Offensive Weapons Bill

Debate between Lord Tunnicliffe and Lord Paddick

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 30th January 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

My Lords, this amendment in the name of my noble friend seeks to insert a new clause after Clause 20 to prohibit the display of bladed products in shops. The honourable Member for Lewisham Deptford, Vicky Foxcroft, the chair of the Youth Violence Commission, has done some excellent work on this matter. Members from all sides in the other place, along with academics, practitioners, youth service workers, the police and experts connected with youth violence have been very involved in the work of the commission. I commend the commission’s report, which was recently published—it should be read by all noble Lords. One of its important recommendations is the prohibition of knife displays in shops. During consideration in the other place, USDAW—the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers—was asked whether it believed that putting knives behind displays would be helpful. Doug Russell, representing USDAW, said:

“It would be. Obviously, now big retailers are increasingly going down the route of making it more difficult for customers to get their hand on the product until they have been age-checked”,—[Official Report, Commons, Offensive Weapons Bill Committee, 19/7/18; col. 98.]


and they have assured themselves that a transaction is safe. I want people’s ages to be checked properly when they seek to purchase knives.

We must also protect against the theft of knives. There are several restrictions in law relating to other products, most obviously the extremely restrictive provisions for the sale of tobacco, which prohibit the display of tobacco products in relevant shops and businesses in England. The Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act 2002 refers specifically to under-18s, so the principle already exists in law to protect under-18s from harm by prohibiting the open display of goods. I see no reason why this should not be extended to bladed products. I beg to move.

[Lord Paddick]

My Lords, if I understand this amendment correctly, I do not feel I can support it. Clearly bladed products should be displayed in a way that ensures they are safe and cannot easily be stolen, but I cannot agree with the suggestion that they need to be hidden in case they lead people into being tempted to use them for criminal purposes, if that is what the noble Lord is saying. The noble Lord mentioned cigarettes. They are now hidden from view and advertising them has been banned because they are always and in every circumstance bad for your health and addictive, but the same cannot be said for knives. We do not conceal alcohol or glue as they have legitimate uses, and we do not believe it is necessary to conceal knives.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

This takes me back to those heady days when we had a Labour Government and I was a lowly Whip. That sounds like a very Treasury counterargument. One day when I was handling a particular clause, I was told that it was impossible to frame the legislation to meet the need. I said, from my lowly position in the massive meeting, “You’d better try because otherwise you will get the words that are in the amendment because it will pass at the next stage”. At that, there was a great writing of things and, lo and behold, the Government managed to find an amendment which was satisfactory. I strongly recommend that the Government make an intense effort to frame an amendment of their own which meets the across-the-board support for the spirit of this amendment.

[Lord Paddick]

Before the noble Lord withdraws his amendment, it should be said that concerns are being expressed at the impression being given by the Government of there being no room for negotiation on this issue. I hope that they will at least approach that meeting with an open mind rather than giving the impression, as might be inferred from what the Minister has said from the Dispatch Box, that there is no room for manoeuvre.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Debate between Lord Tunnicliffe and Lord Paddick

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 28th January 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 1, I will speak to the other amendments in the group in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Hamwee. These amendments seek to change the offences in the Bill from those where there is a reasonable excuse defence only when charged to ones where, if someone has a reasonable excuse, they do not commit an offence. They seek consistency in approach between legislation where no offence is committed if someone has an offensive weapon in a public place because they have a reasonable excuse and legislation where, in exactly the same circumstances, a person does commit an offence and has to rely on a defence only once they have been charged. The amendments also seek consistency between offences where the burden lies on the prosecution to disprove a reasonable excuse defence and offences where the burden lies on the accused to prove beyond reasonable doubt that they have a reasonable excuse.

We return to an issue that I raised in discussion of the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill and which is applicable here; namely, creating offences where a completely innocent person commits an offence and has to rely on a defence once charged, rather than someone with a reasonable excuse for his actions not being guilty of an offence in the first place. In the context of the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill, the Government acknowledged this problem in relation to the designated areas offence. In that Bill, the Government accepted that, rather than a person entering a designated area and having a defence once charged if they had good reason to be there, if they entered or remained in a designated area involuntarily or for a range of other reasons stipulated in the Bill, they did not commit an offence. The Government accepted that there could be legitimate reasons for visiting or remaining in a designated area and that it was more sensible to say that no offence was committed if they had good reason, rather than that they committed an offence but had a defence once charged.

