Immigration
Lord Paddick Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Bates
I certainly personalise this by paying tribute to the noble Lord for his work down the years in improving race relations in this country. But he will recognise as well that, often, uncontrolled immigration can actually be the cause of a tension in racial harmony in this country. That is why we need to make absolutely sure that we have a robust and fair immigration system, not only for the people who need our help from overseas but also for the ethnic communities that play such a vital and important role in this country already.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, two significant events happened last week, one clearly far more influential than the other. Can the Minister say which of these events had the most positive impact on social cohesion in the UK: the speech of the Home Secretary to the Conservative Party Conference or Nadiya Hussain winning “The Great British Bake Off”?
Lord Bates
What I would say is that the “Bake Off” result recognises the immense contribution which minorities and immigrants in this country—including second generation and third generation immigrants—continue to make. That is what the Home Secretary said, as I read out at the beginning. She said:
“The people who have moved here down the generations, who have played a massive part in making this country what it is”.
I think that is absolutely right. I think they are both right.
Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]
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Lord Rosser (Lab)
I take this opportunity to thank the Minister for his courtesy and thoroughness in responding to points raised and amendments tabled by noble Lords during our considerations of the Bill, including when the response has been made subsequently in writing. Although reservations about the likely effectiveness of the Bill have been expressed by some noble Lords during our deliberations, I am sure we all hope that, when the Bill is finally passed, it will make a favourable impact on the very real problem that it is intended to help address.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for the way that he has conducted proceedings on the Bill. We have had disagreements over how effective we think that this legislation will be, but, as the Minister said, we share the aim of reducing harm. We hope that, with the assistance of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, the Bill will be further improved in the other place so that the harmful effects that could possibly arise from it are at least lessened.
Mediterranean: Migrant Trafficking
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Lord Paddick (LD)
Does the Minister agree with the Chancellor of the Exchequer that those with the broadest shoulders should bear the biggest burden? In terms of absorbing the refugees coming across the Mediterranean, the two weakest economies in Europe are having to absorb all these migrants whereas this country, which has very broad shoulders, accepts hardly any.
Lord Bates
I do not think it is quite right to say that we do not accept any. We grant asylum to 12,000 migrants a year and have granted asylum to 4,200 from Syria. It is a point, where they come from. We have asked to work with the Italian Government and for them to abide by the Dublin regulations to ensure that there is better fingerprinting and recording of people as they arrive in that country and then we can have a better discussion about how we handle their relocation thereafter.
Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]
Lord Paddick Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Rosser (Lab)
I do not wish to speculate on whether it was my eloquence and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, in Committee or the letter of 2 July from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs that carried more weight with the Government, who have now put their name to an amendment providing for the Secretary of State to consult the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs in specific circumstances. I hope it might be the former explanation but I fear it is probably the latter.
The letter from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs stated that the Home Office should amend the Bill so that:
“In keeping with our role in the Misuse of Drugs Act, there should be a statutory duty to consult ACMD”.
Nevertheless, it is one for the record when the Minister responsible for the Bill adds his name to an amendment moved by the Opposition. I thank the Minister for that and for delivering so handsomely, in my opinion, on his undertaking in the debate in Committee on this issue to consider the matter further in advance of Report.
I do not think there is really any need for me to say any more, although the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, or the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, may wish to contribute. But on the basis that the Minister’s name is on this amendment and that therefore he will not be opposing it but supporting it, I beg to move.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, my name is on this amendment. We moved a similar amendment in Committee. Obviously, we are very pleased that, for whatever reason, the Minister has added his name to what is now the Labour Party amendment.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has raised a concern about whether it was consultation and the debate in Committee that persuaded the Government to change their mind on this or whether it was the letter from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. It is very disappointing that the consultation with the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs did not take place at a much earlier stage in the preparation of the Bill, rather than after its publication. It certainly would have saved a lot of time and debate if that had happened. Even now, from the latest letter in the correspondence between the Home Secretary and the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which we saw yesterday, it appears that the advisory council wants further changes and amendments. It is not right that we should have a half-baked Bill presented to this House on the understanding that it does not really matter because, if any deficiencies are highlighted as a result of this late consultation, they can be put right in the other place. We in this House have the right to amend Bills to make them worthy of being passed into law. We should not rely on amendments made by either the Government or the Opposition in the other place when the Bill is first presented to this Chamber.
Lord Paddick
My Lords, my noble friend Lady Hamwee and I have Amendment 16 in this group, which approaches the issue from a slightly different position. Our amendment suggests that:
“It shall be a defence that the person did not supply the substance for gain”.
The difference here is that as I understand it, the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, would mean that the prosecution would have to prove that this was the case, whereas in our case, if it was a defence, it would be a matter for the accused person to prove that they did not supply the substance for gain. As the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, said, on page 3, point 5, of the ACMD’s letter of 2 July, for very similar reasons it is not only concerned that this will criminalise,
“otherwise law abiding young people and adults”,
but concerned with regard to the discriminatory impact.
The Secretary of State is encouraging in her response to the letter, saying that,
“the police and Crown Prosecution Service will exercise their professional discretion taking into all the circumstances of the offence and the offender”.
However, the concern—which is not addressed by the Secretary of State, but is expressed by the advisory council—is that it is not simply a case of members of the black and minority-ethnic community being disproportionately stopped and searched by the police, which the Secretary of State addresses in her response, but that members of the black and minority-ethnic community are disproportionally more likely to be charged rather than cautioned for an offence. They are also disproportionally likely to have a formal disposal of their case rather than no further action being taken.
Therefore, while the Secretary of State’s efforts to improve the police’s use of stop and search is to be applauded, she does not address the other issues regarding the fact that members of that group are disproportionately more likely to face a form of sanction, be it a caution rather than no further action, and more likely to be charged with an offence rather than given a caution, bearing in mind that the Secretary of State says that out-of-court disposals would be used in “appropriate cases”. Our concern is that without it being a statutory defence, with the burden of proof lying on the accused, there is regrettably—to judge by evidence of what has happened in the past—a danger that the powers in the Bill will disproportionately affect black and minority-ethnic communities and will therefore discriminate against them, as the advisory council’s letter points out.
Baroness Meacher
My Lords, all that needs to be said has been said. I will simply express my support for these amendments, on the grounds that for a child of 14 to get a criminal record will be far more serious for them than any damage that might be done by some rather dubious psychoactive substance. That is not to say that I in any way support young people taking these things, but we know that they do. All the literature— certainly that from Portugal—suggests that avoiding a criminal record is an enormous plus for a young person; they are much more likely to remain with their studies and get a job when they leave school. It is therefore a very serious matter to include these activities, whether it is sharing a substance with a group of friends or some such activity. The Government designate such an activity as a criminal offence at their peril in terms of the longer-term consequences, as well as the probable long-term costs to the Government, of dysfunctional young people, unemployed people and people getting into a criminal lifestyle.
Lord Bates
My Lords, it is very fitting that we come to the consideration of this amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, who put, as he always does, a very persuasive case. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, then spoke about the consequences of the ease of access to and availability of these very dangerous drugs in our society. That, in a sense, represents the parameters of our debate. This, in the whole list of recommendations in the letter from the ACMD to the Home Secretary, was probably the one to which we were most strongly opposed. I understand that, when preparing such legislation, there is a need for people with great expertise in science but there is also a need for people who focus on the legal aspects and how the legislation will be interpreted.
We are very mindful of the danger of creating a loophole effectively around the social supply of such substances. Later, we will debate what might constitute personal possession. We have said that people would not be prosecuted for the personal possession of substances but a lot of people have said that that is very difficult to define. There have been lots of attempts at doing so. In the Drugs Act it was specified as an absolute quantity. That was then felt to be unworkable and it was left to the judgment of the constable on the ground.
You could provide a defence for carrying a large quantity of psychoactive substances by saying that they were for social purposes, but the people behind these drugs have proved to be incredibly adept at finding their way around legislation. They are very savvy, being aware of the descriptions in the legislation to the letter, and they organise their activities around that. We feel that this would be a very wide loophole that would be exploited in ways that we did not intend.
The Bill seeks to tackle the trade in psychoactive substances, and social supply is central to how the trade operates. Social supply by friends was identified by the expert panel as the most common source for acquiring psychoactive substances. Therefore, it is clear that social supply, alongside sales from head shops and purchases online, is critical to sustaining the market in these substances. In its recommendation to create a general prohibition, the expert panel did not suggest excluding social supply, nor has this approach been taken in other jurisdictions. Moreover, in this respect the Bill mirrors the position taken towards substances that are subject to a temporary-class drug order.
We need to tackle the supply routes to remove these potentially dangerous substances from our communities. Excluding social supply from the scope of the Clause 5 offences would significantly weaken the framework of the Bill, not least by creating a loophole that could easily be exploited. Excluding social supply would also send out a confusing message. If a group of friends were poly-drug users and bought drugs on behalf of each other, they would be committing an offence if they supplied, say, cannabis to one another but not if they supplied a psychoactive substance.
The approach taken in the Bill—this is a point that the Home Secretary underscored in her response to the ACMD—does not mean that enforcement action will focus on social supply networks. Nor does it follow that someone arrested for a social supply offence will necessarily face prosecution. We are simply saying, as did the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, that that ought to be a matter for the prosecutors to decide. We are very conscious of the impact of criminalising young people—a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. That is why we have not made personal possession an offence, but social supply would be such a wide area that it would be too open to exploitation.
The Bill contains both criminal and civil sanctions, which will enable law enforcement agencies to adopt a proportionate response to offending behaviour. In addition, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service will exercise their professional discretion, taking into account all the circumstances of the offence and the offender. The public interest test will apply to any prosecution, and there will be an option of pursuing an out-of-court disposal in appropriate cases. I take the point that the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, made, particularly in relation to BME communities, which I shall come to in a moment.
Ultimately, however, if the circumstances justify a prosecution, that option should remain open. Moreover, these amendments would make the task of the police and prosecutors in tackling commercial suppliers that much harder. The amendments, if made, would add another element to these offences which would need to be proven, with drug dealers attempting to evade justice by seeking to argue that they received no payment for the transaction in question.
I know that the advisory council was particularly concerned to ensure that the enforcement powers in the Bill did not result in a discriminatory impact on members of black and ethnic minority groups. The Government fully share these concerns. In Committee, we had a good debate on the stop-and-search powers in the Bill, and I subsequently wrote to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, to explain the necessity for these and how they would avoid the need for the exercise of more intrusive powers of arrest. In addition, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary made it clear that we must reform the way stop-and-search powers are used and we are committed to legislate to mandate changes in police practices if the exercise of these powers does not become more targeted and stop to arrest ratios do not improve.
