County Lines Drug Trafficking

Lord Patel of Bradford Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord makes exactly the right point: towns and counties that one would usually not expect to be associated with such criminal activity in fact are. I pay tribute to Julie Woods for the convictions secured at Worcester Crown Court. For every one person convicted, an awful lot of young people are safeguarded from this terrible scourge.

[Lord Patel of Bradford (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, what assessment have the Government made of the links between young people being drawn into county lines and increasing child poverty, the number of children in care and the number of young people being excluded from schools? Also, what are the Government doing to divert those who have been caught from a lifelong career of criminality?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, like all these things, the causes are multifactorial. The symptoms are also many and varied. It might not be drugs or county lines that a young person gets into; it might be other things as well. What was the second part of the noble Lord’s question?

[Lord Patel of Bradford]

Diversion from a life of crime.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

Noble Lords have previously brought up in this House that the young people who are drawn into this sort of activity are not themselves criminals; they are victims of other people’s exploitation. It is very important to keep that in mind when we think about how we deal with these children and divert them into mainstream life and out of a life of crime.

Sexual Offences Act 1967

Lord Patel of Bradford Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord is right to raise that point. First, I commend the Church for the work it is doing—I know that the most reverend Primate and other prelates are already doing work on this and will continue to do it. However, as the noble Lord will know, the former Prime Minister raised this matter at the Malta CHOGM in 2015, and we are already well on with thinking about how, when we host that in 2018, we can build on the progress made in 2015. We have called on certain Commonwealth countries, of which there are quite a few, to review any laws they have which criminalise LGBT people.

[Lord Patel of Bradford (Lab)]

While I echo the sentiments expressed about Commonwealth countries, can I bring the Minister back to the UK? Will she say what the Government are doing with respect to transgender people in our prisons, where there has been a serious spate of suicides because of the way they are treated?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord is right to raise that. Certainly, in immigration detention transgender people are recognised as people at risk, and putting them in detention is avoided wherever possible. It is absolutely right that everybody in prison is treated properly, and the Government continue to look at this.

Drugs Policy: Departmental Responsibility

Lord Patel of Bradford Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank my noble friend for that question and respect her great experience in the area of health. It is absolutely right that prisoners should receive treatment for both prevention and their drug use, because when they come out of prison, it is very important that they have recovered from their drug use and the issues associated with it.

[Lord Patel of Bradford (Lab)]

My Lords, between 2001 and 2008, investment in drug treatment increased from £250 million pounds a year to £750 million a year, ring-fenced. This resulted in the number of drug users in treatment rising from 80,000 to 230,000, which had a huge impact on drug misuse, drug-related deaths and acquisitive crime. The last eight years have seen a massive financial clampdown and huge disinvestment from local authorities. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that local authorities do not continue this disinvestment, which is going to reverse all the positive gains, especially in relation to drug-related death and acquisitive crime?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord raises an interesting point, because there has actually been a reduction in drug misuse among adults and young people compared with a decade ago. It has gone down from 10.5% in 2005-6 to 8.4% in 2015-16. The number of heroin and crack cocaine users in England has also fallen, to 294,000. Among 11 to 15 year-olds—a particularly vulnerable group—drug use has continued to fall since its peak in 2003. On the point about local authority investment in drug treatment, the amount that local authorities spend on treatment and rehabilitation is entirely up to them, because the budgets are devolved to them. Clearly, there are different needs in different areas and it is up to local authorities to deem how that money is spent.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Lord Patel of Bradford Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patel of Bradford (Lab)]

My Lords, I have listened to arguments on both sides and I am struck by the point that we somehow think that the introduction of legal highs is a phenomenon we have never come across. We had cheap, smokeable heroin in the early 1980s. There were outbreaks in various cities across England where people were smoking heroin. There was anxiety. We had a knee-jerk reaction and we set up services for heroin users. Then we had amphetamines in the nightclub scene, and in the mid-1980s kids were sniffing solvents and glue. There was huge panic and uproar and we banned children from buying solvents in supermarkets. We thought that thousands of kids were going to die because they were sniffing solvents. Things moved on.

