed in our earlier Report, that clause 4(1) contains an inappropriate delegation of power and that the Bill should be amended so that: the words ‘or in connection with’ are removed from clause 4(1); consequential amendments are included in the Bill itself, but with a power to add others (subject to a test of necessity) by regulations (subject to the affirmative procedure if primary legislation or retained direct principal EU legislation is amended or repealed); transitional protections for EEA nationals who are resident in the UK before the end of the transition period are included on the face of the Bill; clause 4(5) (about fees and charges) is removed, unless the Government can provide full justification for its inclusion and explain how they intend to use the power; and clause 4(6), which provides for the first set of regulations under clause 4(1) to be subject to the made affirmative procedure, is removed from the Bill.”


Those were the principal conclusions that we reached.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debate between Lord Blencathra and Baroness Meacher

Monday 21st December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra]

I rise briefly to oppose the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, because her amendment would remove the ESA part in Clause 7(4)(e). I do not think that removing it will serve people with disabilities well. To be fair, when the Labour Government introduced the ESA back in 2008, they had a noble aim: to help support many people with disabilities into work. I commend them on that. The work-related activity group—WRAG—within ESA was originally intended to act as an incentive to encourage people to participate in work-related activity and therefore return to work quicker.

Previously in Committee, noble Lords suggested that people in the WRAG have been declared not fit for work, but that is not the case. They have been declared to have “limited capacity for work”, which is not the same thing, as most noble Lords will understand. That is an important distinction, for the purpose of this group is to encourage people into work. Indeed, when the Labour Government introduced the benefit White Paper, Raising Expectations and Increasing Support: Reforming Welfare for the Future, published in 2008, they stated that they aimed to reduce the number of people on incapacity benefits by 1 million by 2015. I am making no criticism or political comment. It was a wise and noble aim, yet the reality is that we have failed and only 1% of people in the WRAG leave the benefits system each month.

It is good that the Department for Work and Pensions is currently looking to reform this area and I look forward to seeing my noble friend’s White Paper in the new year. It would be a backward step to remove the ESA. We have already discussed this, and my noble friend has already stated today the tremendous success that the cap has in getting people into work. Removing the ESA would be slightly counterproductive.

[Baroness Meacher]

Very quickly, I just want to raise the question of whether the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, thinks that there is a problem with the work capability assessment or with the ESA WRAG. I am aware that people with Parkinson’s are already assessed as having limited capacity for work. The idea that their capacity will grow is frankly inconceivable.

[Lord Blencathra]

The noble Baroness makes an interesting point. We addressed the capacity for work test at an earlier stage. There are concerns and it may not be perfect. It is very difficult to assess. We can have 100,000 people with MS and every single one is different, so it is very difficult to come to a firm conclusion. I know that the Government are continually improving it. Labour improved it. The coalition improved it and the current Government are trying to improve that test. I hope that my noble friend will continue with that.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Blencathra and Baroness Meacher

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, we will return to the subject of decriminalising possession of all drugs a little later in relation to other amendments, and I will speak then. I applaud the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for this amendment. This is an incredibly important issue and I want to say a few words about Portugal.

The crucial issue that I think the Government have to consider is whether it is more important to reduce social use. For example, if an alcohol policy results in rather more people having a glass of wine or beer on a Saturday night, does that really matter? I do not think so. What really matters is addiction, and a policy that reduces addiction is, for me, a good policy.

As I understand it from all the research—of which there has been a lot—into the Portuguese decriminalisation of possession and use of all drugs, there has been a bit of an increase in social use in Portugal, but under the scheme fewer young people are addicted to any drug. As I understand it, the right-wing political parties were against decriminalisation when it was introduced, but Dr Goulão, the wonderful doctor who spearheaded this reform—he is terrific; I know him very well and he is splendid—is thrilled that all political parties in Portugal now support the policy. It is true that Portugal is going through terrible economic issues, so I am not sure exactly what is happening to the policy right now, but it has been proved that a policy of decriminalisation wins the support of all political parties once it is seen in action, and it is all about addiction.

My question to the House and to the Minister is: why are fewer young people in Portugal now addicted to all drugs, not just one? I believe that it is to do with the psychology of young people. They like to be cool. When I was at school I used to break the school rules. I thought it was a terrific thing to do, although I do not think that I broke the law. If all young people have to do is get a spliff to break the law, they think that that is cool. In Portugal it is not cool. Why is that? It is because if you are referred to a dissuasion commission, you see a psychiatrist, a social worker or a lawyer who determines whether you are addicted. You are then referred for treatment. That is not cool; it is a mental health treatment, and it is not cool to have a mental health problem.