As was said during debate on the previous group of amendments, we greatly value the advice from the advisory council on the provisions of the Bill. This is the one recommendation that it made which we are unable wholly or partly to accept. To exclude social supply would create a significant loophole in the framework of the Bill, and I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Paddick
The noble Lord does not appear to have addressed the issue of disproportionate charging of black and minority ethnic suspects or the fact that, in terms of caution rather than no further action being taken, disproportionate action is being taken by the police and the Crown Prosecution Service. This is according to public data; it is not something that I am plucking out of thin air—it is an established fact. This Bill could make that situation worse. The noble Lord has not addressed specifically those issues.
My understanding of what he said was that it would be anomalous if someone who supplied cannabis to their friends would be prosecutable but that, if the amendments went through, the person would not be prosecuted in relation to supply of a psychoactive substance covered by the Bill. However, personal possession of cannabis is a criminal offence but simple possession of a psychoactive substance covered by the Bill is not a criminal offence. That is another anomaly and is not a persuasive argument against these amendments.
Lord Bates
The noble Lord made a good point on stop-and-search powers and I know that a significant body of work is going on in relation to it. I was going to quote some of the reports on it and the actions that the Home Secretary has requested and taken on recording the data on how stop-and-search powers are used, particularly vis-à-vis black and minority ethnic communities. Perhaps I can undertake to write to the noble Lord and set that out in some detail. Because it is such a serious point, the ACMD was right to raise it in its letter, and the Home Secretary was right to acknowledge that point in her response. However, that does not take away from the wider point that allowing a defence or allowing for a provision relating to social supply of new psychoactive substances would provide a loophole that would be open to exploitation. It is for that reason, rather than the other, that I ask the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Paddick
My Lords, I have put my name to the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, in relation to prisoners. In Committee, I was not convinced but what I have learned subsequently has made me very much a supporter of these amendments. Earlier today, we heard the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, talk about the report by the Chief Inspector of Prisons and how it highlights the problems caused by new psychoactive substances in prisons. This morning on the BBC Radio 4 “Today” programme, a prison governors’ representative put new psychoactive substances at the top of the list in terms of what was causing more deaths and violence in prisons. He put it above overcrowding and lack of staffing.
A friend who is a doctor told me that he has to commit people to mental hospitals because of psychosis caused by new psychoactive substances. When one thinks of the increased dangers for people who have psychotic episodes as a result of taking these substances in a confined space such as a prison, the potential consequences clearly make this a serious issue.
The clincher for me is that prisoners are using these substances because they are not detectable in the routine drug testing of prisoners. A deterrent for prisoners who might want to use controlled substances under the Misuse of Drugs Act is that they would show up under those tests. The fact that prisoners are being pushed into using new psychoactive substances because they do not show up in these tests requires an additional sanction against those who supply these substances in prisons. That is why I very much support the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser.
I turn to the amendments spoken to by my noble friend Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol. The Minister talked about an anomaly when we discussed an earlier group. The anomaly is that selling these substances in the vicinity of schools is covered but that selling in the vicinity of other premises where there are vulnerable young people is not. Supplying these substances to people under the age of 18 again should be an aggravating factor.
I think that in Committee there was a discussion about this amendment not being reflected in the Misuse of Drugs Act, which is why there now is a further amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Kirkwood to amend the Misuse of Drugs Act in a similar way. I would welcome hearing the Minister’s response as to why it is not an anomaly that schools are covered but other types of premises are not.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, I apologise that I have not been able to be here for the whole debate. I had meetings earlier and I have others tonight. I thank my noble friend the Minister for the amount of information he has supplied. Indeed, I have not had enough hours in the day to read all the PDF attachments in my email inbox. I am sympathetic to one of the amendments; namely, that relating to children’s homes or places which hold vulnerable children, or whatever is the current correct terminology. Clause 6 creates an aggravated offence for selling drugs outside a school. It seems to me an anomaly if we do not include places which hold even more vulnerable children than those in schools.
I think that in Committee my noble friend said that one of the difficulties would be that everyone can see where a school is—there are big signs and lots of children—but that drug dealers might not know when they are selling drugs in the vicinity of a children’s home. I do not think that that will wash. The bad guys selling drugs know every potential outlet better than anyone else. They will know when there is a children’s home and a potential outlet nearby, and they will target it. I would like to hear from my noble friend the practical difficulties about including children’s homes or places which hold vulnerable children. It seems to me that they are even more important than ordinary schools.
For a few reasons, I am not so sympathetic on the point about prisoners. Drugs are a problem in prison but they should not be. There is no excuse for drugs being in prisons but certain excuses are used. We have, in my view, the ridiculous situation of completely free association. Wives and girlfriends can freely mingle with the prisoners, most of whom are male. They can hug, kiss and cuddle, and they have every opportunity to pass on drugs. I have never understood why we do not have a system where there is a glass screen between the visiting friends and relatives, and the prisoners, so that drugs cannot be so easily passed on.
In 1993, my noble friend Lord Howard of Lympne went to the Home Office. He decided to crack down on drugs and introduced springer spaniel sniffer dogs to some prisons. Two things were immediately noticeable. First, as soon as the relatives saw the dogs, they had to return to their cars to deposit the goodies that they were about to take into the prison. Secondly, there was resistance from a large number of prison officers and governors about the policy. I apologise to that very trendy trade union, the Prison Officers Association, if I misquote it. However, I was told at the time by prison officers that, if you are looking after 700 men in prison, you have to reduce the tension level. The way to reduce the tension level then was to let them have illegal access to drink, drugs and pornography. That reduced the tension levels, they said. Therefore, I do not have much sympathy for prison governors who say that there is a problem with drugs in prisons and the Government should do something about it. They have it in their own hands to tightly control drugs in prisons. However, if the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, is right that it is impossible to test for some of these psychoactive substances, we need to make sure that visiting relatives are not able to pass them on. I would be amazed if little sniffer dogs were unable to detect them. It may be difficult to do so with a blood test, but we now read in the press about sniffer dogs which can detect almost anything. Some dogs can detect whether you are about to have an epileptic fit and it should be possible to have a tighter control regime.
Finally, why stop at prisons? I consider nightclubs to be an even bigger problem. If we are to have an aggravated offence of selling drugs outside schools, what about an aggravated offence of selling them in nightclubs, or near nightclubs where young people hang out? Again, that is a large captive audience. Perhaps we should have an aggravated offence for people in positions of responsibility who commit this offence. A tiny minority of military officers or police officers may be tempted to commit this offence, but perhaps it could be an aggravated offence. Off the top of my head, I can think of a few areas where I would like to see an aggravated offence introduced, but it may be best to restrict it to schools, with the possible addition of children’s homes.
Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]
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Lord Paddick
“( ) It shall be a defence that the person imported the substance for his own consumption.”
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, the amendment is in my name and those of my noble friend Lady Hamwee and the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, and it reflects a debate that we had on a previous amendment. In Committee, we debated whether or not the importation of new psychoactive substances for someone’s own consumption should be an exemption and not be included in the Bill as an offence. For reasons similar to those given for the amendment on social supply, we now propose that it should be a defence. However, the burden would be on the accused person to show that they had imported the substance for their own consumption. This would get round many of the problems that the Minister raised in Committee on importation. Those concerns included how the Border Agency would know whether or not the substance was being imported for someone’s own use and how we differentiate between the two. This is about arresting people who are importing psychoactive substances but providing a defence if the person can prove that they were being imported for their own consumption. I beg to move.
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen
I did not mean to be confusing. People certainly will be prosecuted for it, but as I said, the use of these sanctions will enable law enforcement officers to take action swiftly to nip a problem in the bud or to adopt a more proportionate approach to low-level offending. So it will be a matter for the relevant law enforcement officer to determine the most appropriate course of action.
While Border Force will seek to intercept, seize and forfeit any consignment of psychoactive substances coming into the UK, the focus of any criminal justice response will be on cases in which there is evidence of greatest harm. Similar considerations would apply to the enforcement of the production offence. Given this, I trust that the noble Lord feels able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Paddick
I am very grateful to the Minister for her response. Like the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, I am slightly confused. Clearly, the Bill is aimed at tackling the trade, but whether you buy your psychoactive substance from a website abroad or from a drug dealer on the street, it would seem that the Bill is aimed at tackling one part of the trade but not the other—unless I am confused about that, as I see the Minister and the expressions on people’s faces.
Of course Border Force needs to intercept these packages, which is why we are saying that this should be a defence rather than an exemption or not be an offence in itself. Clearly, if somebody is importing a large quantity and saying that it is a year’s supply, they would have great difficulty in convincing the courts that that defence was available to them.
There are two reasons for raising this issue. First, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs raised it. In point 5 of its letter, it states:
“The Bill has the potential to both criminalise and apply disproportionate penalties to many otherwise law abiding young people and adults”,
and it specifically mentions importation. Secondly, we wanted to get on the record, which we have achieved, the fact that the public interest test will be applied and that, hopefully, not many young people will end up with a criminal record as a consequence of these measures. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Paddick
My Lords, my noble friend Lady Hamwee and I have added our names to Amendment 51 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. I want to add two things to the debate. First, I point out again that this is covered not just in the letter from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs but in one of its recommendations, which asks that the Government,
“ensure adequate resources are in place to support education, prevention, acute health interventions, treatment and harm reduction services”.
Clearly, as the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, said, that indicates that the ACMD’s assessment is that those resources are not sufficient at this time. I do not feel that the Secretary of State’s response—simply outlining what the Government are doing at the moment—addresses the point that the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs makes. The reason the ACMD speaks in those terms is that the budget available for law enforcement around drugs and the budget for education around drugs are completely out of kilter. This Bill will incur more costs on the law enforcement front without adding any additional resources for education and prevention.
I ask the Minister to reassure us that adequate resources will be addressed to education and prevention and agree that if we are to hold the Government to account for any promises they make, we need to hear exactly what the Government are doing and what the impact of those efforts is, as the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has already said.
Lord Bates
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, for moving this amendment and for the debate that we have had. Education is a critical element of this. It is right that we focus on education programmes, and I will come to those in a minute.
Probably the worst impact on a child’s education is what happens in places such as Canterbury, where there is a head shop across the road from a school. Young people can wander past that shop and obtain new psychoactive substances without any production of proof of age. Those substances are easily available and accessible. I cannot think of a worse signal to send to young people about what the Government’s position is. They may have had the most wonderful, textbook PSHE lesson from an inspiring teacher but, if that is their experience when they walk out the door, it is significantly undermined. Therefore, we need to keep this in context, and I will respond to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. Although education clearly needs to be robust and measured in its effectiveness, the overall purpose of the action being taken—with support from the Official Opposition—will have a far greater effect, particularly in relation to NPSs.