Then we had MDMA, GBH and crack cocaine, and then heroin came back again. These things keep coming. We do not want to have a knee-jerk reaction to yet another drug that young people will take. The evidence, from watching last night’s “Newsnight” report from Ireland, is the opposite of what the noble Lord said his police officers wanted here. Officers there were saying that they could not enforce this law. This is simply imposing a blanket ban on new drugs as they keep coming out—and they will keep coming out. We can ban one thing and I guarantee that in the next five years, there will be another substance that young people are using and we will be panicking again. We cannot continue to do this.

There is a desperate need to review the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. We have had all these policies and other Acts dealing with prescription drugs, and we have never looked at the evidence—not just this Government but the Labour Government as well. We have never looked at the evidence because, as my noble friend Lord Howarth said, Ministers look at what the public want and they want hard, strong enforcement tactics on tackling the use of drugs. The evidence is fairly clear and we have a lot of it in this country, so we desperately need a review. Whether we need to tag that on to this Bill I do not know, but my anxiety is that we will be passing a Bill because of a knee-jerk response.

We have not looked at the connections with existing legislation. We are creating legislation that is not looking at harms but simply banning everything in sight under this umbrella body, and it seems to everyone to be unenforceable. We need to take a step back. There has to be an opportunity somewhere along the way to have a review and to look at drugs policy effectively.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I had not intended to speak on this amendment until I heard the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Howarth. With all due respect, I must say that he is profoundly wrong and also out of date. I say to the Minister that there is no need to do another independent review. A couple of years ago, EU Sub-Committee F, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, conducted a thorough review of drugs legislation. We discovered in that committee that enforcement has worked exceptionally well for all the main hard drugs we have had in this country. Drug use of heroin, crack cocaine and other such drugs has dropped dramatically. Where we are in the lead, unfortunately, is with the use of the new psychoactive substances.

It would seem from the evidence that we took in committee that children today do not want to smoke the same old stuff their hippie fathers did. If it was good enough for dad, the kids today want something different. We see that in a whole range of things, such as children who go off Facebook because their parents have joined. The fads on drugs seem to have the same trends.

Enforcement has worked exceptionally well in driving down the use of heroin, crack cocaine and other serious drugs. Enforcement can work equally well on psychoactive substances, provided that we can get the legislation watertight. The Government have tried enforcement with psychoactive substances by naming certain drugs, and within hours the chemical composition is tweaked slightly and the law is no longer effective.

Enforcement works, provided we have effectively drafted legislation. I entirely support the views of the noble Lord, Lord Condon. We have an urgent problem at the moment with psychoactive drugs. We do not need to review the whole of the drugs Act in this Bill. Maybe a review in a couple of years might be sensible, after we have seen how the legislation proposed in this Bill works. Finally, it is not a matter of enforcement or harm reduction, which are not mutually exclusive. We have been doing both in this country. It is right to have criminalisation and tough enforcement action against drugs and, at the same time, a harm-reduction policy that tackles drug use among first-time users and young kids, who probably do not know any better. Yes, we need education. Yes, we need harm reduction. But for goodness sake, keep the criminal law, which works.

[Lord Patel of Bradford]

My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, yes, there may have been a reduction in the use of illegal drugs over the last five years. I know that Ministers have responded by saying, “We do not need to look at this any more, because drug use has plateaued and acquisitive crime has decreased, although drug-related deaths have increased”. Why has that happened? Not because of better enforcement but because, for the last 10 years, the Labour Government piled £800 million per year into drug treatment—and drug treatment that worked. That was a pooled, ring-fenced pot of money. We quadrupled the number of people treated, and it worked. For every £1 invested, within a year you had a £2 return and on a longer-term basis you had an £8 return. Drug treatment works. We do not have the same evidence for education prevention and we do not have the evidence for enforcement, but we do have the evidence that treatment works.

