EU Drugs Strategy: EUC Report

Debate between Lord Henley and Lord Howarth of Newport

Thursday 19th July 2012 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, like all other speakers in this debate, I offer my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, on producing this report and on the work of all the members of the committee. If I may single out just one at this stage, it would be the noble Lord, Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate, particularly for his remarks on the proper use of statistics, for which I was very grateful. If you accept the statistics when they go one way and then denigrate them when they are going the other, it is not a proper way to behave. My estimation of the noble Lord, which was always high, has gone considerably higher as a result of those remarks.

As always on occasions such as this, I ought to start with an apology. Yet again, as with earlier remarks I made in evidence to the noble Lord’s committee, I confess that we cannot answer what I will call the Warsaw Convention question. I still hope that we will be able to produce something within the next 12 months, but I have to repeat that it requires quite a lot of legal and policy analysis. We are confident that we are compliant with the convention. In fact, in some areas we go further. We will comply when we can, but more work needs to be done on that in due course.

I singled out the noble Lord, Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate, but I should say that the speakers’ list has attracted a great many experts, and we are grateful for the fact that the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, with her experience as chairman of the NTA, could come forward. Other noble Lords who have taken part in all-party groups and served on committees have brought their thoughts to this debate.

Bearing in mind the hour and the fact that there is another debate to come, noble Lords would not want me to repeat the entire response of the Government to the report because, as they will know—I have a copy of the letter I sent to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, with the Government’s response—it goes on for some pages. Some of the questions, particularly those put by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, are answered in that response. They are there on the record and deal with the points he made.

I believe, as always, that the report was particularly timely because it has the potential to be influential in relation to the drafting of the new EU drugs strategy, which is taking place under the Cypriot presidency that ends in December this year. I welcome the contribution that it will make to those discussions, and I can give an assurance to my noble friend Lord Avebury that officials have already discussed the United Kingdom priorities for the strategy bilaterally, with the Cypriot national drugs coordinator, and jointly with other member states at the horizontal drugs group, and will continue to work with the Cypriots as the strategies are developed before its planned adoption in December. In addition, a number of our European partners have commented on the helpful way in which the report has helped set the scene for discussions on the new EU drugs strategy. I pay tribute to the foresight of the committee in undertaking this work, and for the clarity with which the report has been written.

As is obvious from the Government’s response, we agree in large measure with the committee’s analysis and findings. Looking forward, there are a number of key areas that we would like to see the new EU drugs strategy address. We are keen to ensure that the next iteration of the EU drugs strategy maintains its balanced approach, encompassing public health approaches and enforcement measures, working together to reduce demand and restrict supply. It is important that there is a clear and consistent approach to prevent drug use and minimise drug misuse, and that there is a strong focus on moving individuals with a dependency into sustainable recovery. It is important for the new strategy to highlight the importance of reducing health harms—as suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, I think—while supporting people to recover, such as preventing the transmission of blood-borne viruses and other infections, if the prospects for recovery by drug users are to be maximised.

The new strategy needs to describe how pan-European work will support and dovetail with activities which are best taken forward by member states, or their localities. Drugs policy—as I think everyone agrees—should, and does, remain mainly the competence of member states. National strategies should continue to have primacy on approaches to domestic drugs issues. The EU drugs strategy should seek to complement the delivery of national strategies, particularly through focusing on enhancing co-operation rather than on developing legislation. Similarly, it should produce a framework within which statutory agencies and civil society can work together.

Like the committee, the Government believe that the EU drugs strategy can add real value in tackling drug trafficking. We believe that in order to tackle the supply side effectively, we need to employ both traditional and innovative tools. By intelligence sharing—this brings us on to Europol; I refer the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, to our response—by raising policing and law-enforcement standards, and by promoting best practice among external partners, we will help to destroy the criminal networks that target Europe and its member states.