Prevention and education is a key strand of our balanced drug strategy, and it is vital that we prevent people, especially young people, using drugs in the first place and intervene early with those who start to develop problems. We have recently refreshed our approach to reducing the demand for drugs, enabling us to take a broad approach to prevention. The approach combines universal action with targeted action for those most at risk or already misusing drugs. It includes investing in a range of evidence-based programmes which have a positive impact on young people, giving them the confidence, resilience and risk-management skills to resist drug use. This refreshed approach is very much in line with the goal of building character, which was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth. Nicky Morgan had raised this.
While good practice is highlighted, the advisory council report also acknowledges strong evidence that some prevention approaches are ineffective in reducing drug misuse. These include stand-alone, school-based curricula designed only to increase knowledge about illegal drugs, fear arousal approaches, and stand-alone mass media campaigns. That was backed up by the evidence that we received in the all-interested-Peers meeting.
It is therefore vital that we ensure that our young people are equipped with the best possible tools and skills to make positive choices about their health. We have implemented a range of activity to support this approach—for example, a new online resilience-building resource, Rise Above, aimed at 11 to 16 year-olds; developing the role of Public Health England to support local areas; sharing evidence to support commissioning and delivery of effective public health prevention activities; and launching toolkits. I was grateful for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, for the tone and content of the toolkit which is available in the pack and on the website.
The Government have also invested in resources to support schools; for example, the development of the Alcohol and Drug Education and Prevention Information Service, which provides practical advice and tools based on the best international evidence, including briefing sheets for teachers. In addition, Mentor UK, which runs the service, manages the Centre for the Analysis of Youth Transitions database, which hosts evaluations of education programmes aimed at improving outcomes for young people.
As part of its inspections programme, Ofsted will from September make a judgment about the quality of a school’s provision for pupils’ personal development, behaviour and welfare. The criteria for an outstanding judgment in this area include: that pupils are safe and feel safe at all times; that they understand how to keep themselves and others safe in different situations and settings; and that they can explain accurately and confidently how to keep themselves healthy. As part of judging the quality of leadership and management, Ofsted also evaluates the effectiveness and impact of provision for pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, which includes understanding the consequences of their behaviour and actions and recognising legal boundaries.
We have also taken specific action to address the threat of psychoactive substances by publishing a resource pack, which I have referred to already.
As we will come to in a later debate, the Government already review annually their activities and progress under the Drug Strategy 2010, with the most recent review published in February this year. That is a cross-government, cross-departmental approach; it is published on the Home Office website. I am happy to undertake to write to colleagues who are in charge of that process drawing attention to this debate and the interest taken in monitoring the effectiveness of education on new psychoactive substances, because, as we have heard, be it in prisons or in children’s homes, the problem is growing.
Investigatory Powers
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Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, it has been a very interesting debate and one that will obviously help inform the upcoming debates on the investigatory powers Bill. I also very much welcome the Government’s approach of publishing a draft Bill and having pre-legislative scrutiny by a committee of both Houses of Parliament.
I am a Liberal Democrat and the House would expect me to put privacy and the rights of the individual front and centre of my contribution—and I will not disappoint the House. I was also a police officer for over 30 years, albeit having very little to do with the investigation of terrorism. However, 10 years ago, to the day, I fronted press conferences as the Metropolitan Police spokesman following the 7 July bombings. I subsequently went round London and spoke to police officers who had gone down on to the tracks in the Underground stations, tending to the seriously injured and recovering the bodies. I know the consequences of terrorism, but I also know that, as one noble Lord has already said, even with unlimited resources, state-of-the-art technology, the dedication, professionalism and experience of the security services and the police of this country, which are second to none, and with legal powers that would be a counterterrorism officer’s dream, atrocities like 7/7 could still happen. Anyone who argues that if we had this or that legislation we would all be safe is being dishonest.
Terrorism has changed in nature, even during my time as a police officer. The IRA was like an army— it was a hierarchical organisation that could be infiltrated. Fixed-line and mobile communication data, including text messaging and who was contacting whom, from where and at what time, could easily be accessed because mobile phone service providers need this information so that they can bill the customer. As Anderson says, quoting from one of the Snowden documents, we were in a “golden age” in terms of the accessibility of intelligence—never before had the police and the security services had such a wealth of information about the communication between criminals, terrorists or otherwise.
Some noble Lords talked about the level of threat. The noble Lord, Lord King of Bridgwater, quoted a former head of the Security Service, the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Weardale, about the level of threat—as does Anderson. However, Anderson says something somewhat different from what the noble Lord, Lord King, said. The noble Lord, Lord Evans of Weardale, said that the nature of the threat is changing, rather than necessarily getting more complex, unpredictable or alarming. As a result, Anderson concludes at paragraph 3.6 that:
“claims of exceptional or unprecedented threat levels—particularly if relied upon for the purposes of curbing well-established liberties—should be approached with scepticism”.
I hope that we will approach such issues with scepticism.
The noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, and other noble Lords talked about technology racing ahead. The noble Lord, Lord Blair, talked about the digital world going dark. It is absolutely right that the risk is heightened because of those changes. For me, it was my noble friend Lord Scriven who asked a critical question at the crux of this: how do we make up for those deficiencies? I think that the more important question is: will it be legislation and giving the security services and the police more powers that bridges that gap, or will it be something completely different?
The attacks that we have seen in the UK and most recently in Tunisia have tended to be by lone wolves or small groups of people who have long known each other and are therefore impossible to infiltrate. There have also been changes in technology, with the advent of web-based communication, such as Facebook Messenger and “over-the-top”—or OTT—provider apps such as WhatsApp and Wickr. They are free-to-use services, so there is no need to record any billing information. Such systems of communication are causing the security services and the police to fall behind in terms of the intelligence that they can access. To ensure privacy and the integrity of communications, to give confidence to their users, such providers have encrypted the information. Indeed, Wickr messages apparently self-destruct once delivered, and FaceTime calls and iMessages between Apple devices cannot even be decrypted by Apple itself. As quoted by Anderson at paragraph 11.16(b), Apple states:
“Apple doesn’t scan your communications, and we wouldn’t be able to comply with a wiretap order even if we wanted to”.
The technology is outpacing the police and the security services, and indeed our efforts to keep up with it. By way of another example, an IP address identifies a device on a network but it can be shared by multiple users simultaneously. We passed the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, which requires communication service providers to retain other data to ensure that, even if a shared IP address is used, it can be tied down to one device. However, there are already problems with that legislation.
First, the measure is likely to identify only the bill payer and not the device. If you use a virtual private network, as we all do when we access the parliamentary intranet from our iPads, the IP address is that provided by the VPN and not by the device. By using a VPN where the server is in the UK, I can make the internet think that I am in the UK whereas I might be in Australia—which is very useful when you want to watch the BBC News but questionably legal. Although a VPN may be provided by a single entity, so that the single entity could be asked who is using the service, other VPNs such as Tor—apparently otherwise known as as The Onion Router—use a network of 6,000 computers to encrypt data and hide the IP address and other identifiers. This is all in the Anderson report.
I could go on baffling noble Lords and myself with examples provided by Anderson, but I can best describe the situation as akin to that applying to new psychoactive substances. As soon as the Government think of legislation, such as the communications data Bill, to close a gap in the police and the security services’ capability, technical experts will create another gap. For example, keeping 12 months of people’s web logs will tell you nothing about who is communicating with whom if it is done on Facebook Messenger or Wickr, but it will be a massive intrusion into people’s privacy. There is a real danger that it will be all pain and very little gain.
The Anderson report is comprehensive, informative and well balanced. Where the recommendations entirely agree with the report produced by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, quite some momentum is being built up in terms of anybody being able to argue against it. However, you cannot take an informed decision on what legislation is necessary to replace existing legislation unless you have a grasp of the technology.
There is much that we have to take on trust from the security services because they deal in secrets, and we do not want to reveal to the enemy exactly what the security services’ capabilities are. However, what we do not have to take on trust, because it is not a secret, is the technological landscape that the new legislation will have to operate in. Nor do we have to take on trust the legislation that the security services are asking for. We should not simply give the police and security services what they are asking for. In the past, for example, the police service, although not the security services, asked for 90 days’ detention of terrorist suspects without charge. Parliament, quite rightly, refused, so there is also a precedent for this.
On the communications data Bill or any successor, Anderson is clear. He says:
“If a sufficiently compelling operational case has been made out”—
and he says that one does not exist at this time—
“a rigorous assessment should then be conducted of the lawfulness, likely effectiveness, intrusiveness and cost of requiring such data to be retained”.
That was also the recommendation of the committee of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. Anderson adds:
“No detailed proposal should be put forward until that exercise has been performed”.
It is a very powerful report. Consultation should not just be with noble Lords in this House or with Members of the other place. There needs to be proper consultation with industry professionals, which, as the noble Baroness said, should include the security industry. However, it should also be with internet service providers. On Thursday last week, I was invited to the annual awards ceremony of the Internet Service Providers’ Association. Its villain of the year award went to the Home Secretary for failure to consult the industry at all on data retention. Surely, if we are to be successful in defeating terrorism, we have to have the support and co-operation of those who provide the means by which these terrorists communicate with each other.
Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]
Lord Paddick Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Paddick
“Possession of controlled drugs
(1) The Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 is amended as follows.
(2) Omit section 5(1) and (2).
(3) After section 5 insert—
“5A Measures in respect of possession of controlled drugs for personal use
(1) Where a person is detained on suspicion of having committed an arrestable offence and is found to be in possession of a controlled drug falling within Schedule 2 (Class A drugs) in circumstances which do not constitute an offence under section 3 (restriction of importation and exportation of controlled drugs) or section 4 (restriction of production and supply of controlled drugs), a senior officer or a local authority may require the person to attend a drug treatment programme or drug awareness programme.
(2) The Secretary of State shall by regulations define “drug treatment programme” and “drug awareness programme” for the purposes of this Act.
(3) Regulations made under this section must be made by statutory instrument.
(4) A statutory instrument under this section may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before, and approved by resolution of, both Houses of Parliament.””
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 24. These amendments are tabled in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Hamwee.
First, there has been a bit of confusion in the editing of the amendment. Subsection (1) of proposed new Section 5A should refer to all drugs falling within Schedule 2, not, as suggested in the brackets, “Class A drugs”. Schedule 2 refers to Class A, Class B and Class C controlled drugs.