The problem is now that the £800 million a year has gone into Public Health England’s £2.6 billion budget, which goes to the 152 local authorities around the country to spend as they wish. That money is not ring fenced. There is no local authority in the country that has the expertise or the inclination to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on drug treatment. Instead, funds are rapidly being withdrawn and we see the outcome: we see drug services shutting down and we see drug-related deaths going up. I guarantee that within five years we will see acquisitive crime going up and drug use increasing again. This is not to do with enforcement policies; it is clearly to do with how we invested that money properly last time.

[Lord Blencathra]

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

Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Lord Patel of Bradford Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patel of Bradford (Lab)]

My Lords, I heed the warnings from the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, about chocolates and flowers, but given that this is a Home Office Bill and given the Home Secretary’s liking for shoes—although it has nothing to do with the legislation—shoes might be one way forward.

I am very interested in the Bill, having worked for a considerable number of years in the field of substance misuse and having been a member of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. I certainly agree with many of the points that noble Lords have already raised, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins. I agree with the Government that the continuing development and use of so-called new psychoactive substances, or NPSs, as they are now known, is a matter for serious concern.

I welcome the Government’s interest in trying to prevent these substances causing harm, particularly if we are to prevent deaths amongst young people who are otherwise law-abiding citizens, and who perhaps understandably are attracted to new experiences at a time in their lives when exploration and risk-taking are normal. I also appreciate the Government’s desire to control and minimise the harms caused by the production and importation of these harmful new substances from “producer” countries such as China, which appear to be the source of many of the “psychoactive powders” that are currently found in the UK. Similarly, I understand the wish to control the supply of potentially harmful substances from so-called head shops and professional drug dealers in the UK.

Having said all that, I have a number of concerns about the Bill in its current form: that it may not only fail to achieve those aims but result in greater harms. For any avoidance of doubt, I do not say that lightly, or simply to make a political point, but rather to assist in making sure that this legislation is workable and that it gets through. I have been looking at the scientific evidence that is currently available, and I believe that there are some serious fault lines within the Bill as drafted. I will be looking for assurance from the Minister with respect to how the Government are addressing the scientific evidence, particularly the advice from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and other concerned bodies, so that we can ensure that no serious unintended consequences happen as a result of the Bill.

Notwithstanding what the Minister said about the expert panel, I understand that the Home Office did not consult with the ACMD on the drafting of the Bill. Given the advisory council’s obvious expertise and statutory standing with respect to the Misuse of Drugs Act, can the Minister say why that was the case? Have views been sought from other government departments? Again, I come back to what the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said about health: this has to be health related. Have we taken advice from the Department of Health? What are its views, and what is the view of Public Health England on the implementation of this Bill? Can the Minister also say why there has not been much wider consultation on this legislation, given that it is such a complex area with a wide range of potential impacts on a variety of stakeholders? That point was also raised by two fairly influential agencies, Transform and Release.

One of the biggest issues that I have to question is the rather different procedural approach in the Bill, whereby the precautionary principle is being employed—that is, this legislation attempts to ban everything on the basis that it is better to be safe than sorry. That may sound sensible to some but it flies in the face of our long-standing approach to drug laws in this country, which is based on the principle of reducing harm where it is known to exist, and that, I would argue, is much more focused and less ambiguous. However, I will leave the legal arguments of procedure to other noble Lords who are more qualified than I am, while I briefly outline some of the areas where I seek assurances.

First, as I understand it, one of the principal drivers of this legislation is to halt the proliferation of head shops, which are viewed as a main source of supply for many NPSs in the UK. As noble Lords are aware, and as has already been mentioned, a similar ban on NPSs with this aim was introduced in Ireland five years ago. However, my understanding is that the Irish experience has shown a rise in use as a result of the ban on head shops because the market has been driven underground. We know that use of NPSs among Irish youths has increased since the 2010 ban—with reported lifetime use going from 16% in 2011 to 22% in 2014—with reports of a shift to the street and online markets. What can the Minister add to that latest evidence? My noble friend Lord Rosser raised that issue, as have others. Do we have up-to-date evidence of Ireland’s experience in this area?