In one part of the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill, the person does not commit an offence if they had good reason yet, in another part, a person has a defence once charged—a different approach in different parts of the same Bill. It is still a Bill, I think, and has not yet received Royal Assent—I am getting nods from the back, so that is good.

In Clause 1 of this Bill, a person commits an offence if they sell a corrosive product to a person who is under the age of 18. They have a defence, if charged, by proving that they took all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence to avoid the commission of an offence, rather than it saying, “They do not commit an offence if they act reasonably”. In Clause 3, a person commits an offence if he delivers the corrosive product or arranges its delivery to residential premises. They too have a defence, if charged, if they prove that they took all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence to avoid the commission of an offence, rather than it saying that if they act reasonably, they do not commit an offence. There is also an issue with Clause 4, but it slipped through the net and therefore there is no amendment in this group to address it.

In Clause 6, however, a person commits an offence if they have a corrosive substance with them in a public place. It is a defensive charge if they prove that they had good reason or lawful authority for having the corrosive substance with them in a public place, rather than the provision being that if they had good reason or lawful authority, they do not commit an offence. It will perhaps be clearer if I concentrate on the latter of these three offences.

If a 19-year-old young man has a corrosive substance with them in a public place with the intention of using it to attack someone else, they commit an offence under the Prevention of Crime Act 1953 of having an offensive weapon with them in a public place with the intention of causing injury to someone. It is an intended offensive weapon. However, if they have been sent out by their mother to buy drain cleaner in a squeezable bottle to unblock the kitchen sink—I speak with some experience having recently cleared one of my drains; drain cleaner does come in squeezable bottles—they do not commit an offence under the 1953 Act. They have a corrosive liquid with them in a public place, in a squeezable bottle that could be used to cause injury to someone, but have a reasonable excuse for possessing it. Were the police to stop and search the youngster, a quick phone call to the mother could establish the reasonable excuse.

Under the Bill, the 19 year-old running the errand for his mother commits a criminal offence because, under Clause 6(1):

“A person commits an offence if they have a corrosive substance with them in a public place”.


Under Clause 6(2), it is a defence for the youngster charged with an offence under subsection (1) to,

“prove that they had good reason or lawful authority for having the corrosive substance with them in a public place”,

but a police officer would be justified in arresting the youngster, because he is clearly committing a criminal offence.

When discussing the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill, we also debated the principle of necessity in relation to arrests. One of the circumstances included in the reasons why an arrest might be necessary under Section 110 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 is to allow,

“the prompt and effective investigation of the offence or of the conduct of the person in question”.

It would be quite easy for a police officer to reason that the quickest and easiest way to determine whether the young man has a blocked drain is to arrest him and take him to his home address, to see whether the kitchen sink is blocked.

I am sure that the Minister will say that of course the police will act reasonably, but the police do not always act reasonably. Believe me, from 30 years’ experience in the police service, including four years as a bobby on the beat, I can say that sometimes police officers look for any reason to arrest someone. For those who might argue that my experience is not current, I point out that if you own a drone, live within a short distance of Gatwick Airport and have suspicious neighbours, apparently you can end up being arrested even when you can easily prove that you were miles away at work at the time the offence was committed.

There is another anomaly. In the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill, in offences that remain of the “defence when charged” type, the burden is on the prosecution to disprove the reasonable excuse defence put forward by the accused, and to do so beyond reasonable doubt. Section 118 of the Terrorism Act 2000 states:

“If the person adduces evidence which is sufficient to raise an issue with respect to the matter the court or jury shall assume that the defence is satisfied unless the prosecution proves beyond reasonable doubt that it is not”.