Amendment 23 amends the Misuse of Drugs Act by removing Section 5(1), which states that it is illegal to possess a controlled drug, and Section 5(2), which states that it is an offence to possess a controlled drug. It adds a new Section 5A to the Misuse of Drugs Act requiring those arrested for offences to be referred to a drug treatment programme or a drug awareness programme if they are found to be in possession of controlled drugs at the police station. The effect of the amendment is to bring controlled drugs, as defined by the Misuse of Drugs Act, into line with substances that are controlled by this Bill, where simple possession of psychoactive substances is not a criminal offence. This amendment would have the effect of decriminalising the possession of psychoactive substances under the Misuse of Drugs Act and is similar to Amendment 39 which is proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, and the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher.
This amendment also allows that when someone is in police custody for an offence and it becomes apparent that drugs may be behind the criminal behaviour, the person can be referred to an education programme, a drug awareness programme or a drug rehabilitation programme. It allows the Secretary of State by regulation to define a drug treatment programme and a drug awareness programme for the purposes of this Bill. Amendment 24 is simply a consequential amendment to Schedule 1.
At Second Reading, I said that making possession of drugs illegal is not a deterrent, and the Government appear to agree with me to the extent that they are not seeking to make possession of new psychoactive substances illegal under this Bill. It is claimed that proportionality is the reason for not doing so. A proportionality argument can be made for possession of controlled drugs as well. First and foremost, there are millions of people in the UK who continue to take drugs even though they are illegal. Why do they do so? One of the reasons is because the law is in disrepute as far as those it was intended to protect are concerned. Secondly, criminal sanctions do not appear to have any impact on drug use. The Home Office’s 2014 paper Drugs: International Comparators states:
“Looking across different countries, there is no apparent correlation between the ‘toughness’ of a country’s approach and the prevalence of adult drug use”.
UK drug laws appear to have failed to impact on the level of national drug use. The UK has the second-highest lifetime amphetamine and ecstasy use, the second-highest cocaine use and the fourth-highest lifetime cannabis use in Europe.
Release examined 21 jurisdictions where possession of all or some drugs had been decriminalised, and there was no increase in drug use. In the most notable example, Portugal, the Home Office notes that there has not been a lasting or significant increase in drug use there since decriminalisation in 2001. Whether simple possession of drugs is a crime or not appears to make very little difference. The Government are content not to criminalise possession of the substances covered by the Bill, some of which are—and some new substances certainly could be—far more harmful than some of the drugs covered by the Misuse of Drugs Act. For the sake of consistency, clarity and credibility, simple possession of any psychoactive substance should not be an offence. Some will be concerned about such a move, and I myself long resisted calls to legalise drugs. However, I have been convinced by the evidence from Portugal.
These amendments go on to suggest that where someone commits an offence, whether it is antisocial behaviour as a result of being intoxicated by drugs or committing an acquisitive crime to feed a drug habit, and it is found that they are in possession of a controlled drug, they may be referred to an education programme if they have been reckless in their use of drugs, or to a drug treatment programme if they are addicted. There are already well-established practices within the police of giving conditional cautions, where someone is not charged with a criminal offence provided that they comply with the conditions imposed on them. That conditional caution mechanism for the substantive offence for which they have been arrested could provide the incentive for those who are willing to change their behaviour. This is, in essence, the Portuguese model, as I understand it—an approach that focuses on dissuasion.
This amendment has significant other benefits. As with substances covered by the Bill, it would deprive police officers of the power to stop and search people they suspect of simple possession of controlled drugs. At Second Reading, I pointed out the impossible position that the police would be put in if the Bill were implemented without a change in the Misuse of Drugs Act. The police could not possibly be able to tell whether the psychoactive substance they suspected the person to be in possession of was covered by the Bill or by the Misuse of Drugs Act, one for which they have a power to stop and search, the other for which they do not. This amendment deals with that difficulty.
Stop and search is a very contentious tool that the police have used disproportionately against black and minority ethnic young men in particular. In 56% of cases of stop and search by the police in London in 2013-14, the reason the officer gave for searching was “for drugs”. Admittedly, some of those stop and searches may have been for suspected drug dealing, but in my own professional experience they would have been very few. Last week there was discussion in the media about the growth of knife crime in the capital, and it has been reported that the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis has suggested that stop and search may have to increase again as a result. In the same 2013-14 period in London, only 9% of stop and search was targeted on offensive weapons. Freed from the burden of stop and search for simple drugs possession, the police could focus on more serious crime such as drug dealing and knife crime.
As the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, alluded, I have some experience of de facto decriminalisation of cannabis in the London Borough of Lambeth, where I was the police commander. In 2001, for a year, the then Commissioner of Police, now the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, agreed a 12-month pilot scheme where no one would be arrested for simple possession of cannabis, subject to a few exceptions such as possession on or near school premises. The official report by the Metropolitan Police Authority into that scheme is still available on the internet. Some 83% of local people supported the scheme. There was a 19% increase in arrests for dealing in class A drugs. Contrary to press reports, there were fewer drug tourists, fewer incidents of drugs in schools and a saving of police time, which was diverted into tackling more serious crime that was of more concern to local people. The pilot was so successful that the procedure to allow officers to seize and warn for simple possession of cannabis was extended nationally. It also prompted the then Home Secretary to reclassify cannabis as a class C drug—a decision overturned by a new Labour leader a few years later. No wonder the public have no faith in drugs classification.
Lord Bates
I did not mean to be dismissive about that. The Drugs: International Comparators report, which was referenced by several noble Lords, is clear that the success in Portugal cannot be attributed to decriminalisation and dissuasion panels alone. While drug use went down and health outcomes went up, there was at the same time a significant investment in treatment, which has already been referred to. That is an important part of it. That report could have looked at some of the—albeit modest—successes which we have had in this country with our approach. What is beyond doubt is that it is not just enforcement or the law but also education and health treatment which are at the heart of our being able to deal with this problem.
Lord Paddick
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who contributed to this debate and wish, if I may, to address a few of the points that were made.
The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, asked how much constitutes personal use. If you have even a small amount of a drug but have it all in little bags, that indicates that you might be supplying it, or have possession with the intent to supply it. That is the sort of decision that a police officer has to make on the street. Whether it is to do with cannabis or any controlled drug, the decision on whether it is for personal use or possession with the intent to supply is one that is faced by officers every day.
Mention was made of the Swedish absolutely zero tolerance approach. I was not going to raise this issue again but it goes to the heart of what we are discussing. We are all on the same page as regards a lot of what the Minister has said, and what I have suggested in trying to persuade people to get treatment, or on education and so forth. However, the very big difference between us, of course, is whether or not possession is illegal.
As I say, I was not going to bring this up again, but I mentioned at Second Reading a former partner of mine, who became my best friend, who tragically died as a result of taking drugs. His mother asked me to go to the inquest, which is where I learned what had happened. He realised that he had taken an overdose of a drug called GHB. I honestly believe that, if possession of a small amount of that drug for personal use had not been illegal, he and the people that he was with would have sought medical assistance quicker. In fact, he tried to make himself sick in order to get rid of the overdose and thought that he would be okay. He fell asleep and, by the time he was found by his friends, he had obviously stopped breathing for half an hour or an hour or so. They did not seek medical treatment because his condition was to do with illegal drugs.
I know a nightclub manager in Vauxhall who tells me that in other clubs in Vauxhall partygoers who have collapsed—collapsing is what happens if you overdose on GHB—as a result of taking illegal drugs are carried out on to the street by security before an ambulance is called, which could be the difference between life and death for those people, because the nightclub owners do not want to have a reputation with the police that illegal drugs are being used in their clubs. That is why in Ireland, with the passing of a similar Bill, and in Sweden, there are so many deaths because people are taking illegal substances and therefore do not seek the medical help that they desperately need. So I hope your Lordships will forgive me but this is personal as well as professional for me.
Lord Paddick
Lord Paddick
My Lords, I shall also speak to Amendments 36 to 38, tabled in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Hamwee. Amendment 35 amends the offence of producing a psychoactive substance so that a person commits an offence under Clause 4(1)(b) if he or she,
“knows or thinks that the substance is a psychoactive substance”,
rather than if he or she “suspects” it. Amendments 36 and 37 make a similar change to the offence of supply or offering to supply under Clause 5(1)(c) to read that the person “knows or thinks” or ought to
“know or think, that the substance is a psychoactive substance”.
Amendment 38 is probing in nature to delete Clause 5(3) simply to try to elicit from the Minister an explanation of what on earth the subsection actually means.
Police officers suspect while the rest of us think. I am picturing myself with a person I have just arrested—sometimes I dream that I am still in the police; rather, it is a nightmare—in the tape-recording interview room at the police station, when I ask him, “Did you suspect this to be a psychoactive substance?”. Surely the question is whether the suspect thought that it was a psychoactive substance, not whether he suspected it to be one. “Suspect” is rather value-laden, which usually has negative connotations. “If you suspect it, report it”, is the latest from the Metropolitan Police. To us it seems more sensible to substitute “thinks” for “suspects” in the context of these offences.
On Amendment 38, perhaps the Minister can explain what:
“For the purposes of subsection (2)(b), the reference to a substance’s psychoactive effects includes a reference to the psychoactive effects which the substance would have if it were the substance which P had offered to R”,
means, and why it is necessary. I beg to move.
Lord Bates
My Lords, the short answer to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and to get to the heart of it, is that we believe that “knows or suspects” is an established term. It has been used in, for example, Section 21A of the Terrorism Act 2000, Section 2(16) of the Criminal Justice Act 1987—
“Where any person—
(a) knows or suspects that an investigation by the police or the Serious Fraud Office”—
and Section 83ZN(4) of the Banking Act 2009, which states:
“(4) A person who knows or suspects that an investigation is being or is likely to be conducted under section 83ZC”.
I simply cite the examples to show that this is a term which has broad acceptance. However, I shall take up the noble Lord’s invitation to put on the record a few words to expand on what is meant by these clauses.
Amendments 35, 36 and 37 seek to make a slight change to the mental element of the offences in Clauses 4 and 5, which relate to the production and supply of psychoactive substances. In drafting these offences, we consulted the national policing lead for new psychoactive substances and the Crown Prosecution Service. We believe that the current formulation of these offences is proportionate and fair, capturing those individuals who intentionally produce, supply or offer to supply these dangerous substances while not criminalising accidental behaviour.
To satisfy the mental elements of the production offence, the prosecution must show that the production is intentional, that the defendant knew or suspected that the substance is a psychoactive substance, and that the defendant must either intend to consume the psychoactive substance for its psychoactive effects, or know or be reckless as to whether the psychoactive substance is likely to be consumed by another person for its psychoactive effects. The mental elements of the supply offence in Clause 5 are similar; namely, that the prosecution must show that supplying the substance is intentional, that the defendant knew or suspected, or ought to know or suspect, that the substance is a psychoactive substance, and the defendant must know or be reckless as to whether the psychoactive substance is likely to be consumed by the person to whom it is supplied or by another person for its psychoactive effects.