This kind of blanket ban can not only result in an increase in NPS use but lead to the transfer to more dangerous substances, as those seeking them elsewhere move into the arms of drug dealers, where they may be exposed to the sale of illegal drugs such as heroin. Some noble Lords have said that if people cannot go to a head shop and the substance is not legal then they will not go elsewhere, but they will. My experience of working with many, many young people with drug problems is that they will go elsewhere to seek a substance and that they will be driven into the arms of drug dealers.

The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction has warned that a blanket ban will push NPSs into a “grey marketplace”. By that, it means parts of the internet that cannot be controlled or policed—the so-called dark net. So a country-specific ban on NPSs will most likely fail to have a great impact on new substances and may well expose people to other, unknown harms. Can the Minister assure me that the Bill will have a real impact on the supply chain and on those making money through the nefarious activities of creating and distributing harmful substances for money and not simply push a new generation into a more dangerous environment where the sales of these and other drugs thrive?

I also have some concerns about the scope of the Bill. As it stands, the Bill covers all psychoactive substances. This position goes much further than the recommendation in the report of the expert panel on NPSs that substances which are not harmful or which have minimal harm are not drawn into the Bill. I realise of course that the Government propose a list of exemptions in the Bill for things such as food supplements, controlled drugs and so on, but I have considerable reservations about whether this will be effective. Again, I seek reassurance from the Minister on this point.

Not all psychoactive substances are harmful and indeed some, such as those used in eastern medicines for centuries, may be beneficial. Many homeopathic and herbal remedies and some products taken to aid well-being could be psychoactive yet are not on limited approved lists. Examples are Ginkgo biloba, which can be bought off the internet, and products containing guarana, a mild stimulant contained in many drinks, including some produced by world-leading companies.

The problem is that the Bill makes no distinction between very dangerous substances and those of little or no harm. In effect, this could mean that the principle that the seriousness of the punishment should relate to the seriousness of the offence may be significantly altered, and not in a beneficial way.

I am very aware that experts do not yet agree on the best way to define what is psychoactive. This could make implementation of the Bill very difficult and potentially open to legal challenge. Perhaps most worryingly, the Bill as drafted could create a situation where we are criminalising and damaging the lives of otherwise law-abiding young people. For example, the Bill could create a situation where many young adults would face severe importation and supply offences if they bought an NPS on the internet, perhaps even unaware that they are being shipped from abroad. My understanding is that, if they shared them with their friends, the weight of the law as written in the Bill could be quite disproportionate to the offence. Can the Minister reassure us that a proportionate response will be taken?

If I might, I will just digress for a second. This is undoubtedly a very important area of drug policy and legislation and we are right to spend parliamentary time on it, but I would strongly argue that the significant harms associated with the abuse of and addiction to prescribed medication deserves as much time, if not more, to be debated and addressed. Recently, I discussed with the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, and others the idea of reconstituting an all-party group on prescribed medications. I will not steal the noble Earl’s thunder, as I know that he will speak about this in his contribution, but suffice to say that many will be aware of the very serious concerns that have been voiced on the issue of prescribed medication. This concern was most recently raised at the Maudsley debate, where it was suggested that prescribed medications may be the third-leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer. That has to be viewed in the context of deaths from legal NPSs.

In addition to tranquilisers, other types of psychoactive medication can lead to dependence, including anti-depressants, stimulants, anti-psychotics and painkillers. Withdrawal from these drugs can result in severe long-term symptoms and, in some cases, long-term or even permanent neurological injury. There were over 57 million prescriptions for anti-depressants in England alone in 2014, a rise of over 7% since 2013 and over 500% since 1992. In total, around 80 million prescriptions for psychiatric drugs were issued in 2014, often for mild and moderate conditions where other non drug-related interventions may have been more appropriate. This increase in prescription rates has led to a significant rise in demand for the services of withdrawal support charities, which have only about 5% coverage. I am not saying that many people do not benefit from these drugs, but too many are prescribed long term without support, guidance and advice, and let me tell you that the resultant harm is, in my experience, extreme. It is certainly an area that we need to look at very carefully.

Finally, my noble friend Lord Rosser spoke about NPSs being an issue in prisons. If my memory serves me, a report last year on pain management in prisons gave a snapshot study of two relatively small prisons with a population of around 1,600 people. In one month, they were prescribed 350,000 analgesic tablets, and that does not include paracetamol, Nurofen, pregabalin or tramadol. Prescribed drugs are a major issue.