Indeed, in Clause 3(10) of this Bill we find a similar provision, except that it applies only in Scotland. South of the border, not only is it only a defence once charged—as in subsection (8)—but the person charged has to,

“prove that they took all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence to avoid the commission of the offence”,

presumably beyond reasonable doubt. Noble Lords will recall that Section 118 of the Terrorism Act saved the Government from the accusation of reversing the burden of proof but, in these offences, the burden of proof is on the accused, presumably to the criminal standard of beyond reasonable doubt, that they have a reasonable excuse. Why is the burden of proof reversed in this Bill, except in Scotland, but not in the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill, which passed through this House only recently?

Sending a message to the police that an offence is not committed if someone has lawful authority or reasonable excuse is preferable to saying that an offence is committed and that there is a defence once charged. Sending a message that you have nothing to fear by buying corrosive substances for illegitimate purposes and carrying the substance home through the streets or to a place of work is preferable to saying: “You are committing an offence and have to prove to a jury beyond reasonable doubt that you did so innocently”. The principle adopted in Section 1 of the Prevention of Crime Act 1953, which deals with offensive weapons, is that you are innocent if you have a reasonable excuse. That legislation has not been repealed, nor have the Government sought to amend it. That is the principle adopted by the Government in recent weeks in relation to an offence under the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill, and it is the principle that the Government should adopt in this Bill. I beg to move—

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

Not being familiar with police procedures, to me the essence of the argument seems to be about when the defence is deployed. Can the noble Lord explain what that means in practical terms?

[Lord Paddick]

My Lords, when the police are told that the offence is not committed if somebody has a reasonable excuse, the clear message sent to them is that they need to investigate the matter there and then to establish whether that reasonable excuse exists. If a Bill, as in this case, says that somebody who carries a corrosive substance in a public place commits an offence, it sends a message to the police that investigation of any reasonable excuse that the person may have can wait until later because, according to the legislation, the defence is available only once the person has been charged.

Education (Pupil Information) (England) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2016

Debate between Lord Tunnicliffe and Lord Paddick

Monday 31st October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Storey in his regret Motion. He talked about an anti-immigration rhetoric, and we have seen the increase in hate crime, for example, which has occurred post-Brexit. However, it goes further than that.

In addition to the Government’s attempt to require companies to report the number of foreign staff they employ, which my noble friend mentioned, under the Policing and Crime Bill currently going through this House the Government will require people who are detained by the police, where the police suspect the individual not to be a British citizen, to produce their passport. I cannot tell which group of people who are arrested will be required to produce their passport, but I suspect that it may largely be dictated by the colour of their skin. What happens if the individual is a British citizen who does not have a passport? I raise this issue because it paints the picture of where the Government are going as regards immigration.

Under a provision in the Immigration Act recently passed by this House, when the police stop somebody driving a car whom they suspect not to be a British citizen, the police can search that person’s home for their driving licence without a warrant. Again, the question has to be raised: which drivers will be stopped by the police and taken to their home address to search for their passport? The whole thing shows the direction of travel that this Government are going in, which unfortunately not only provides—to use the current term—a hostile environment for illegal immigrants but does so for people who are here legally, and indeed for those who are born here but who do not appear at first glance to be British. So the charge my noble friend Lord Storey makes that the provision in the regulations smacks of racism is supported by these other measures that the Government have passed and continue to put through.

The Government say that the details that are asked for will be only for Department for Education use. The noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, made reference to the website Schools Week, which reports:

“The government has refused to release a new agreement that prevents the Department for Education from passing pupil nationality and country of birth data to the Home Office”.

All that the Department for Education would say to Schools Week was that,

“an old agreement that allowed the Home Office to access certain information from the national pupil database had now been ‘superseded’”,

but it refused to release the wording of that new agreement without a Freedom of Information Act request. If the Government are absolutely sure that none of this information will be shared with the Home Office, can the Minister please explain to the House why they will not publish what the guidance is and why they require a Freedom of Information Act request to secure it?

In a letter to my noble friend, the Minister apparently said that this information is intended to enable schools to receive more support. Can the Minister say why in London—where not only is there a higher proportion of low-income pupils eligible for free lunches than in any other region in England but around 42% of the city’s students do not have English as a first language, compared with the national average of just over 15%, and the schools overwhelmingly have larger class sizes than the national average—the schools are doing far better than schools in other, comparable regions in the country? What extra support are these schools going to need because they have pupils who are foreign nationals?