Amendments 35 to 37 seek to remove “suspects” and replace it with “thinks”. Given the two words’ natural meaning, the requirement of each is very similar. However, we believe that the use of “think” raises the bar too high in terms of what must be proved. Thinking something suggests that a person needs to be “satisfied” or “believe” that something is the case—I am having a moment of déjà vu here with the then Serious Crime Bill, because we went through the mens rea discussions then—which is a higher test than that which we propose. The formula “knows or suspects” is commonly used in the criminal law to describe the mental element or mens rea of the offence. It is a phrase that is well understood. “Knows” demonstrates a true belief. Suspicion is a subjective test and need not be based on reasonable grounds, but there must be a possibility which is more than fanciful that the relevant facts exist. The courts have held that a “vague feeling of unease” would not suffice to prove suspicion, but the suspicion need not be “clearly” or “firmly” grounded and targeted on specific facts or based upon reasonable grounds.
The Government considered whether the mental element should extend only as far as “knows”, but we concluded that this could create an inappropriately high bar for prosecutors to overcome, with defendants arguing that they did not know for certain that the substance they were producing or supplying was a psychoactive substance. Given, as I have said, that a “knows or suspects” test is commonly used in the criminal law, I am satisfied that it is well understood by investigators, prosecutors and defence lawyers. I am therefore not persuaded of the case for change.
Under Clause 5(2) there are two limbs to the offer to supply offence. First, person A must offer to supply a psychoactive substance to person B. The second limb requires that person A knows or is reckless as to whether person B, or some other person, would, if a substance was supplied in accordance with the offer, be likely to consume the substance for its psychoactive effects. I realise that these are complex legal terms, but I have to say that they probably fit well with a number of cases that I have personally looked into. I am thinking of head shops selling psychoactive substances in bright packaging. To avoid prosecution, the label states that the substance is plant food or a research chemical that is not for human consumption. Clearly, that is what we are aiming to get at so that there is no loophole. Given the way this second limb operates, no offence would be committed if the substance that was in fact supplied was not a psychoactive substance. It will come as no surprise to noble Lords that not all drug dealers are entirely honest. An offer may be made to supply a psychoactive substance, but the person making the offer may intend to defraud the recipient by passing off some benign white powder as the real thing. Indeed the person making the offer may not intend to supply anything, but simply take the money and run. Clause 5(3) is intended to catch those circumstances. What matters here is that the defendant made an offer to supply a psychoactive substance and should not be able to evade prosecution under Clause 5 on the grounds that he or she did not intend to fulfil their side of the deal.
I accept the probing nature of the amendment and I hope that the noble Lord will find that these explanations, even if they have not entirely satisfied him, have allowed us to put some additional remarks on the record that may be helpful in understanding the Government’s intent in bringing forward this clause.
Lord Bates
My noble friend is correct in the sense that there are rules that exist relating to solvent abuse, the use of solvents in that regard and protections for retailers. However, we are very clear here as to the target audience for the purpose of this measure: individuals who are seeking to manufacture psychoactive substances for the purposes of being consumed by people for their psychoactive effect, or to supply, import or export. We do not believe that they will come into the categories of what would be appropriate retail activity. My noble friend makes a wider point, though. I will reflect again with officials on his remarks in the Official Report, and if I can expand upon that point to provide some additional guidance I will certainly write to him and copy it to other Members of the Committee.
Lord Paddick
I thank the Minister for his explanation, on the basis that I am not a lawyer. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, this amendment proposes that the possession for personal use of any psychoactive substances, including psychoactive substances hitherto controlled under the provisions of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, is not a criminal offence. We touched quite extensively on this issue in the debate on Amendment 23 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, but his amendment ranged considerably wider. I hope that the Committee will be willing to focus more tightly on the specific issue that is expressed in the proposed new clause.
In recent years, some 25 countries have removed criminal penalties for personal possession of some or all drugs. Now, for the first time, Her Majesty’s Government of the United Kingdom are tiptoeing towards the decriminalisation of possession for personal use because they have omitted, quite deliberately, to criminalise such possession where psychoactive substances are concerned, as defined in the Bill. However, that raises the question of why they are stopping at new psychoactive substances and, of course, the substances that are exempted in Schedule 1. Why do they not now proceed to decriminalise possession for personal use of small amounts of drugs controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971? The policy is inconsistent and confusing. As such, I fear that it is liable to damage respect for the law, and the law in respect of drugs is already not much respected as it is.
Why does the Home Office judge it appropriate to criminalise young people wholesale? I am advised that in the period 2009 to 2013, 59,742 young people under the age of 20 were criminalised for possession of controlled drugs—something like 29% of young people in that age group who received a criminal record. Such an approach is clumsy, to say the least, and I submit that it is very damaging to those young people: the short-term and long-term effects of having a criminal record weigh heavily on their educational and employment prospects and their prospects of being able to obtain credit. It is also expensive for the Exchequer. The continuation of this criminalisation appears to ignore the findings of the Home Office’s own study, Drugs: International Comparators, which found that the relative toughness of the prohibitionist approach makes no difference to actual consumption.
Like it or not, the recreational use of drugs is widespread in our society. Indeed, I would say that in certain sections of society it is normal. I do not know whether we are welcoming the Minister on his return from a fact-finding mission to Glastonbury at the weekend; he may perhaps have been invited by the organisers in his official ministerial capacity or perhaps he went incognito, possibly not even wearing his suit. I like to think that he was accompanied by Lady Bates and that she may have been bearing in her hand at least a small posy of flowers, because it could be the last time under this legislation that he will have the opportunity to give her flowers—then he will have to default to his position of presenting her with chocolates.
If the Minister was at Glastonbury, no doubt he will have ignored the vapourings coming from left field from such figures as Billy Bragg and Charlotte Church, but he will not have failed to notice that significant numbers of young people there were consuming psychoactive substances. Possibly he regards all of them as lost souls. Still, he may have taken some satisfaction from knowing that this will be the last time that drugs will be consumed at Glastonbury because, through the virtues of this legislation, he will have completed the circle of prohibition: it will be impossible for them legally to obtain psychoactive substances in future. Such will be the zeal for enforcement of the police and other authorities, prioritising this prohibition alongside their duties to deal with illegal immigration and threats of terrorism, he can be confident that next year no drugs will be consumed at Glastonbury—unless, perhaps, psychoactive substances descend like manna from heaven on to the fields of Glastonbury, because that is still a possibility. Miracles do occur, and it is not impossible that psychoactive substances will continue to be consumed at Glastonbury and other festivals.
We need a realistic and constructive approach to this matter. The constructive policy is to decriminalise the possession of all drugs for personal use—to legalise, to regulate and, as we have noted in earlier debates, to have a serious campaign to inform and educate people about the realities and dangers of drugs. How helpful it would be if we could distinguish legally between the recreational use of drugs and problem usage. Through decriminalising, I believe that we could get more people, more quickly into more effective help and treatment. This is the difference between the Swedish approach and the Portuguese approach, which we discussed earlier. Decriminalisation, as recommended in the proposed new clause, would release the police from so much futile activity.
I am told that Her Majesty’s Government are spending something of the order of £1.5 billion a year on drug law enforcement. The impact assessment for the Bill, at paragraph 75, anticipates that the costs of the new measures to the public sector will be only £60,000 in year 1 and £50,000 a year thereafter. This is a joke: all the new offences created and all the enforcement activities legislated for in the Bill will cost a lot of money. We would do better to switch that expenditure and other expenditure into a real drive on information, education, youth work, healthcare through Public Health England and doing very much better about drugs in prisons.
Should we be condemning or should we be helping? In our society, there is no consensus as to whether the use of drugs is a crime, a vice, a weakness, an illness, an adventure, an act of rebellion or a recreation. It is all these things to different people at different times. But if we cease treating it as a crime, we will, as I have said before, greatly reduce the alienation of so many young people from politics and government, and we will be better placed to help people in need.
The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, asked me to convey her apologies to the Committee that she is unable to speak to her Amendment 46. She has had to go because she is hosting a reception for Leonard Cheshire Disability, which is being attended by the Secretary of State. I beg to move.
Lord Paddick
My Lords, I rise to support Amendment 39 and to speak to Amendments 45 and 52, which are in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Hamwee. I agree with some of the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport. However, I got a touch of déjà vu because I think I made out the case for the decriminalisation of drugs when I spoke to Amendment 23. I will not go over that again.
Amendment 45 clarifies the offence of intentionally importing a psychoactive substance under Clause 7(1)(a) to exclude the importation if it is,
“for the person’s own consumption”.
Amendment 52 makes a similar change to the definition of “prohibited activity”. It would amend Clause 11(1)(d) to read,
“importing such a substance other than for the person’s own consumption”.
As we have heard, the Government do not intend to make possession of psychoactive substances under this Bill a criminal offence. This Bill is targeted at those who supply such substances. While it is therefore reasonable and logical for the importation of such substances for sale or supply to also be an offence, it seems disproportionate to make importation solely for one’s own consumption an offence.
What will happen if this Bill becomes law is what happened in Ireland when similar provisions were enacted. People who currently buy their psychoactive substances from head shops will instead buy them from street drug dealers or, more likely, buy them online. Under this Bill, the police will be able to close down UK-based websites, forcing users to buy their drugs from websites overseas. When they buy their drugs from such websites, they will be guilty of importing psychoactive substances, even if their only intention is to consume the drugs themselves. It seems inconsistent for the Government not to criminalise possession of psychoactive substances under this Bill but still to criminalise people for trying to possess them in this way.
Lord Bates
That is one of the reasons why the Republic of Ireland Government are pleased that we are following their lead in this regard. Naturally, when you make a blanket ban, as they have done, people find it very easy simply to cross the border—which, of course, is not really there—to obtain these supplies in the north of Ireland. I can give the noble Lord some quick statistics. More than three and a half tonnes of new psychoactive substances were seized by Border Force officers in 2014-15—a 75% increase on the previous year. Officers undertake targeted physical checks, supported by technology such as X-ray and new portable FirstDefender devices, to intercept suspected packages out of the 250,000 parcels that come through the UK’s depots.
Lord Paddick
Before the noble Lord withdraws his amendment, can I just say that surely there must be a way to allow all these substances—or as many as are discovered—to be confiscated by the Border Force without making importation for personal use a specific offence? Surely they can be treated as two separate things. No doubt we can discuss that during the Bill’s further stages.