I will be following this debate and the passage of the Bill with interest. I strongly suspect that I will not be alone in calling for the Bill to be improved so that it is evidence based, proportionate in its aims and can achieve what it was intended to achieve—that is, to control the importation and supply of new harmful psychoactive substances by professional drug suppliers and dealers, who are set to make large amounts of money from this trade.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bates]

There is some of that in the impact statement, although I accept that it may not be as much as noble Lords would like. However, I am very happy to see whether we can go back and see what extra we can produce in answer to that very specific question. I shall write or provide further comment in Committee. But in the light of those remarks and those commitments—

[Lord Patel of Bradford]

I have just one question about the Department of Health and Public Health England. Many noble Lords have said that they would prefer to see this legislation under the health remit. I just cannot see where Public Health England and the Department of Health have been engaged or involved in taking this Bill forward, and it would be useful to have a view on that.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Patel of Bradford Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patel of Bradford (Lab)]

My Lords, two Mayday calls were made last year and I am pleased that both have been heard by the Home Secretary. I hope that Mrs May can make it a third this year.

During last year’s debate on the Queen’s Speech, I raised concerns about 17 year-olds taken into custody by the police and treated as adults rather than children. I highlighted the case of Joe Lawton, who in 2012 took his own life. His father found him dead with a police charge sheet at his feet. Two days earlier, Joe had been held in a police cell overnight on suspicion of drink-driving. Joe was 17. I also spoke of 17 year-old Edward Thornber, who in 2011 was caught with 50p worth of cannabis. Distraught at the thought of life with a criminal record, he hanged himself. Those two children were robbed of their future, and their families robbed of sharing it and seeing their children reach adulthood.

Those cases, along with the legal challenge mounted by 17 year-old Hughes Cousins-Chang, who was kept in custody for 12 hours, during which he underwent the ordeal of a strip search before being released without charge, led to the Home Secretary changing the PACE Code C, which I warmly welcomed, but I warned of two issues: first, the lack of additional resources going to local government to deal with this change, especially given that around 75,000 17 year-olds are taken into police custody every year; and, secondly, anomalies that remained, including under Section 65, where although an intimate search on a 16 year-old in relation to a suspected drugs offence requires both individual and parental consent, such body cavity searches can be carried out on a 17 year-old girl without her parents ever knowing. I am pleased to hear that the Home Secretary, Mrs May, heard that Mayday call and has promised to ensure through the policing and criminal justice legislation announced in the gracious Speech that such anomalies will be removed and that 17 year-olds will be treated as children under all the provisions of PACE.

The second Mayday call came from Paul Netherton, assistant chief constable at Devon & Cornwall Police, who in November last year took to Twitter to express his frustration and voice concerns for the welfare of a 16 year-old girl who had been sectioned under the Mental Health Act, but with no bed available had spent two days in a cell at Torquay police station. Later, a report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary highlighted a case in Nottinghamshire where a 16 year-old girl was detained for 52 hours in a central police custody suite before being transferred to a healthcare setting. For the first 44 hours in custody, she went without food or water.

I think that Mrs May has heard that Mayday call, too. At the Police Federation conference this May, she promised to ban the use of police cells as places of safety for under-18s with mental health problems. I understand that the legislation has three other aims: to further reduce the use of police cells in the case of adults, which is good; to reduce the current 72-hour maximum period of detention; and to extend the power to detain under Section 136 to any place other than a private residence. I welcome Mrs May’s aims and look forward to seeing the detail in the Bill.

However, two immediate issues come to mind which I hope Ministers will be able to answer during the passage of the Bill, although it would be helpful if the Minister could shed some light on the matter today. First, will vulnerable people be discharged from custody to the streets if the reduced time is up and no hospital bed or other appropriate place has been found? Could this inadvertently result in families and partners being placed at risk? Secondly, what assurances will there be that any other place is safe and appropriate? I am sure that these and other issues will be debated during the course of the Bill and satisfactory and workable solutions found.

