Psychoactive Substances Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)
Baroness Brown of Silvertown Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Mike Penning
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I also look forward to serving under Sir David’s chairmanship. Thank you for setting out so concisely how the Committee will proceed.
I thank Her Majesty’s Opposition and the Scottish National party for being so supportive of the principle behind the Bill, on which there was extensive discussion in the other place. One area that was discussed extensively in the other place is the use of psychoactive substances in prisons and other custodial places. The Lords sought to address the issue by amending clause 6 to make the supply of psychoactive substances, and offers to supply psychoactive substances, on prison premises a statutory aggravating factor. On reflection, we are content with the Lords amendment, not least because the governors and the Prison Officers Association support making possession a specific offence.
We also support the Lords amendment following the campaigning by my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester and the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis), who has spoken to me privately about this matter on more than one occasion—I can see the shadow Front-Bench team nodding. He really understands the matter and has been campaigning on it for many years, and it would be inappropriate if we did not acknowledge that.
I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester is a member of the Committee. He knows all too well that the substances are a dangerous and pervasive problem in prisons and other secure estates, not only for prison officers but for other staff and prisoners. Having reflected on the Lords amendment we are content to retain it; Government amendment 7 simply makes some drafting improvement so as to ensure that the measure is tight and, in particular, to provide a definition of a custodial institution.
We have concluded, however, that we need to go further, with new clause 2 introducing a new offence for a person who is in possession of a psychoactive substance in a custodial institution. I think everyone agrees that the use of psychoactive substances needs to be addressed, and it is not about just prisoners; it is about other staff who may, sadly, wish to bring such substances on to the premises, and visitors. The safety of visitors, prisoners and staff is, of course, paramount.
The introduction of a possession offence in prison would enable the police and the Crown Prosecution Service to pursue cases of prisoners, visitors or staff being found with small quantities of psychoactive substances in prison, and would support the stance that psychoactive substances are not to be tolerated in prison. The measure is fully supported across the House, by all the experts and panels, and within the Prison Service and other custodial suites. The measure concerns not just prisons, but any form of custody, particularly immigration detention centres and youth detention centres. I hope that in that way, along with the help we have had from the Lords, a simple case will be made about the possession of a psychoactive substance in prisons and other custodial centres, as opposed to in the community where it is not an offence. That is needed, to make a difference. We have listened carefully, and that is exactly what we will do.
Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
Mr Howarth, I look forward to serving under your chairmanship and receiving your guidance. This is my first outing as a shadow Minister on a Bill, and I know that I am sitting under two experienced Chairs who will make my life so much easier than it might otherwise have been. That is a plea, in case you had not worked it out.
As I made clear during my speech on Second Reading, we support the Bill’s principles and general approach. The 2015 Labour manifesto included a commitment to ban the sale and distribution of dangerous psychoactive substances. A blanket ban with listed exemptions appears to be the most effective means of beginning to tackle the serious public health problems that the drugs have brought about. During the Committee stage, we will look at the weaknesses in the drafting of the Bill, and will table amendments to try to improve it. I hope that the Government take our critique and suggestions in the constructive manner in which they are intended. We want to work with the Government, through the Committee, to make the Bill as effective and robust as possible.
The Government have elected to insert a new clause into the Bill, which will make it an offence to possess a psychoactive substance in a custodial institution. The new clause amends clause 1, which is consequential on the new offence. The Bill already contains offences of supply, and of possession with intent to supply, psychoactive substances, which apply to prisoners and staff as much as to the rest of the public. The new clause makes it an aggravating factor to supply such substances in or around a prison, meaning that the only new power would be the ability to further punish those involved with psychoactive substances. Although I share the Government’s concern about the problem of such substances in our prisons, I am not convinced that we lack enough statutes to bring charges against prisoners, staff and visitors.
I also assume that many of the prisoners in possession of and taking psychoactive substances in our custodial institutions are likely to be addicted and are possibly in prison because they needed to feed their habit. It would perhaps be better to treat such instances as a health issue rather than one of enforcement. As I have said, the Bill already contains offences of supply and possession with intent to supply in or near a prison as an aggravated offence, so I am not convinced that the addition of possession is necessary.
As I said on Second Reading, I am concerned by the findings in the prisons and probation ombudsman’s report of July of this year that new psychoactive substances had been a factor in at least 19 prisoner deaths between 2012 and 2014. Her Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons’ annual report was just as concerning. It found that the availability of new psychoactive drugs has
“had a severe impact and has led to debt and associated violence.”