Lord Bates
We can, but the whole purpose of the legislation is to try to close the loopholes. As I explained, if there was a loophole that meant you could import for personal use, how do you actually track that? Whether it is one packet or multiple packets, what is an appropriate amount for personal use? That makes it very difficult for Border Force officials. We are taking a blanket approach, as we have with other substances, because it gives clarity to the purpose of the policy.
Lord Paddick
“Licences for sale of psychoactive substances
(1) The Secretary of State shall within one year after the passing of this Act make regulations for the licensing of—
(a) specified persons;(b) specified premises;to sell psychoactive substances determined to pose low overall risk and exempted under Schedule 1 by regulations made under section 3.(2) Before making any regulations under this section, the Secretary of State must consult—
(a) representatives of chief officers of police, local authorities and small businesses, and(b) such other persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.(3) Regulations under this section may—
(a) make different provision for different purposes, and(b) contain incidental, supplemental, consequential or transitional provision or savings.(4) The power to make regulations under this section is exercisable by statutory instrument.
(5) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.
(6) In this section “specified” means specified in regulations.”
Lord Paddick
My Lords, Amendment 51 stands in my name and the names of my noble friend Lady Hamwee and the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. It would allow the Secretary of State to make regulations to license people and premises to sell low-risk psychoactive substances after consultation with representatives of the police, local authorities and small businesses.
The Government, in their background briefing to the Bill, acknowledge that some so-called head shops are well run and that the owners or managers of these premises make every effort to remain with the law and to conduct their business responsibly. We maintain that were all head shops to disappear, as happened when similar legislation was enacted in Ireland, users would resort to far more dangerous suppliers, such as street drug dealers and overseas websites. There is a real danger that the complete disappearance of head shops would result in more deaths from new psychoactive substances. Together with other amendments already debated, this amendment would allow low-risk psychoactive substances that have been exempted from the Bill to be sold to adults only, in closely regulated premises, by fit and proper licence holders.
We had a discussion this afternoon about how alcohol is very closely regulated. We are saying that, through this amendment, other low-risk psychoactive substances could be regulated and controlled. The overall effect of these changes would be to keep users from being driven into the hands of criminal suppliers and unregulated websites. I beg to move.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, I support this amendment. I think it is going to be very difficult in practice to implement the kind of regime that the noble Lord and his cosignatories call for, but I share his view that it may well be of much more questionable benefit than the Government suppose to close down the existing head shops en masse. I suspect that they vary very much in terms of the responsibility with which they deal with their clients but am pretty sure that, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said, there are head-shop proprietors and staff who take a responsible view of the risks that their clients may run and the desirability of ensuring that they do not come to harm. It is very difficult to know how to prevent anyone coming to harm, not least because it is very difficult to identify the exact nature of the substances sold, even for the head-shop importers and proprietors, and there is not the evidence to tell us about the long-term effects of the use of new psychoactive substances.
However, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, that there is a lesser danger in this than there is in consigning the users of new psychoactive substances to street dealers and to online sources based outside this country operated by people who have no scruples at all. The consultation process that the noble Lord has proposed would be problematic, because people in the neighbourhood of head shops tend not to like them and it would be very difficult to get local public assent to the licensing of head shops, but a responsible local authority ought to undertake that kind of exercise.
I was very interested to note that, in the briefing from the Local Government Association on this amendment that I think we have all received, it makes some very practical points:
“We would oppose councils being made responsible for licensing because of the difficulties in assessing if a product is of low overall risk. Unless there was a full scale testing and risk assessment regime in place covering health and other risks the safety of a product could not be guaranteed”.
It is absolutely right about that, which is one of the reasons why, on another amendment, I have argued for the provision of a network of testing facilities. We ought to aim at that. We should encourage responsible conduct by people who would seek to supply psychoactive substances to the market in this country. There is evidence that many people operating cannabis cafes in the Netherlands for example, particularly because they are under pretty close police and other supervision, take good care to ensure that the products that they offer are relatively safe and that they guide purchasers to buy the products that may be least dangerous and least unsuitable for them. One might even say, for those who favour the taking of cannabis, it is positively suitable for them—but I am neutral on that point. We have all the time to think practically and realistically and, in tabling this amendment, noble Lords are doing just that.
Lord Bates
I respect the noble Lord in taking that position but it is a different position from that which the Government have arrived at after taking advice on this. The Local Government Association, which has to wrestle with these problems, has seen numerous examples over recent months of local authorities using a range of powers to shut down head shops in, for example, Lincoln, Portsmouth, Newcastle, Kent and Medway as a result of anti-social behaviour in and around these premises. I am not aware of any local authority or police force that welcomes head shops in its community.
Before I have letters flooding my way from the Australian high commissioner, I should point out that the government of Western Australia introduced legislation last month but it has not yet been passed. I hope that clarifies the position, and I hope that the noble Lord is reassured and feels able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Paddick
I thank the Minister and other noble Lords for their contributions. The noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, talked about having received the LGA briefing on this amendment. Regrettably, we have not received it, which puts us in a slightly difficult position in commenting on it. However, from what I have heard in the Chamber this afternoon, there seems to be some confusion over what the amendment is proposing. It proposes that local authorities license people and premises but the decision on which substances can be sold—that is, whether something is a low-risk substance—would be agreed by the Secretary of State, who would then put that substance on the exempt list. We have debated what “low-risk substance” means or could mean on a previous amendment. Our Amendment 22 offered a definition of “low overall risk” taken precisely from the Misuse of Drugs Act. What a low-risk substance is and how you define it is a separate debate.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, for raising this new research. Again, it is difficult to comment without having read it, unlike the Minister. However, it sounds as though the surveys were conducted in a treatment centre for young people. The difficulty, as I have mentioned, is that when substances are made illegal people are very reluctant to come forward to seek treatment because those substances are now illegal, whereas previously they were legal and people had no qualms about coming forward.
Last week we offered the House the chance to have an independent, objective review, not only of the operation of the Misuse of Drugs Act but of what is happening in Ireland. It is very difficult for us in Committee to decide which side of the argument we come down on when there appears to be completely conflicting evidence of what the effects of the Irish ban are.
As to one thing I am more certain about, the Minister talked about the rejection of the New Zealand model. I understand that the problem with that model is that the suppliers of new psychoactive substances have not been prepared to put up the money to have their substances tested to the extent that they need to be to be approved. That is why the New Zealand model has run into the ground.
Lord Howarth of Newport
There have also been difficulties because of objections to testing on animals.
Lord Paddick
I accept that testing anything on animals is another very contentious issue. However, it is not right to say that the New Zealand model, whereby the door has been left open to allow people to have substances tested to see whether they are low risk, has been rejected, other than on commercial grounds by the people who are producing them.
Having said all that, I am very grateful to the Minister for his explanation. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]
Lord Paddick Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Paddick
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, Amendment 87A concerns the power to stop and search. I shall speak also to Amendment 94A, which concerns the power to seize and destroy substances. They are both probing amendments to try to understand why the Government feel it is necessary to include these powers to stop and search.
Originally we focused on Clause 23, which is about failing to comply with a premises order or a prohibition order, but, on reflection, similar arguments would apply to Clauses 4 and 8 in that the power to stop and search is supposed to be on the basis of suspicion that a person has committed, or is likely to commit, an offence under those clauses. These are criminal and arrestable offences. If a police officer or a customs officer suspects that a person has committed either of these offences, they would have a power under common law to stop and search that individual, having arrested them. My question to the Minister is: why is there a need for a separate power to stop and search when there is already a power under common law to do that?
Amendment 94A concerns the power for the police to dispose of seized psychoactive substances even where an offence has not been committed. Clause 46(1)(c) states that if an officer reasonably believes that an item is a psychoactive substance it can be seized and destroyed. My question to the Minister is, surely it needs to go beyond what an officer reasonably believes, otherwise legal substances could be destroyed by the police, with no comeback for the owner of the substances, simply on the basis of an officer’s reasonable belief about those substances that is not well founded and is not factual. I beg to move.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, my amendment in this group seeks to introduce a new clause after Clause 35. Again, it is on the subject of stop and search and, like the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, its purpose is to probe.
The Committee should be told what the Government’s policy on stop and search is. In April last year the Home Secretary announced that she intended to introduce a comprehensive package of reform of police stop-and-search powers. She had been informed by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary that a quarter of a million stop-and-search operations—or some 27% of street searches—in 2013 had been illegal. In the other place she said:
“I want to make myself absolutely clear: if the numbers do not come down, if stop-and-search does not become more targeted, if those stop-to-arrest ratios do not improve considerably, the Government will return with primary legislation to make those things happen”.
She went on to say:
“nobody wins when stop-and-search is misapplied. It is a waste of police time. It is unfair, especially to young, black men. It is bad for public confidence in the police”.—[Official Report, Commons, 30/4/2014; col. 833.]
The Home Secretary noted that black people were still seven times more likely to be searched on the street than white people, which had been seen as “sharply divisive” in Britain’s black and minority ethnic communities. She might also have noted that in 2013, white people were twice as likely to have taken drugs in the previous year as black or Asian people.
Lord Bates
My Lords, let me deal first with Amendments 87A and 89, which relate to the stop-and-search powers in the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, has explained that Amendment 87A would remove the liability to stop and search persons suspected of committing the offence of failing to comply with a prohibition order or premises order. As I understand it, the case for the amendment is that any breach of a prohibition order or premises order would in itself constitute an offence under Clauses 4 to 8, and accordingly it is not necessary to apply the stop-and-search powers to the Clause 23 offence. Such reasoning seems to misunderstand the nature of the prohibition orders and the premises orders. As we have already debated, these orders may contain any prohibitions, restrictions or requirements that the court considers appropriate. Failure to comply with these would be a breach of the order and therefore constitute an offence under Clause 23, so a person could commit the Clause 23 offence without also committing one of the main offences under Clauses 4 to 8. It is therefore entirely appropriate that the stop-and-search powers extend to circumstances where a person is suspected of failing to comply with a prohibition or premises order. To remove the reference to the Clause 23 offence would weaken the enforcement powers in the Bill.
Amendment 89, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, would require an annual report to Parliament on the exercise of the stop-and-search powers. We recognise the sensitivity surrounding the exercise of such powers, which is why my right honourable friend the Home Secretary is determined to reform the way that they are used. Indeed, our party manifesto included a commitment to legislate to mandate changes in police practices if stop and search does not become more targeted and stop-to-arrest ratios do not improve.
