Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Blencathra and Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, had I spoken at Second Reading I would have supported the Government’s aims of trying to avoid the harms which arise from legal highs and to prevent them wherever possible. However, like the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, I would have gone on to ask why the Government are so inconsistent in their approach. Ethyl alcohol is a psychoactive substance. There is no question whatever about that—the Government cannot disagree. It will be very interesting to hear why they believe it should be treated differently.

When one considers the differing approaches the Government take to alcohol these days, one sees the great sledge-hammer—that is the best way to describe it—that has been brought in to deal with an issue that, although worrying, is a nut compared with the boulder that is alcohol and the problems it creates for our society. The noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, just described those problems, so I will not repeat them. The Government should think long and hard about moving, fairly quickly, on some of their policies on alcohol if they want to carry the confidence of this House in trying to make changes of this nature. They have a responsibility deal whereby, in partnership with the drinks industry, they seek to reduce the volume of alcohol consumed in this country. They have targets, yet the Chancellor stands up in March and announces a freeze in duty on wine, beer and cider and a reduction in some other areas, including a 2% reduction in the duty on spirits.

The Government will not use pricing as a mechanism to try to discourage drinking, and the drinks industry sees that such pricing effectively discourages people from buying its products, so it lobbies the Government to reduce duties, which the Government, in turn, do. On the one hand we have the responsibility deal, with its targets that seek to reduce the consumption of alcohol, while on the other hand we have the statement made by the Chancellor. As the Government documents produced after the Budget prove, he will in fact increase the volume of alcohol that is sold, which, in turn, will increase the harms that arise for people who abuse it. So, a conflict does arise. I want to persuade the Minister to think ahead about what might be happening with alcohol and alcohol-related substances, and about whether there is a case for making a change to the schedule.

As long ago as last summer, I wrote to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, about a powdered white alcohol called Palcohol which is being marketed in the United States. Powdered alcohol has been around in Europe for quite some time. It was produced in Germany and then in Holland about seven or eight years ago but was not marketed. It is now being produced and marketed in the States. I wrote to the noble Earl to find out what the Government were doing in their conversations with the drinks industry at the responsibility deal level. The reply was:

“The Department has not discussed the import, production and sale in the United Kingdom of Palcahol and its European equivalents with partners in the Responsibility Deal”.

I also wrote to the noble Lord in the Home Office to ask,

“what assessment they have made of the decision of five states in the United States to ban the sale of Palcahol”.

He replied:

“The Government is aware of powdered alcohol from media reports and the banning of the product in five states of the United States of America. The Government is not aware of powdered alcohol being marketed or made available to buy in England and Wales”.—[Official Report, 6/1/15; col. WA 107.]

I followed that up with another Question:

“To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the status under the Licensing Act 2003 or the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 of imports from the United States or Europe of alcohol powders”.

The noble Lord, Lord Bates, told me:

“Although the Act refers to liquids and this product is sold in solid form, it is intended to be drunk as a liquid”.

I tell the Minister that he is not quite up to date with what people are doing with this powdered drink. They are not simply taking it as a liquid; it can be snorted. Admittedly it is an uncomfortable experience, I understand, but it can be snorted. More particularly, it can be baked into cakes or go into confectionary and a whole range of products that people are now contemplating using it in. The noble Lord went on to say:

“The Government is not aware of powdered alcohol being marketed or made available to buy in England and Wales, although we are aware of its sale in other countries. In the event that there is a proposal to market powdered alcohol in England and Wales, the Home Office will make a formal assessment of its legal position”.—[Official Report, 7/1/15; col. WA 223.]

I would argue that this is the day when the Government can start to look at the legal position of Palcohol and at whether they are prepared to see it come into the country. If so, how are they going to handle it? It will shortly be available on the internet and imported through the internet, because that is how it will be marketed. It is already spreading on a wide scale within the US and, as night follows day, it will come to the UK.

Therefore, I suggest that the Government go back to the Answers that they sent me. I suggest that they look at what is happening in the United States at the moment, the problems that are arising there and the reasons why some of the states have banned it. If they are not prepared to accept in totality the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, which I support—although I suspect that the Government will not—I also suggest that they look at whether they are at least prepared to consider whether this is a borderline area in which they should take some action, which they could do under this legislation. If they are sensible, they will look to the future, lay the ground, put this substance into the schedule and ban it, in the same way as they are banning legal highs. I hope that they are prepared to consider that.

[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.