Unfortunately, all the evidence points to this being an immigration tactic rather than having anything to do with trying to improve the education of young people or supporting our schools.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, there has been a historic tradition of separating school education from the state in the United Kingdom. Leaving aside the issues of selection by ability and admission arrangements, it has been accepted that, subject to a place being available, a child can attend a local school without any test of right of residence, nationality or language spoken at home. So the new requirement to collect information on nationality and country of birth could well be a tipping point, as these data could be used to assist the Government in pursuing their immigration policies.

It is safe to assume that, when the DfE decided last year to add these new components for the 2016-17 school census, it did not anticipate the furore that that would cause. After all, the DfE has collected data on pupils’ ethnicity for many years. Human rights groups would probably have raised questions, but the DfE might just have been able to fend them off with an appeal to “trust us”. However, that was last year and last year was, literally, another world, because in the intervening period we have had a referendum and now we are in the very messy process of extricating ourselves from the EU. The fact that the regulations appeared on the day before Parliament went into recess in July is probably an indication that the realisation had dawned within the DfE that this had become a politically sensitive issue.

Two effects have combined to cause the furore. One is that, despite the fact that schools are not allowed to ask to see children’s passports or birth certificates, there are reports that some have reacted to the new questions on birth and nationality by doing just that. The DfE has made it clear that parents are not obliged to comply, yet fears remain. What steps will the Government take to ensure that all schools make that information available to parents?

The fears emanate from the second effect—the fall-out from the referendum. The vote in favour of leaving the European Union has left the immigration status of EU nationals living in the UK much less clear than it was 12 months ago. Indeed, the International Trade Secretary, Liam Fox, has suggested—in my view, appallingly—that they could be,

“one of our main cards”,

in the negotiations on leaving.

Then came the Tory party conference, with the Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, saying that companies could be forced to reveal how many foreign workers they have. Then the Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, announced plans to train more British doctors to replace overseas medics already here. With the Prime Minister also using her party conference speech to focus on immigration, there is now an unambiguous government culture of making foreign nationals feel unwelcome.

It is within that context that the implications of the SI we are discussing today are viewed. That is why DfE denials of any ulterior motive do not sound convincing. In a letter to the noble Lord, Lord Storey, last week, the Minister stated that,

“given the sensitivity of the new information being collected we will not add this to the NPD, so no-one outside the department will be able to access it”.

That is a welcome development, and I am willing to accept it at face value on a personal basis. The problem for us on these Benches is that the Minister cannot speak for other government departments, nor can he control what might happen in terms of the Home Office gaining access to the information, should circumstances, or that department’s needs, change.

Given that a recent FoI request revealed that the NPD had been accessed by the Home Office on 18 occasions, will the Minister tell noble Lords what information about individual pupils will be provided by the DfE to the Home Office in future? And why has the DfE said that it will not make public the agreement with the Home Office that will prevent the passing of pupil nationality and country-of-birth data to UK Visas and Immigration? If the Minister wants noble Lords to have confidence that he can deliver what he says, why not produce the proof? Unless it has a statutory footing, any new agreement will have limited validity and lack clear oversight. Will the Government consider giving the new arrangement a statutory basis? That at least would prevent it being altered by a change of policy in the future.

Given that the department already collects information on the number of students with English as a second language, can the Minister explain in more detail how the addition of country-of-birth data will further assist the department in supporting schools with children who have English as a second language? Will holding country-of-birth data result in more resources being directed to schools with higher numbers of children with English as a second language?

Before announcing the new components of the census, what assessments did the DfE make of the additional burdens on teachers, school administrative staff and parents, and the additional costs involved?

The school census is clearly beneficial in assessing the impact of migration on schools, but academics and journalists conducting research also make extensive use of the database. The Government now intend to restrict such access to important statistics on schoolchildren. In future, those who use the database must not write anything about the data without first showing it to the Government, with 48 hours’ notice. With commendable candour, a government email admitted:

“This will reduce the risk that DfE are caught off guard by being asked to provide statements about research the appropriate people have not seen”.

Can the Minister say how many similar arrangements apply within the DfE or in other departments?