As to the specifics of the amendment, I advise the noble Lord that forces must already collect data on stop and search that are published annually for public scrutiny. Those data include the ethnicity of the individuals concerned. Forces are also required under the Best Use of Stop and Search Scheme to record additional data, such as the reason for the stop and search, the outcome and whether there is a connection between the two. This greater transparency enables greater scrutiny and accountability. I expect such data collections to include the stop-and-search powers provided for under the Bill. The noble Lord has raised some serious points. He is right that the stop-and-search powers in the Bill need to be properly monitored, but I hope I have been able to reassure him that there are already mechanisms in place to do just that.
Amendment 94A relates to Clause 46, which provides for a fast-track procedure for the disposal of seized psychoactive substances. The clause was included in the Bill at the direct request of the national policing lead on new psychoactive substances. Clause 46(1) outlines four conditions that, when met, allow a substance to be disposed of under the fast-track process.
Amendment 94A relates to the third condition—namely, that the officer reasonably believes that the seized item is a psychoactive substance but is not evidence of any offence under the Bill. Amendment 94A seeks to amend the condition so that a substance can be seized only where it is proved to be psychoactive. The procedure provided by the clause broadly mirrors the well-established process already in operation for temporary class drugs under Section 23A(4) and (5) of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. Section 23A(4) uses the same language as here—namely, a test of “reasonably believes”. For small quantities of seized substances, where there is no evidence of an offence under the Bill, this is an appropriate test. We must be mindful both of the need to protect the public—we do not want to be returning potentially harmful substances once seized—and to avoid tying up the police in unnecessary bureaucracy and the need for expensive forensic testing.
The amendment has the potential to severely restrict the utility of this power and questions the professional judgment of police and customs officers. An officer’s reasonable belief in this context could be based on the substance’s packaging, its markings or even whether the individual from whom it was seized appears intoxicated and the officer can infer that the substance found may be responsible. As demonstrated in the context of temporary class drug orders, requiring officers to make decisions based upon their reasonable belief is not new. The Home Office will continue to work with the national policing lead and the College of Policing to ensure that guidance is developed on this issue to assist officers.
The police rely on statutory stop-and-search powers. I refer noble Lords to annexe A of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act codes of practice for the full list. We need to add those statutory powers for the purposes of enforcing the provisions of this Bill. The Government are clear that the powers of stop and search, when used correctly, are vital in the fight against crime. However, when it is misused, stop and search is counterproductive and a waste of police time. That is why the proposal to introduce the best use of stop-and-search schemes and the publication of data, which the noble Lord requested, is such an important part of us monitoring how this legislation is implemented on the ground. That evidence will be collected and, therefore, able to be reviewed as this goes forward. I hope that, with that additional explanation, the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
I am conscious that a letter is on its way to noble Lords, which I promised after the interventions of the noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Harris of Haringey, on the whole process of how one begins testing and determining whether what is there is a psychoactive substance. That is in train and will certainly be available to noble Lords ahead of Report stage. I hope that that will give further clarity on this matter.
Lord Paddick
I thank the Minister for his response. By changing horses half way through, I might have thrown the Minister in specifying Clause 23 and not specifying Clauses 4 to 8. Therefore, what the Minister read out was an assumption of what my thinking was, as opposed to what my thinking became when I presented it; namely, that if these are arrestable offences there is a power for the police, once the person is arrested, to detain and search them. Therefore, it would seem unnecessary to have the powers provided by Clause 32. I would not expect the noble Lord to respond now to that because it was my fault for misleading him in the way in which I presented the amendments.
On seizure and destruction of substances that an officer reasonably believes to be a psychoactive substance, my point was not about coming across a small amount in someone’s pocket that the officer could then seize and destroy. We were thinking more of where the substances were found in a head shop, for example, and turned out to be a large quantity which could or could not be a psychoactive substance. Those large quantities could be destroyed simply on the basis of the officer reasonably believing that they are something covered by this Bill, but which then turn out not to be.
Having further explained what I was getting at but did not make clear the first time around, perhaps the Minister will respond to me between now and Report stage. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Calais: Border Management
Lord Paddick Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Bates
To answer the first question, the Home Secretary has spoken to Monsieur Cazeneuve about the safety of British and other travellers travelling to the UK. There is a promise to provide extra resources during this time to help secure vehicles. It is a very fast-moving and difficult situation, as has already been mentioned.
As to the effect on the number of people arriving into the UK, the juxtaposed controls, which are at the heart of this and were actually introduced by the previous Labour Government, have worked very well in Calais, Dunkirk and Coquelles. They are staffed by a pool of about 800 Border Force officers based in France. It is estimated that, in the past year, 40,000 people have been stopped travelling into the UK. The message to take from yesterday is very clear: the UK border was not breached. There was significant disruption for travellers and freight vehicles as a result of the action, particularly for those using the tunnel, but we do not anticipate that having a direct effect on the numbers entering the UK.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, the problems we saw in Calais yesterday did not begin with the strike; they began with the plight of people many miles away in Africa. Will the Government continue to support spending 0.7% of gross national income on foreign aid, as provided for under the Act that was proposed by the Liberal Democrats as a Private Member’s Bill and passed by this House in the last Session, to ensure that the reasons these people are seeking to move from Africa into Europe are dealt with at source?
Lord Bates
I am very happy to give that assurance. Reaching 0.7% was one of the great achievements of the previous Government and certainly something that we are committed to maintaining. We are providing the second-largest amount of money, in absolute terms, to Syria—some £800 million. We talk about committing £12 million to the work at the juxtaposed borders, but £800 million is going towards helping the people fleeing the awful situation in Syria. That is absolutely the right balance in trying to move this problem forward and tackle it at source.
Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]
Lord Paddick Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Paddick
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, I will speak also to the other amendments in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Hamwee in this group. This group is fundamental to our debate on the rest of the Bill, as it asks the Government whether they are really committed to an evidence-based approach to combating drugs—basically, whether they are committed to doing what works in practice.
Amendment 1 is a minor amendment which sets out our proposals in the overall context of the Bill. The key amendment is Amendment 5, which would require the Secretary of State to commission an “independent evidence-based review” of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and its implementation, and to publish the results. Amendments 111, 112 and 115 would ensure that this review had to take place before the rest of the provisions in the Bill came into force. If, in the face of the evidence that such a review would produce, the Government were still determined to press ahead with this, so be it. However, our amendments would give the Government time to consider whether a different approach, based on evidence of what works, would produce the outcomes we all seek.
I will be clear: the Liberal Democrats are as concerned about the harm caused by the misuse of drugs in general, and the misuse of new psychoactive substances in particular, as anyone else in this House, including the Government. Liberal Democrats want what parents and families want. Parents want their children to avoid taking drugs. The evidence suggests that education, rather than criminalisation, is more likely to achieve that end. If their children use drugs, they do not want them to be harmed by taking them, let alone be killed by them. The evidence suggests that the best way to do that is through education and concentrating resources on the drug dealers, not the users. If their children use drugs, the last thing they want is for the rest of their children’s lives to be ruined by a criminal record for simply having small amounts of a relatively harmless substance on them. Educate them if they are being reckless, and if they are addicted, treat them.
Our concern, borne out by the evidence from other countries, is that prohibition and the criminalisation of drug users do not reduce the harm caused by drugs. They do not save lives, reduce addiction or deal with the serious criminality associated with drugs, such as the violence associated with drug dealing. Our concern is that the Bill—yet another Bill based on prohibition and criminalisation—will not only be ineffective in reducing the considerable harm caused by new psychoactive substances but will increase that harm, cost more lives, increase addiction and boost the profitability of drug dealing.
I expect the Government to say that they do not believe this will be the case, and that they have a manifesto commitment to enact this legislation—and of course under the Salisbury convention we on these Benches will not try to wreck the Bill. What we are asking for is an independent, evidence-based review of how effective current legislation is in achieving what it sets out to achieve—that is, a review of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971—before we give effect to another piece of legislation which is very similar to that.
I can tell noble Lords that making drugs illegal is not an effective deterrent, and that the classification of drugs under the Misuse of Drugs Act lacks a sound scientific basis in the case of many of the drugs listed in that legislation, and therefore it lacks credibility in the eyes of those whom the system of classification is designed to deter. However, rather than taking my word for it, I ask the House to support an independent review. We are not asking for a major piece of new research but for a similar exercise to that carried out recently by David Anderson into the far more complex area of surveillance, which he completed in less than 12 months. We are not trying to delay the passing of this legislation, just asking that we hold back from giving effect to it until after the review has been conducted. It may well be that, having seen the review, the Government decide to adopt a different approach.
The Liberal Democrats want a health-based and harm reduction-based approach to dealing with the problems caused by the misuse of drugs. If I thought that making even more drugs illegal would save one life or stop one person becoming addicted, I would not be asking for this review. Therefore, will the Minister commit to having such a review so we can ensure that, before this Bill comes into force, we learn the lessons of the past? I beg to move.
Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)
My Lords, I am puzzled. Somebody has lost the plot and it is probably me. I do not see why this has to delay the legislation at all. I follow that in this group, Amendment 115—the last one—would indeed delay the legislation. It involves an insertion into Clause 57, which is about commencement. However, I do not think that applies to any of the other amendments. On the face of it, Amendment 5 seems to demand the implementation of the Bill. How would one review its implementation under proposed new subsection (1)(b), except by bringing it into force and letting it go ahead? Unless someone can explain why Amendment 115 within this group necessarily has to be passed, I do not see that any delay at all is involved.
Lord Paddick
My Lords, if I may assist the Committee, clearly these amendments can be taken separately and, if the Committee is minded to say that there needs to be a review and no delay in giving effect to the legislation, that is a matter for the Committee. We are talking about the Misuse of Drugs Act in that amendment rather than the Bill, if that helps the noble Lord.
Baroness Meacher
I wonder if it might help the Committee if the noble Lord withdrew Amendment 115 simply so that we can debate the need for a review of the Misuse of Drugs Act without setting it in the context of a delay to the psychoactive substances ban.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) (Con)
My Lords, first, I welcome the amendment and the way in which it was proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, because it has sparked a genuine debate, one of real high quality and passion on all sides of the argument. I thought that the arguments in the contributions we heard were pretty finely balanced for and against. I want to try to respond to some of those points. The point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, relating to Ireland is an example worth looking at. That issue comes up in a later group of amendments and I will be happy to respond in more detail at that point, if I can.
I want to pick up on the comments made by my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern. He talked about the difficulties that the Government are facing and about these new versions of psychoactive substances that are coming on to the market. In fact, the European centre that monitors these things is identifying two new versions per week. More than 500 have been identified and banned since 2010. That is the difficulty that the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, touched upon when she referred to temporary banning orders. We have tried those so we have some evidence that they do not work, because the minute we clamp down on one substance, up pop another one or two—or three or 10—somewhere else. The challenges that we face are clear.