Progress on two Mayday calls has been made. My Mayday call to Mrs May for this year is of equal urgency and severity but for which I have yet to hear any firm proposals from the Government. Every year, hundreds of deaths occur in police custody, prisons and psychiatric hospitals that are later deemed to have been preventable. Last February an excellent report, Preventing Death in Detention of Adults with Mental Health Conditions, was published by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The report highlights that between 2010 and 2013, 367 adults with mental health conditions died of non-natural causes while in state detention in police cells and psychiatric wards. Another 295 adults died in prison of non-natural causes, many of whom had mental health conditions. Since 2013 the number has risen considerably. That is well over 650 preventable deaths.

I am sure everyone will agree that each of these deaths is a tragedy. It is a terrible end to a troubled life for those with mental health conditions and a tragedy for the loved ones left behind who have suffered as a result of these deaths. They have to come to terms not only with their terrible loss but with the tragic circumstances surrounding the death of their loved ones, most importantly where the death could have been avoided but there has been significant failure by the state.

Many agencies are involved in ensuring the safety and care of people with mental health conditions, and all try to do their best within their own constraints, but often co-ordination of policy and service delivery is poor. The Government must do more to ensure that such tragic deaths do not occur in the future. I ask Mrs May to work with her ministerial colleagues, in particular the Lord Chancellor, to see how the safety and care of people with mental health conditions can be improved within the policing and criminal justice system.

On a final note, I wish Mrs May well with her own Mayday call. Your Lordships will remember the one; it was for the Conservative Party to be more compassionate and to lose its label as the nasty party. I humbly suggest that that will not be easy against the backdrop of the proposed £12 billion cuts in the welfare system and the potential abolition of the Human Rights Act. However, if some of the issues that I have highlighted today are appropriately addressed, it may go some way towards helping her to answer her own Mayday call.

Police and Crime Commissioners

Lord Patel of Bradford Excerpts

Wednesday 29th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

I was aware that that process is under way and I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Bew, as chairman of that committee. In the context of this, I encourage all Members of your Lordships’ House, particularly those with policing experience, to feed in their views to the Committee on Standards in Public Life so that it can look thoroughly at this issue.

[Lord Patel of Bradford (Lab)]

Can the Minister give us an ethnic breakdown of the police and crime commissioners?

[Lord Bates]

I cannot give that at the moment, but I will write to the noble Lord.

Drugs

Lord Patel of Bradford Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patel of Bradford (Lab)]

My Lords, I very much welcome this debate and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, for giving us the opportunity to fully explore the important issues raised by the reports of the all-party parliamentary group and the Home Affairs Select Committee. I take this opportunity to add my warm welcome to the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor, and congratulate her on her maiden speech. I look forward to her further contributions in the House. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, the debate has, not surprisingly, been excellent and full of expertise. It has posed many interesting and challenging issues. It has not only given us a variety of views but shown the breadth of expertise and experience that we have in the House on this subject.

As noble Lords may be aware, I, too, have had a long-term interest in drugs policy and service provision, from setting up and managing day care and rehabilitation services in the late 1980s, which the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, mentioned, to serving on the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and the board of the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse. More recently, my work on a cross-departmental review of drug treatment in prisons resulted in the publication of the Patel report.

From my experience of carrying out this national review, I believe that our overriding concern must be to have a drugs policy that supports some of the most vulnerable people in our communities and their families—a policy that is evidence based and listens to the views of users and carers; a policy that is adaptable and able to meet new challenges, including new drugs as they emerge; and a policy that is sustainable in the long term. To do this, we clearly need to learn from quality research, including the experiences and evaluations of different approaches from other countries. In fact, in their response to the report of the all-party parliamentary group, the Government state this explicitly. They say that,

“we must continue to listen and learn from emerging trends, new evidence and international comparators”.

However, I ask the Minister what steps the Government are actually taking to ensure that we do not spend several years doing this when there is enough clear evidence to act now, such as that from Portugal’s alternative community-based treatment and diversion approach.