The strategy should also continue to build on lessons learnt to date across the EU from our joint approaches on the new psychoactive substances mentioned by a number of noble Lords. We should use the objectives and commitments in the UN resolution, led by the UK, with Australia and Japan, on promoting international co-operation in responding to the challenges posed by new psychoactive substances, as a useful starting point. I should say that we have made considerable progress in this country by speeding up the legislative machinery that allows us to deal with these so-called legal highs in that we can now refer them to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs for a rapid response. We can process them fairly quickly while the ACMD looks at them in greater detail. Only recently a new drug which I think I can only pronounce by its street name, which is MXE—I can never manage to pronounce its proper name—has been given a temporary ban while the ACMD takes a further look at it to see what its long-term damage could be. I appreciate that to some extent this change means that we are often like a dog chasing its tail and it might be that in the future some new legal mechanism or machinery has to be set up to make it easier to respond to new drugs or legal highs as they are developed.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord for allowing me to intervene. In the Government’s response to the committee’s report and in the report itself, a favourable view is taken of analogue legislation whereby the Government would take powers to ban new psychoactive substances that they consider to be analogous to substances that are already banned. Perhaps I may counsel some caution before the Government go down this road. The American experience seems to show that analogue legislation provides a field day for lawyers who spend a great deal of time and money arguing over whether the precise molecular composition of a new substance is analogous to the already banned substance, and of course it would be a wholesale extension of prohibition, with all the difficulties involved.

[Lord Henley]

We will certainly look at the American experience. We are aware that there are a great many more lawyers in America than there are in this country, and that the Americans are keen on making use of lawyers. However, obviously we would want to learn from their experience. While I am on the subject of the ACMD, I should also say to my noble friend Lord Avebury, who asked about khat, that the advisory committee is currently reviewing the harms associated with it. We will not prejudge that advice, but we will look at it in due course.

Migration: University-sponsored Students

Debate between Lord Henley and Lord Howarth of Newport

Monday 30th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I totally agree with the noble Lord in that I accept that students coming to universities—and I stress that the Question is purely about students coming to universities—provide very great value to this country, and we want to see their numbers increase in many areas. They have increased over the past year or so, as I understand it, but we want to get rid of some of the bogus students who come here not to study but to work—and that is what we are doing.

It is important that we stick to international UN definitions. As I said, there would be considerable criticism of me if I suggested that we should fix those figures purely for our own purposes.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, if the Government were to accept the proposal put to them by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, would they not thereby confer a great benefit on UK universities and on bona fide international university students, as well as on our international standing, and at the same time be able to hit their own immigration target figures, which they have otherwise not a hope of achieving?

[Lord Henley]

The noble Lord is, yet again, another one who wants me to fix the figures. I do not want to do that. We want to do these things in a proper way, and the definition of migrants is that they are people staying for over a year. We welcome students and do what we can to get them, but we are not going to fix the figures in the manner that he suggests.

Police: Officer Numbers

Debate between Lord Henley and Lord Howarth of Newport

Tuesday 13th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I have always accepted that there is a cost to appointing police and crime commissioners, but we believe they will bring accountability. Accountability will be good for that service, and we will get even better value for money.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

Does the noble Lord think it is good value for money if the crime rate is going up?

[Lord Henley]

I have just quoted the figures relating to the period that I cited in the original Answer, which showed that recorded crime is going down.

Universities: Alternative Medicine

Debate between Lord Henley and Lord Howarth of Newport

Tuesday 21st December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

I am sure that the noble Lord has also benefited from his mushrooms over the years. Some noble Lords do and some do not, and different noble Lords have different views. I just want to make it clear that we remain neutral on this issue.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, the noble Lord says that it is at the discretion of HEFCE as to how university courses should be funded differentially. Is he actually saying to the House that it is a matter for HEFCE as to whether or not funding for the humanities and social sciences teaching is to be cut by 100 per cent?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, we have offered guidance to HEFCE in the letter that I mentioned, which was published yesterday. I will make a copy available to the noble Lord. It is then for HEFCE to make its decisions.