It is clear that the Government did not think through the political implications either of collecting data on pupils’ country of birth and nationality or of transmitting named pupil information, to be held by the DfE, which can be matched with data in other departments. Any difficulties they are now experiencing are entirely of their own making.

It is not too late for the Minister today to assuage the concerns of many noble Lords, and I hope that, by providing answers to the questions that I and other noble Lords have posed in this debate, he will be able to do that. My noble friend Lord Watson of Invergowrie attempted to give notice of our questions to the Minister last week through the Government Whips’ Office but I understand that that did not succeed. Fortunately, I was able to give the Minister a few hours’ notice of them this afternoon. If he cannot give the assurances we seek, he should be aware that my colleagues in the other place will be pursuing these issues with vigour.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Tunnicliffe and Lord Paddick

Tuesday 9th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I will start by explaining briefly my background. I was a police officer for more than 30 years. I served at every rank up to and including Deputy Assistant Commissioner. On a more personal level, two years ago a former partner of mine, who subsequently became my best friend, died from an accidental overdose of a controlled drug. This is not just a professional interest of mine; it is a very personal one.

I do not want to break up the happy consensus portrayed by the Minister about what the position of the three political parties was. As he quite rightly said, the Liberal Democrat manifesto talked about clamping down on those who produce and sell psychoactive substances—not necessarily, as we will see, banning them.

We on these Benches are as concerned about the harm caused by people misusing drugs as the Government and the Labour Party are. We believe that there should be a health-based approach, aimed at reducing harm caused by drug misuse, rather than a legalistic approach that is likely to further criminalise drug users. Successive Governments have gradually eroded the link between criminal penalties and the harm caused by drugs by ignoring the scientific evidence and the advice that they have been given, to the extent that the drug laws in the UK are no longer considered by many people to have any credibility. The Bill, by failing to differentiate between dangerous psychoactive substances and those that are harmless, and by criminalising the production and supply of these substances but allowing simple possession, adds to that confusion and further undermines the credibility of UK drug laws.

As drafted, the Bill is far too broad and indiscriminate, further undermining credibility and efficacy in reducing harm. Legal minds far greater than mine have speculated on whether producing and supplying scented roses, or perfumes that evoke a sense of well-being or romance, could be illegal under the Bill. Those who claim that simply sniffing such substances falls outside the scope of the Bill clearly need to go back to school to learn some simple biology and chemistry. If you sniff something, you are inhaling it; you are taking molecules into your system, exactly as described in the Bill.

As drafted, the Bill would not outlaw simple possession of new psychoactive substances that come on to the market, which could potentially be far more toxic than drugs currently listed as class A under the Misuse of Drugs Act. The Government may well reply—I think that the Minister alluded to this in his opening remarks—that if that is the case, they could be temporarily banned and then designated as controlled drugs under the Misuse of Drugs Act. That course is available to the Government now, without the need for the Bill. My understanding was that the whole purpose of the Bill was to get away from manufacturers constantly changing the formula of psychoactive substances to avoid a drug being banned, yet it does not criminalise possession of what are potentially very dangerous drugs, which could quite easily change in formula in the way that the Bill is designed to eradicate. Either the Government want to send a very strong message that these substances are dangerous, which they may or may not be—in which case, why is possession not a criminal offence?—or they want to say, “Well, actually, these drugs are not as dangerous as controlled drugs”, when in fact they may well be.

As the Bill allows possession of new psychoactive substances while possession of drugs controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act is a criminal offence, the police will be faced with situations that make enforcement very difficult, if not impossible. If the police suspect that I have EX-1, a synthetic imitator of real ecstasy—I hasten to add that an internet search taught me that—in my possession for my own use, the Bill does not give the power for the police to stop, search or arrest me because to possess the substance will not be a criminal offence. However, if the police suspect that I have a real ecstasy tablet in my possession, they can stop, search and arrest me because it is a controlled drug. How are the police going to know? Some will say, “They will assume that it is a controlled drug, and search and arrest you anyway”. So what if I tell the officer that I have nothing illegal on me, that the tablet is indeed a legal EX-1, that they have no grounds to search and arrest me and that if they do, I will sue them? What if the tablet turns out to be legal to possess? Where does that leave the police? What if the police officer backs off because of my assurances, but the ecstasy tablet that I have is in fact a real one? The Bill, quite clearly, has not been thought through in terms of its practical application.