Of course, there are new risks to which we must urgently attend, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, mentioned. I am speaking about risks posed by the rapid changes in drug manufacture, the new psychoactive substances and so-called club drugs. While temporary drug control orders are to be welcomed as a helpful step in dealing with these new threats, they are not sufficient. As I understand it, the Government have used three temporary banning orders in total, despite the fact that there are well over 100 legal highs out there and they are coming in at a rate of more than 70 a year. In fact, in the last year alone, 73 new substances came on to the British market and are now freely available from 690 online shops. The noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, highlighted the pros and cons of the internet market. In addition, the Angelus Foundation thinks that there could be up to 300 head shops selling these substances on UK high streets. The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction is monitoring 280 new substances across Europe.

Against this disturbing background, Les Iversen, chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, has said that the ACMD has the capacity to review only about four legal highs a year. I believe that it has to carry out a review even for a temporary banning order. I would therefore like to understand more about the Government’s rejection of the all-party parliamentary group’s key recommendation regarding these orders. Perhaps the Minister can explain the thinking behind not making these orders permanent in a way that does not, as the all-party group recommends, add to the criminalisation of young people.

On the question of decriminalisation, which many noble Lords have mentioned, and the issue of whether we have a punishment-led or treatment-led approach to drug problems, I have to say that all Governments, my own included, sometimes fail to make the right decisions based on evidence. This is due to the pressures that build up from public debate, which is itself often ill informed as a result of exaggeration in the media and cries that the Government of the day are somehow being soft on drugs if they give way to the advice of the experts. Let us be clear about this: the evidence supports treatment rather than criminalisation and punishment. The recent experience in Portugal on using drug treatment panels rather than the traditional criminal justice system supports this. We have also recently seen a complete reversal of direction in some US states, which have legislated to legalise marijuana use, as my noble friend Lord Judd said.

It is therefore disappointing that the Government,

“does not believe there is a case for fundamentally re-thinking the UK’s approach to drugs”.

My noble friend Lord Howarth also used that quote. I strongly urge the Government to ensure that our current drug policy is based on research and evidence, rather than the ideological and moral opinions of media commentators. It is not appropriate in such a dynamic and ever changing situation as that presented by drugs issues to have a blanket ban on fundamentally reviewing any policy. Surely our policy development and implementation must respond to change and, in particular, the evidence.

The first treatment that a drug user receives must be about stabilising the chaos in their lives; if that means something other than abstinence, so be it. Arguments around whether there should be harm minimisation or an abstinence-based approach are, at best, divisive or completely miss the point. The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, highlighted that issue in relation to needle exchange schemes. Abstinence is not about telling all addicts that the only way to move forward is to stop suddenly; it is about providing the right range of treatment options at the right time.

The previous Labour Government invested significantly in drug treatment and revolutionised its provision, with significant results. For example, the waiting time for treatment was cut by more than half, far fewer people dropped out of treatment and outcomes were greatly improved. Recent government rhetoric appears to have moved away from creating a constructive approach and providing a choice of treatments to drug users, to focusing on and ensuring that offenders are punished and drug users are effectively pressured to become abstinent.

At the same time we are seeing major changes in the way that the finances for drug treatment are being distributed and managed. The previous Labour Government had ring-fenced these moneys, but this is no longer the case after the system has been devolved to health and well-being boards, which gives me some cause for concern. I ask the Minister to provide some reassurance that the policy is not being driven by a concern to command public confidence, rather than providing appropriate and evidence-based treatment options with a robust mechanism for protecting the funds for this treatment.

What I find frustrating is that, although we in the drugs sector are fortunate to have a relatively good evidence base on what works and what is cost-effective—research has concluded that for every £1 spent on young people’s treatment services, there is a return of up to almost £2 over a two-year period and £8 over the longer term—young people’s programmes are generally not supported by evidence, and programmes such as DARE, which have been shown to be ineffective, are still being used.

The UK Drug Policy Commission noted that UK Governments have invested little in independent evaluations of the impact of their drug reforms and policies, particularly around the criminal justice system. A number of well evidenced programmes, such as those involving the use of naloxone, have not been implemented, as the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, said. Can the Minister provide an explanation as to why these programmes have not been implemented?