I believe that Governments of all political persuasions should think about the psychology of young people when they think about drugs policy, because it will only be when we get inside the minds of young people that we might come up with a policy that makes sense and works.

[Lord Blencathra]

My Lords, as someone from the highlands of Scotland, I like to be cool as well, but I suspect that it is a slightly different interpretation.

I was not quick enough on my feet to ask this of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, before he sat down. I readily acknowledge his great practical expertise in these matters and I acknowledge my own ignorance. Is there a definition, in statute or in case law, of how much is a “small amount” of drugs for personal use? One needs to know how much a person could get away with by claiming, “This is just for my personal use, guv”. Or is it rather like the cross-channel ferries, where people can come back with 10,000 cases of cigarettes and lots of booze and claim that they are a heavy drinker and smoker, and possibly get away with it?

The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, quote favourably from the Portuguese experiment, and there are some debatable results there. I would also refer them to the trendiest, most socialist and liberal country in the EU—Sweden. Sweden has a zero-tolerance policy on drugs and, admittedly, a big back-up self-harm programme behind it. Although one can quote Portugal favourably, one can also quote Sweden and its no-tolerance policy favourably. I hope that noble Lords have seen the reports from Sweden, as I have, and if I am wrong, I am happy to be reminded and amended later on.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Blencathra]

My Lords, I could never hope to give my noble friend an intellectual answer as to why all alcohol is exempted, but perhaps I can try to give him a legal one and a practical political one.

Most alcohol policy in the United Kingdom is now controlled by the EU and we have a few little bits left. I refer the Committee to the last report conducted by EU Sub-Committee F on the EU alcohol strategy. It was an eye-opener for all of us. Given the parts of alcohol policy we control, if we were to be completely consistent, there would probably be an increase in the price of Scotch whisky. However, that cannot be done for a variety of reasons—not least, it would probably feed into nationalism. With regard to the other parts of the policy, cider is desperately underpriced. No Government have felt it appropriate—no doubt for political reasons—to increase the price and disadvantage manufacturers in the West Country. It may be that with only one Member left in the West Country—I am not meaning to be snide here—a future Labour Government may, in due course, feel it more politically acceptable to put up the price of cider.

The parts that are controlled by the EU mean that, for example, we see on wine and spirit bottles in this country how many units of alcohol are in a glass and how many are in the bottle. That is a purely voluntary system because we are not allowed, under EU rules, to make it compulsory. We also discovered on the committee that some young people—mainly women, although men as well—may be on some form of crash diet and think they can avoid fatty food and sugars and just drink white wine instead. We are not allowed to put the calorific value of a glass of wine on the bottle, except by some voluntary means.

In Scotland, they are trying to conduct an excellent experiment on unit pricing. There may be considerable merit in unit pricing and I think that the Government in England are watching carefully to see how they get on. But of course they have been taken to the European Court, where it may be regarded as a constraint on trade —so Scotland may be prohibited from using unit pricing under EU rules. I could go on, but I will not, because I do not want to be seen to be too mischievous on this. However, there are a lot of other aspects of alcohol policy that we are no longer completely in charge of.

The other, more serious point is that all of us on EU Sub-Committee F, including my colleagues, noble Lords and Baronesses who are much more experienced than I, began the report a year ago thinking that alcohol abuse was out of control in this country, that everyone was drinking more and that we had a terrible problem. We were very surprised to discover that alcohol use is declining, particularly among young people. We cannot have an EU alcohol strategy because every country has a completely different problem. They all have problems with binge drinking, but different age groups are bingeing on different kinds of alcohol. What we discovered is that a small minority are drinking more to excess. I think that I am right in saying that alcohol deaths through cirrhosis of the liver have increased, but it is a smaller minority drinking extraordinary amounts—one or two bottles of vodka or scotch a day, so long as they can afford it. But overall, alcohol reduction policies are working.

In conclusion, I say to my noble friend that if he wants to really have more control over alcohol policy and be able to implement his amendment, he will need to vote no in the referendum when it comes.