At the moment, I can buy legal highs from a head shop on the high street. It is acknowledged in the briefing given by the Government on the Bill that, contrary to what the Minister said in his introduction, many of these head shops are well run, with those that manage them being very keen to comply with the law. At the very least, I can be pretty sure that what I am buying is not a dangerously addictive class A drug. If things go badly wrong once I have taken a legal high purchased from one of these head shops, someone can go back to the head shop where I bought it and at least have some idea of what I have taken, and action could be taken to ensure that others are not similarly affected.

Many people buy legal highs now. They like what they do to them, and their use is increasing. If the Bill passes, the only way they can get psychoactive substances and be sure that they are not breaking the law is to go to a local drug dealer. Many of these street dealers have no incentive to ensure the quality of the drugs that they sell, because they could just disappear overnight if things go wrong. The chances of tracing and establishing what drug I had actually been given, were things to go badly wrong, would be much lower.

These drug dealers could just as easily sell me highly addictive class A drugs, and indeed they may have a vested interest in misleading me by giving me a highly addictive class A drug instead of the legal high that I asked for; the high is likely to be greater, and if I get addicted, I could become a regular client. It would make no difference to the dealer, if he were to be caught, whether he was supplying controlled drugs or other psychoactive substances—a long term in prison would await.

We are likely to criminalise many more people as a consequence. If you order psychoactive substances online—we have heard evidence this afternoon about how Irish online sites closed down with the introduction of their legislation—the chances are that the website you are ordering from will be based abroad. Even if you are buying psychoactive substances only for your own personal use, you will be guilty of the criminal offence of importing drugs. If you buy a few tablets to share with your mates on a night out, again you will be guilty of a criminal offence. A lot more people are going to end up with a criminal record as a result of the Bill, even if their primary intention is just to consume the drugs themselves.

The genie is out of the bottle. Many people take legal highs, and they will continue to get hold of them one way or another—whether head shops disappear from the high street or not—or they will simply switch to far more dangerous controlled drugs. The reason that millions of people break the law by taking controlled drugs is that, quite rightly, they see that our drug laws lack credibility. I have never heard a discussion among young people about to go on a night out as to which class a particular drug belongs to, and therefore which drug they are going to take on that basis. The Bill, as currently drafted, as I have said, further undermines the credibility of the drug laws in this country.

We need a new approach: a health-based approach that will genuinely reduce the harm caused by drug misuse and that has credibility among those who misuse drugs, not just an approach that appears to have credibility among politicians who do not really know what they are talking about. We need a system that differentiates between the psychoactive substances that cause most harm and those that are relatively safe—at least as safe as smoking tobacco or drinking alcohol—and we should control and regulate the supply of those relatively safe substances as we do with tobacco and alcohol. To do anything else would lack credibility, particularly in the eyes of young people.

If someone is caught in possession of harmful psychoactive drugs for their own use, controlled or otherwise, and they are a social user, they should have their drugs seized and be placed on an education programme. If someone is caught in possession of harmful psychoactive drugs, controlled or otherwise, and that person is addicted, they should be placed on a rehabilitation programme. If they refuse to co-operate, they should be given a civil fine. Such an approach would be much simpler and far more effective in dealing with this problem than giving thousands of young people a criminal record that could ruin their life chances because they made stupid mistake.

It is time that we started treating those who misuse drugs as victims of drug dealers rather than as criminals. It is time that we confronted the fact that criminalising young people for possessing substances only as harmful—or less harmful—than alcohol or tobacco lacks credibility.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

For the avoidance of doubt, is the noble Lord saying that the Liberal Democrats so oppose the essence of the Bill that they will either vote against it or propose wrecking amendments?

[Lord Paddick]

My Lords, we do not propose to wreck the Bill. Clearly, we cannot allow head shops to continue operating as they do now—purporting to sell substances that are harmless when they are far from harmless, or trying to get around the law by saying in very small print on the back of the substances that they are not fit for human consumption. However, the dangers in the Bill as drafted are to make the drug laws even more of a laughing stock than they are currently.