Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) Order 2021

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Monday 17th May 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I am very happy to support the order, which, as we have heard, is in response to advice from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. Clearly, where drugs cause harm, they must be classified and action taken. As the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said, these drugs combined with alcohol can prove fatal in many cases because of the effect they have on the body, and can often lead to suicide.

I recall that when my noble friend Lord Mann was in the other place, he did a lot of good work on the issue of drugs in his constituency and many times spoke up about it. To tackle this, it is no good us just adding more drugs to lists, saying that this cannot be done here or that is criminalised there; there must also be the preventive approach, which the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, talked about. We must have both: legislation that says that if you take, sell or use these drugs, those are criminal offences, and, at the same time, a health approach so that people understand. There is an absolute drugs crisis, as my noble friend said, with people taking these drugs with other substances. Unless we can provide people with the support they need to get off drugs, we will not deal with the problem, as with any addiction.

I hope the noble Baroness can respond on that. Does she have any information on what has happened to drug treatment services during the pandemic? What support have we been able to give to people who find themselves in difficulty? The Health and Social Care Select Committee found that funding for treatment had fallen 30% in the three years up to 2019. We must reverse that cut and increase funding. We can say that whatever we like is illegal, but unless we have in place the process to get people off the substances, we will struggle. We have all seen the corrosive effect on individuals, their families and communities—the damage done to them by drugs. As my noble friend Lord Mann said, these are often prescription drugs that are then sold on to other people, but drugs are corrosive.

I will leave it there. I fully support the order but, as many noble Lords have said, there must be another prong to our attack on this process, and that is the health-based proposals many of them talked about.