[Baroness Meacher]

My Lords, I want to make a brief but important point. In responding to the noble Lord, Lord Norton, will the Minister address his mind to not only the illogicality but the danger of exempting alcohol from the scope of the Bill while banning relatively very safe psychoactive substances? If this ban works at all—the Minister knows that I am pretty sceptical about it—the Government would, in effect, be preventing or discouraging very strongly young people from taking relatively very safe substances while encouraging them, one could argue, to drink alcohol, which we know is a killer drug. Therefore, I ask the Minister, in responding the noble Lord, Lord Norton, to address that particular point about the danger of banning substances while leaving alcohol exempt.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Blencathra and Baroness Meacher

Tuesday 23rd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

I am not deliberately trying to oppose every amendment that the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, has proposed in Committee tonight. Indeed, if his amendment had simply said that all head teachers shall once per annum bring in an appropriate person to talk about the dangers of drugs, I would have supported it. Indeed, I wish I had thought of it myself.

The point that I am seeking to make is: who is an appropriate person? I discovered in the 1990s in the Home Office that there is not a single Member of your Lordships’ House, not a single Member of the other place, not a single policeman—no matter how young or old—and not a single teacher who would be regarded by young people and children as a legitimate person to preach about the dangers of drugs. I discovered rather late on in my term of office at the Home Office—I wish I had had more time or thought of it earlier, before the 1997 election—that the things that seemed to work were when a school got another teenager who would come in and say, “I am a drug addict, or I used to be a drug addict and look at me now. I can’t pick up boys or girls; half my nose has rotted off. I’m as skinny as a rat. I’ve been thrown out of my house by my parents and I have all these problems”. It was only with other teenagers who looked and sounded like them and came from the same area, rather than men or women in suits, that they believed in the dangers of drugs.

I worry that the noble Lord’s amendment is too state-oriented. It is maybe too bureaucratic. I am certain that if it were carried we would be spending more than £7 million on drug education. I am afraid that it would be snapped up by the Ofsteds, quangos and education bureaucrats who have wonderful programmes that sound good. They would be like the adverts that I thought we had prepared at the Home Office, with men in suits lecturing about the evils of drugs. Like those adverts, they will be completely ineffective. I say to the noble Lord and to my noble friend the Minister that I am very sympathetic to education in schools but it has to be kept simple and appropriate. If kids were cynical at my time in the Home Office in 1994 to 1996 they are a dashed sight more cynical now about being lectured by anyone who is older or outside their own cultural circle. I hope that the Minister will be able to respond to that if he cannot accept the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth.

[Baroness Meacher]

My Lords, I support very strongly the idea behind the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, and the importance of education. However, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, that the type of education is absolutely all-important. He said that teenagers do not want someone coming in preaching about drugs. Absolutely—we know from all the research, most of which has been carried out in the US, that lecturing and didactic teaching does not work in the sphere of drugs. We know that. I was going to suggest that we need the words “evidence-based” in the amendment. We know from the evidence that peer involvement—certainly group work with youngsters who have already had or are now having terrible problems with drugs—is the method of education that works. Whether one wants to call it education or whatever, it ideally needs to go on in schools. It does not seem inappropriate therefore to use the word “education”. We all have to be clear what we mean by education but, as for the term “evidence-based”, the evidence points exactly in that direction.

Before you get to that sort of education and imparting —or whatever you call it—of information, there is work already being done in a number of schools up and down the country to improve the resilience of youngsters who are particularly vulnerable to drug addiction. An example is children who are not functioning well at school or have very difficult home lives. There are all sorts of reasons why those children lack resilience. There are very good programmes of resilience-building in schools and for me they are utterly central to the whole business of prevention of drug addiction. This sort of work is far more important even than all the stuff we were talking about earlier about legislation, passionate though I feel about having the right framework in which all these things occur. I would support at least some variant of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, because it is fundamentally important, but let us see if we can come up with something really good for Report. Even better, the Minister could take this away and bring back a well-framed amendment to cover this vital issue.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Blencathra and Baroness Meacher

Tuesday 23rd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra]

