Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, the situation described by the Minister is very serious and seems to lead directly to issues of prison reform—drugs being one of the considerations—but one would want to look at far wider causes than how concerns about prison manifest themselves in this issue. I wondered what ingenuity might be applied to introduce the issue of poppers, since it would be quite difficult to provide an amendment to the government amendments to deal with that, so I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, on finding a way to introduce the subject.

We, of course, will not oppose these amendments, but I must say that we will now have possession of a controlled drug being an offence, possession of a new psychoactive substance not being an offence, but possession of a new psychoactive substance in prison being an offence. In our view, that is too muddled but, of course, at earlier stages of this Bill we were calling for a widespread health-based review of all drugs laws, so I am sure that the Minister will not be entirely surprised that I make that comment.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I warmly endorse all that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has said. One aspect of Amendment 9 that the Minister mentioned was that a number of improvements were being made in prisons to the detection of new psychoactive substances. I should like to refer particularly to a very powerful report published last month by the Chief Inspector of Prisons on the use of new psychoactive substances. He said:

“Drug misuse is a serious threat to the security of the prison system, the health of individual prisoners and the safety of prisoners and staff”,

but the new psychoactive substances are an even more serious offence and,

“are now the most serious threat to the safety and security of the prison system”.

Because dealing with the new psychoactive substances—searching for them and so on—was so patchy in the Prison Service, the Chief Inspector of Prisons recommended:

“The Prison Service should improve its response to current levels and types of drug misuse in prisons and ensure that its structures enable it to respond quickly and flexibly to the next trend”.

I will mention the next trend before I conclude. The chief inspector recommended:

“A national committee should be established, chaired by the Prisons Minister, with a membership of relevant operational experts from the public and private prison sectors, health services, law enforcement, substance misuse services and other relevant experts. The committee should be tasked to produce and publish an annual assessment of all aspects of drug use in prisons, based on all the available evidence and intelligence, and produce and keep under review a national prison drugs strategy”.

If that annual report was required, it would, of course, cover the possession mentioned in the amendment that we are discussing, but I am particularly concerned that, in briefing the cross-party group on criminal justice, drugs and alcohol that I chair, the chief inspector mentioned the next trend causing him and his inspectors even more worry, which was the introduction of powdered alcohol. Therefore, we must have a system in place that monitors trends as well as current practices. I ask the Minister: what is happening about the establishment of such a national committee?

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, for his welcome of the amendment and other noble Lords who have spoken in favour of it. It is important.

The noble Lord asked a number of questions on whether the offence will apply only to prisoners. This is an important point to address to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. The new offence will apply to all persons in possession of a psychoactive substance in prison. It is not particularly targeting prisoners themselves, so it could include visitors—or staff, for that matter—who possess these new psychoactive substances.

The noble Lord asked what pressure had come for this. Pressure came from a number of sources, including those that argued in favour of his amendment last July. Although it was not originally one such pressure, the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has brought to the fore the impressive and disturbing report of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons, called Changing Patterns of Substance Misuse in Adult Prisons and Service Responses, from December 2015. As the noble Lord has quoted, the chief inspector has said that new psychoactive substances,

“have created significant additional harm and are now the most serious threat to the safety and security of the prison system that our inspections identify”.

The noble Lord is absolutely right to identify this. I spoke in my introductory remarks about the additional dogs being trained for inspections, but it is right—the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked for this—that there should be a major push on prison communications to ensure that offenders are aware of the consequences of taking psychoactive substances, as are visitors attempting to bring them in. New drug tests are also being developed in this area.

I know that it was slightly ingenious to bring poppers into this group. I had prepared some remarks to address that in the second group of amendments. If noble Lords will allow me, I will address my remarks in that setting, lest I duplicate them.

On the prison drugs strategy, the idea that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, suggests is very interesting. While I cannot give a firm undertaking today, I would want to speak to the Prisons Minister, Andrew Selous, about this suggestion. I will get back to the noble Lord on whether a national committee could do this. Again, we are conscious of the constantly changing nature of this. In many ways, that was the argument for the blanket ban on psychoactive substances, rather than the whack-a-mole situation we were in before, where new things popped up as other things were outlawed.

With those comments and promises to get back to noble Lords on specific points of interest and to address further concerns in the next group, I beg to move.