Perhaps I may make a plea that we do not forget the voices of users and carers in this debate. After all, it is those people most affected not only by drug problems but by our national policies and treatment approaches who suffer the most. When I was taking part in the review of prison drug treatment services, all 22 of us on the committee were anxious to hear the voices of users, but no one thought that it would happen. In a five-week period, we consulted user groups across the country who had talked to offenders, ex-offenders and drug users to get feedback for the report. We expected 50 people to respond in that time; 500 users, including current and ex-offenders, came forward and gave us some amazing evidence. It is really important that we do not put that evidence to one side.

Finally, after listening to all the many excellent contributions, I suggest that the way forward on these complex and challenging issues is to establish a cross-party group to review drug policy—a group that examines all the evidence carefully, listens to the voices of users and carers, and carefully develops an effective drug policy. Maybe the Minister and I could set this in motion today. I am sure that there are a number of people here in the Chamber who would be prepared to contribute their time and expertise to it. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response and, again, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, on pursuing these critical issues.

Prevent Strategy

Lord Patel of Bradford Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patel of Bradford]

My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend, Lord Noon, for having introduced this debate. Prevent is a very important strategy and one that I am very familiar with, having been asked by the previous Secretary of State for Committees and Local Government to undertake a rapid review of the original Prevent strategy. Over a period of several weeks, I visited 12 local authority areas and spoke to more than 700 people about their experiences of and attitudes to the Prevent strategy. The confidential report that I produced for the Secretary of State outlined a number of areas where I thought there needed to be improvements. Some of these issues have been addressed in the current revised strategy, which on the whole I welcome, but there are two particular issues which I believe need further clarification. Firstly, how are people, especially young people, engaged in Prevent? Secondly, how are professionals and elected officials being given the skills and confidence they need to challenge extremism and the way in which this causes further segregation between communities?

I shall speak first about the engagement of young people, and as the chairman of an organisation called the International Forum for Community Innovations, otherwise known as TIFCI. TIFCI works with a wide range of community groups across the country and has just finished a piece of work on extremism and the risks for young people from radicalisation. The work explored the issues for young people and the particular risks they face from radicalisation and extremism. During the course of the work TIFCI spoke directly to over 130 young people and children of both sexes, from a wide range of ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds. In the first place, the risk they most strongly identified was that from the far right, particularly the EDL, which they perceived to be causing disruption and harm to their sense of belonging and community cohesion. We very clearly should not take our focus off the threats posed by the far right. But what struck me even more strongly was the near universal view that, as young people—a key group who are identified as being most at risk—they were not actively consulted or involved in finding solutions and strategies to deal with the problems. Many of them said, when commenting on the work programme of TIFCI, that it was the first time anyone had even asked them about this issue. Does the Minister agree that young people, especially those at risk, should, wherever possible, be involved in and actively engaged with any work undertaken in this area and could he say something about what is being done to encourage this?

From my experience, including the work that I did reviewing the previous Prevent strategy, I believe that the second key issue concerns the skills and confidence among professionals and elected officials on the ground and their ability to challenge people and to address some of the issues that divide our communities. I strongly believe that they have not been adequately equipped to do this. Sadly—I have seen evidence of this many times in my work on community engagement —there remain deep divisions in our society and too many communities live separate lives, having little or no contact with their neighbouring communities even within their same town or ward. I agree with my noble friend Lord Noon that it is this division, the lack of community cohesion integration that is the greatest threat to our security. It is in this failure to have people meeting and interacting with each other outside their immediate family and community networks that the greatest risks of extremism and radicalisation take hold. If we recognise this then we can start to move away from thinking simply about one religious group or another and begin to work with whole communities and finding solutions that truly promote integration and challenge extremism. This is going to take high quality training for professionals and elected officials and at local levels we need to see clear implementation plans that provide direction and leadership. I would be very grateful if the Minister in his closing remarks could explain what plans are being developed to implement training and capacity building for professionals, youth workers, social workers, and very importantly, elected officials, to ensure that they can take the leadership on addressing these important issues at a local level.