Again, I must disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Patel. Of course, harm reduction is good and of course treatment is essential, but unless we have Customs and Excise and the National Crime Agency and all the others interdicting tonnes and tonnes of drugs, we would need a lot more treatment because we would have a lot more drug addicts in this country. Enforcement has worked. Enforcement is driving down the use of those drugs which were rapidly increasing in the 1980s and the 1990s. There is no suggestion that that trend is wearing off, and there is no suggestion that enforcement is now failing with those drugs. Enforcement is failing in the new psychoactive substances for two reasons. First, the kids find it trendy and sexy to use them because they are not using the same old drugs that dad smoked. Secondly, we do not have legislation tight enough to enable the police and the enforcement authorities to use enforcement properly against those psychoactive substances.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I support this amendment and the comments of the noble Lords, Lord Paddick, Lord Howarth and Lord Patel, but I have to say that I cannot support the noble Lord who has just spoken. This country has some of the strongest and toughest rules and legislation relating to drugs, yet we have one of the highest levels of use of the dangerous drugs that we try to ban. The reality is that we are not succeeding. Countries with relatively liberal, harm-reduction, health-focused policies do a great deal better than we do.

I want to use this opportunity to try to get across to the Minister and to your Lordships why I feel so strongly that we need a review of the Misuse of Drugs Act. I worked in secondary mental health for about a quarter of a century on and off, working with severely psychotic patients. I would say that the majority of those patients take cannabis. Why do they take it? They have told me many times, “Because it makes me feel human”. Thankfully, I have never had a psychotic illness, but if you do and you are given antipsychotic medication, the mix of the illness itself and the medication leaves you feeling, if I may put it this way, subhuman. You do not feel that you have any feelings; you feel dead. If you take cannabis, it makes you feel human. That is the word these patients use—“human”. In my view, that is not unreasonable.

If herbal cannabis is illegal, which it is, these patients along with all sorts of young people all over the country—I am slightly less sympathetic about them, but I am very sympathetic about patients—are driven to take skunk, very high THC cannabis, which is bad for their hallucinations and voices and makes them worse. But they still take the cannabis because it is so important to them to feel human. As I say, that is not unreasonable.

While they were within our services, these people were treated as patients because they had severe health problems. However, it always struck me as peculiar that when they left our hospital, day centre or whatever it was, these very sick people could be picked up by the police and charged with a criminal offence. Why? Because of their health problem. When our Convenor, as she was then, said when I came to this House, “Molly, you must put your name down on the ballot for a debate”, I said, “Oh no”, but I did and I won the ballot. I was told to produce a subject within the hour, and it came to my head that it would have to be about drugs. I feel strongly that our laws are illogical, unjust and cruel, and they are doing an enormous amount of damage to very large numbers of children and young people. That is why I cannot say that I am against the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick.

Of course I understand that this Bill is about psychoactive substances, and we will come to discuss them, but the fact is that we have only one market, and it is the market for illegal drugs. It is not a market for psychoactive substances over here and a market for controlled substances under the Misuse of Drugs Act over there. They are one market, and therefore it makes no sense to look at this market without looking at that market. That is why I believe firmly that the Government would find it very helpful to look seriously at how the market is working and to draw conclusions from other countries.

We will come to the experience of Ireland and psychoactive substances, where a ban has been in place for four years. What does the deputy chief of the drugs and organised crime branch say about the ban? It has not worked. Therefore, Ireland is thinking of going back to its misuse of drugs Acts. I think that we will be in the same position, so it is really important that we get the Misuse of Drugs Act right as well as the Psychoactive Substances Bill. If we do not, we will just go round and round in very unfortunate circles from one bad policy to another.

I have something else that I want to say. The Labour Party is worried about a delay in this Bill. It does not need to worry, because bans do not work. They have not worked in Ireland. A little bit of delay will not make any difference. We now know from scientists that, of the deaths which have been caused by psychoactive substances, maybe every single one of them—certainly 90% of them—has been as the result of young people taking banned substances, not legal highs. I want to make that point very strongly. A ban does not stop people taking a substance, and some of them will die from doing so. If low-level psychoactive substances were regulated and labelled, with the consequences of taking them clearly specified, the risks and side-effects explained and the maximum dose made clear—in the case of ecstasy, you must take water, but you must not take more than 1 litre, or whatever it is—they would be much safer. My only concern is the safety and well-being of our young people.