Another point in the evidence—evidence that people have cited in all their contributions from their different perspectives on this—for the Government to take action on this is that we are seeing a general fall-off in the use of drugs, as the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, mentioned. The positive signs are there about the current approach to drugs. I will come back to this at some point but there has been an overemphasis on the Misuse of Drugs Act, which was a response to a series of international conventions, such as the UN convention. It recognised that the fight against narcotics and drugs was a global fight. We therefore introduced legislation but if there was just the Misuse of Drugs Act, as it was configured in 1971, there would of course be little support from any part of the House. The fact of the matter is that that is only one part of the legislation.
The noble Lord, Lord Patel of Bradford, talked about the excellent work being done in treatment and rehabilitation. There is work going on in education and very sophisticated work going on in policing, a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Condon. In fact, having been a commander, the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, was at the centre of the challenge of finding new ways to tackle those issues through law enforcement. There is a whole suite of different ways in which we are tackling this but across the majority of drugs and age groups, there has been a long-term downward trend in drug use over the past decade, a point made by my noble friend Lord Blencathra. Among 11 to 15 year-olds, drug use has been falling since its peak in 2003. More people are recovering from their dependency now than in 2009-10, and the average waiting time to access treatment is now down to three days. As a result of such innovation, the work that has been done in that area is providing alternatives and treatment. However, enforcement is part of that.
I come to the point that against the downward trend that we are seeing, in one area we see that the opposite is actually the case: usage is increasing and the number of deaths has almost doubled. There were 120 deaths of young people in 2013, and all the evidence is that that trend is on the rise.
Lord Paddick
Of those 120 deaths, for how many were new psychoactive substances the sole cause and for how many was it a mixture of these with alcohol and other controlled drugs?
Lord Paddick
I can assist the Minister, because in only 23 of those deaths did the post mortem find only psychoactive substances in the bloodstream. It is important that we get the facts straight in these cases.
Lord Bates
I certainly agree with the noble Baroness that the wider issue is not narrow, it is very broad, but what we are trying to do here with this Bill is very narrow. It is very focused and based on the evidence. The noble Baroness says that the two amendments are linked but distinct. Now she is a lawyer and I am not, but to me if they are linked then they cannot be distinct. They are linked in the sense that if they are both moved together, then one effect will be to have a review which will delay action being taken on this menace—or mischief, as the noble Lord, Lord Condon, said—which is happening up and down this country and through which people are suffering and dying. We need to take action and we are doing that on the basis of medical evidence, law enforcement evidence and evidence from the Local Government Association.
Lord Paddick
My Lords, the debate this afternoon has been passionate on both sides, and both sides of the argument seem to be equally committed to believing that their side is right. If ever there was an example of why we need an independent, evidence-based review, the debate this afternoon is it because everybody who has spoken in the Chamber this afternoon cannot possibly be right. We might agree to a review of the Misuse of Drugs Act, but people will then ask why we would want to link it to this piece of legislation. The noble Lord, Lord Condon, for whom I have a great deal of respect, raised this as an issue.
The fact is that somebody said that the definition of madness is to carry on doing exactly the same thing while expecting a different result. Some people brought forward evidence in this argument that prohibition and criminalisation of drugs do not work, which the Minister has countered. One of the campaigning organisations called Release, which no doubt has sent information to noble Lords, claims that the UK has the highest lifetime amphetamine and ecstasy use, the second-highest cocaine use and the fourth-highest lifetime cannabis use in Europe. Not everybody can be right on this and my real concern—there is some evidence which we will come to in future amendments when we consider the Irish situation—is that this Bill, or this approach of prohibition and criminalisation, actually makes things worse. It makes people less safe. It makes more people die. It gets more people addicted. What I am concerned about is, if we make even more drugs illegal, it will have completely the reverse effect to the one wanted by everybody in this House, which is to make it safer, to have fewer deaths and fewer people addicted. That is why this amendment is here. That is why this amendment is linked to this Bill and that is why I wish to test the opinion of the House.
Lord Rosser
We have an amendment in this group and it is not about post-legislative scrutiny. It calls for the Secretary of State to publish an annual report on new psychoactive substances and sets out some of the information that must be included in the report.
There is currently a real lack of data collected and published on new psychoactive substances and their impact. For example, the first indication of a new drug tends to come from a hospital admission. If this happens in the United Kingdom, the National Poisons Information Service is informed and it then advises the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drugs Addiction. The EMCDDA tells the National Poisons Information Service of drugs detected elsewhere in Europe. However, the Home Office keeps its own lists, the main one being the forensic early warning system, and, to date, successive Ministers have been unable to explain the relationship between the EMCDDA list and the Home Office list, which suggests that data are not being collected and published in a consistent or helpful way. Similar problems arise with monitoring drug-related deaths and overdoses. No proper data are collected on drug deaths as the data we have rely on examining countless records, which is why they are often incomplete and take years to publish.
There is a significant problem, too, with hospital admissions. The National Poisons Information Service collects new drugs but does not collect data on all drug- related overdoes. We do not know how many hospital admissions result from taking these new substances. Nor do we know in how many cases new psychoactive substances were a factor for those needing to access mental health services. Anecdotal evidence suggests that legal highs are a major factor, especially for adolescent mental health services.
In their response to the expert panel, the Government accepted the importance of information on new psychoactive substances and that it should be shared systematically at both a local and national level in a timely manner. However, the Government did not appear to accept the current inadequacies in the information, including those to which I have referred.
The expert panel said that, with the rise in the availability of NPSs, coupled with possibilities for NPS market development via the internet, the UK drug scene had become increasingly complex and fractured, and that a number of information issues arose from this. These included,
“the difficulty for any one agency to keep to keep abreast of all the new developments … the acknowledgement that the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 needs to be supplemented by other legislation has meant that more professional networks require information including trading standards … the current time lags involved between data collection and publication of data obtained by current networks mean these systems cannot be employed in the service of providing more timely early-warning-type information; and … the need to collect, analyse and distribute information in a more systematic and timely fashion to help inform policy and practice at both a national and local level”.
Frankly, the Government’s response did not address all these issues since there seems to be a view that the forensic early warning system’s annual report can fit the bill. In its recommendations, the expert panel says:
“There is a need to establish prevalence, evidence and harms associated with NPS”.
It suggests that we should:
“Develop detection and data collection tools across criminal justice and health services, and other relevant settings, for example, schools and universities”.
A recommendation refers to developing,
“internet tools to monitor internet activity around NPS”,
and to the need to:
“Record health and social harms related to NPS by utilising professional networks and other early warning systems … understand local markets, including through headshops, retail outlets, prisons and local police assessment”.
On enhancing the share of information on NPSs, the panel said:
“Sharing information at both local and national levels is essential in helping to achieve a reduction in the demand and supply of drugs and in promoting comprehensive and effective interventions”.
It is fairly clear from the report of the expert panel that it does not think enough is currently being done in the area of the provision of information. The purpose of this amendment, as I said at the beginning, is to provide for the Secretary of State to publish an annual report on new psychoactive substances. The amendment sets out, in not quite so extensive a list as that of my noble friend Lord Howarth of Newport, some of the information that should be included in that report.
I hope the Minister will reflect further on this issue—the importance of information on NPSs—and the adequacy of the current information and the systems and methods by which it is provided. Our amendment gives the Minister the opportunity to do just that and I hope it is an opportunity she will take.
Lord Paddick
My Lords, I waited until this moment to speak because it seemed unfair to comment on the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, without his having spoken to it first. I have some sympathy with what the Labour Party is proposing, but I prefer Amendments 4 and 6 proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, for the very reason that she articulated. The market for new psychoactive substances and that for other substances covered by the Misuse of Drugs Act cannot be treated as separate. The whole reason for the existence of new psychoactive substances is the controlling of other drugs. There would be no need for people to develop so-called legal highs if they could get the high legally from controlled drugs. It is essential that the annual report includes exactly what the noble Baroness proposes: an assessment of the impact on health and the social harms brought about by the Misuse of Drugs Act and this Bill.
The noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, gave a long list of things that could be included in the report. If everything he suggested was included, it might not only put the Government off producing the report but put me off reading it or trying to wade through it. I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, that post-legislative scrutiny of a Bill such as this by a Joint Committee of both Houses would be appropriate, but it should not mean that there should not also be an annual report, because things are changing so quickly. We have heard from other noble Lords about how different drugs come into mode and out again. We therefore need an annual assessment of whether the legislation is still fit for purpose.
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)
I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and the noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Howarth, for setting out the case for their respective new clauses. In one way or another, these all require an annual report on the impact of the Bill, and we have covered a huge amount of ground. Let me say at the outset that good lawmaking absolutely dictates that all new legislation should be reviewed post implementation to consider its effectiveness, and this is no exception. We are committed to post-legislative review of all new primary legislation. I can therefore assure the noble Lords and the noble Baroness that the Government fully intend to carry out a review or reviews of this legislation, once implemented.
Of course, data are hugely important, and it is important that we take in all aspects of the Act. It is right that the evidence required to produce an adequate review of the Act is fully and carefully considered. However, it is really important to remember that, given the time lag of some of the key data sources, it is unlikely that any useful data will be available within the first year of the implementation of the Act. Such a review normally takes place three to five years after Royal Assent to allow for a rich source of data to be collected, particularly if we are going to collect the amount of data that I feel is important, as the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, suggested. Indeed, as my noble friend Lord Blencathra said, it takes time to collect the data. It is important for the departments to conduct a particular review to make sure that they have everything in place. Certainly, in this case, we would not want to wait three years to review this legislation.
Understanding the evidence for and against the different legislative options to tackle the growth of psychoactive substances was central to the terms of reference of the Home Office’s New Psychoactive Substances Review Expert Panel, set up by the Liberal Democrat Minister Norman Baker. Alongside the expert panel’s report, the Home Office also published an evidence review last autumn. This set out the available evidence at the time on psychoactive substances. The review examined the identification of new psychoactive substances, along with the characteristics of users and their motivations for using these substances. It also examined the market and the evidence of harms. The evidence review provides us with a good basis for understanding the extent of the market, the uses and the problems associated with new psychoactive substances, and for measuring any changes over time.
The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, also mentioned that it was necessary for a wide range of data to be collected on the prevalence of traditional illicit drug use and its related harms. While the evidence on psychoactive substances is less established, there are data on a number of previously unseen substances identified in the UK, as well as on the prevalence of the use of some types of psychoactive substances, related deaths and treatment demand. Of course, the monitoring of data, along with the way they are collected so that they can be strengthened to provide a more complete picture of the use and harms of psychoactive substances, will continue over the period until a full review is done.