Standardised Packaging of Tobacco Products Regulations 2015

Debate between Lord Blencathra and Baroness Meacher

Monday 16th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I was not planning to speak today, but I have to rise to respond to the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland. If we were to have a logical system in this country for dealing with drugs, tobacco would indeed be illegal. We have lots of drugs that are illegal in this country that are infinitely safer than tobacco, and we all know that, if we were starting today, tobacco would be unlawful. So I simply do not accept the point that, simply because tobacco is lawful, we should allow the market to let rip—very far from it. We know that it is very difficult to make a product such as tobacco unlawful at this stage, but we need to do everything possible to protect the public from the most dangerous drug available in this country today.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as on the register of interests. It is a new interest—I recently joined the Lords and Commons Cigar Club, because I was concerned with how the Government have caved in to some of the fanatics in the anti-smoking brigade. They are fanatics, because they seem to hate e-cigarettes, which are good things for smokers to change to, just as much as they hate tobacco cigarettes. There is a powerful case against smoking—we all agree with that—but I would be more interested in their arguments on plain packaging if they would admit that e-cigarettes were actually a good thing for people to change to.

I deeply regret having to oppose my noble friend the Minister. In my 33 years in Parliament, he is the most knowledgeable Minister for Health that we have had in either House. In addition, he is invariably courteous and the most caring and decent man I have ever met. Therefore, I am sorry that, on this occasion, I think that he is wrong.

One knows that a government department or any organisation is scraping the bottom of the barrel to find arguments when we have 21 regulations over 23 pages, and a memorandum trying to justify them running to 103 pages and 388 paragraphs, most of which have nothing to do with plain packaging but make very powerful arguments against smoking in general. The department has scraped together every possible and bogus argument that it can to support the case. Many of the arguments that I have read in the impact assessment seem to be different from the contents of my noble friend’s speech. Paragraph 230 says that local authorities in 2007 spent £342 million on dealing with cigarette litter alone. What an extraordinary figure. That is absurd nonsense—but it adds to it by saying that plain packaging will lead to further savings on litter collection but that the department cannot quantify them. Dead right it cannot quantify them, because I think that they are quite spurious. This reminds me of the Home Office claim during the draft communications data Bill that it would bring about savings of £6 billion per annum, when that £6 billion was based on terrorist attacks which it considered would no longer take place if the Bill was passed.

All the evidence suggests that standardised packaging will lead to a big increase in the illicit market. That is the view also of Commander Roy Ramm, a former Metropolitan Police commander, who gave evidence to the Lords Select Committee. If even I as an amateur, on my £99 Canon printer, can now easily manufacture a matt standard cigarette packet—and, yes, I can do Helvetica and Pantone grey 42 at 8 point, as per the regulations—what will the big criminal gangs in Romania and Bulgaria do? At least they will increase the market for offset litho printing machines. The impact assessment makes tortuous assumptions to get out of admitting that it has not got a clue on the increase in illicit cigarettes that we will inevitably see. Paragraph 192 says:

“We conclude that there is a sizeable likelihood that there will be no discernible increase in the illicit market. However, we also conclude there is a chance that there will be an increase in the illicit market”.

I invite noble Lords to look at paragraph 192—that is exactly what it says. What a way to make policy. We do not know if it will be good or bad, but we will carry on regardless.

Then there is the Australian experience, which has been cited already, and which the Government call in aid even though it has been running for only 18 months.

Paragraph 93 of the impact assessment says:

“At this time it is difficult to conclude what the impact of standardised packaging on Australian smoking prevalence has been, due to confounding issues of a general decreasing trend and changes to tobacco prices”.

So, although we do not know whether it is working in Australia, we will carry on with our policy regardless. That is not a way to make policy. Australia is conducting a post-implementation review, but we are not even waiting to find the Australian Government’s conclusions.

All the evidence suggests that price is the big determining factor in people giving up smoking. With an increase in the illicit market and the fact that counterfeiters will be able to sell cigarettes more cheaply in the pubs, clubs and other outlets that they use, we are likely to see an increase in consumption of even more dangerous tobacco as criminal gangs are able to sell it more easily—they will use even cheaper, nastier tobacco. Nor will we be able to police it properly: the whole Codentify system is in jeopardy and will not be able to easily identify illegal and dodgy cigarettes. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, that the system may not be perfect but it is better than nothing, which is the Government’s policy if they go ahead with plain packaging. The idea that a person in a pub will check the barcode before he buys a £5 packet of cigarettes, rather than go to a proper newsagents and get a £7.50 one, is just nonsensical.

I conclude that this is unfortunately a knee-jerk SI. We should wait until we get proper results and measured evidence from Australia. That is the only sensible way to make policy on this important issue.