New psychoactive substances are undoubtedly a real problem for our prisons, which I am sure is what motivated the Minister to table the amendment. However, neither of the reports asked for legislation to help deal with the problem. Indeed, the drugs that the reports mention as causing problems, Black Mamba and Spice, are already controlled by the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, meaning that possessing the most problematic substances in our prisons is already a crime. In addition, the Prison Service already has powers to discipline and punish prisoners for possessing psychoactive substances though prison rules.
Both reports stress that better detection mechanisms for new psychoactive substances need to be in place. HMIP stated that many new psychoactive substances do not show up in mandatory drug tests, making it difficult for prison officers to know what they are dealing with and the scale of the problem they face. Too few drugs tests are taking place, due to inadequate staffing. The prisons ombudsman highlighted that the sniffer dogs used by prisons to detect drugs often could not identify new psychoactive substances, and that it was still waiting for X-ray body scanners to detect substances concealed in body cavities.
I understand that the prevalence of Spice in prisons can be high. Will the legislation have a deterrent effect? Is it practically possible to enforce, or will it be like handing out speeding tickets at a grand prix? Will the Minister explain what prompted his desire to introduce criminal sanctions for possessing a psychoactive substance in a prison? Does he genuinely feel that the prison system has enough resources to tackle the direct supply and demand of such substances? It does rather feel that the amendment has been tabled out of a desire to do something about the problem in our prisons because the Minister and the Government have not been able to do the right thing, which is to address the staffing and resources issues raised by HMIP and the prisons and probation ombudsman.
During my Second Reading speech, I stressed that we have to reduce supply and demand for such drugs, meaning that we need to focus on education, including education for prisoners and, I suggest, their families. The Minister’s letter to the Chairs of the Committee states that the new offence provided by this amendment will complement the work of the National Offender Management Service to
“educate prisoners, staff and visitors.”
Will the Minister update us on what changes the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice have made to the drug education strategy since July, which is when the prisons and probation ombudsman report recommended that the Prison Service should put in place a specific education programme about the dangers of psychoactive substances?
In conclusion, I am unconvinced that the new offence would provide any useful tools in tackling the problem of novel psychoactive substances in our prisons. It is already against prison rules to possess a psychoactive substance. It is also against the law to possess Black Mamba and Spice—the NPS that currently cause the most damage in our prisons. They are already banned. Custody professionals seem clear that the priority needs to be ensuring that prisons have the resources to deal with these substances and to educate their staff and prisoners. I think that makes sense and I agree with them.
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
Unsurprisingly, I support the Government amendment. I will let my right hon. Friend the Minister answer directly the points made by the shadow Minister; I just want to make a couple of comments.
As I said in my Second Reading speech last Monday evening, there is unquestionably a huge problem in the secure estate. I referred to the work of RAPt—the Rehabilitation for Addicted Prisoners Trust. Before the debate, that excellent organisation sent hon. Members a research briefing, “Tackling the issue of New Psychoactive Substances in prisons”. It lays the situation out pretty starkly. As I did not last week, I will not pull my punches now. RAPt says that NPS use has quickly become widespread among prisoners. The annual report from NOMS affirms that increased NPS use among prisoners is generating high levels of debt, intimidation and violence between prisoners and is likely to be the main catalyst for the recent rise in attacks on prison staff. I will come on to my constituency experience of that in a moment. RAPt says on the scale of the problem:
“The number of prisoners using NPS varies across prisons”—
across the estate—
“but some estimates suggest as many as 60% to 90% of the prison population use, or have used, NPS.”
As the shadow Minister said, Spice seems to be the NPS of choice at the moment. It is also known as Black Mamba—I cannot ever say that without smiling—or Clockwork Orange. Some of the quotes in the report by RAPt are shocking. They include the following:
“Prisoners who had used Spice described it as being ‘like a crack addiction’ or ‘like cannabis, just a lot stronger’…Others have seriously injured themselves head-butting mirrors thinking they were being attacked…One prisoner had witnessed ‘someone bury a knife in someone’s neck [on Spice] ’cause they were paranoid’…There is also a game that is becoming popular in prisons”—
this has been reported to me—
“It is often called the…50 pound challenge. In the game, prisoners are challenged to smoke £50 worth of Spice. If they manage to smoke it all before breaking down or passing out, then they get it for free. If they fail they have to pay for it.”
We can see how this is becoming the new currency in prisons. When I first started going into prisons for my work on the Justice Committee and in my constituency, tobacco was the currency, but without question NPS are becoming the currency. I have Her Majesty’s Prison— and young offenders institution—Winchester in my constituency. As I said on Second Reading, Dave Rogers, who is a very good governor, is struggling to deal with the effects of Spice at the moment inside Winchester prison. He told me that last month there were three ambulances on the estate at one time for three prisoners who had taken NPS in the exercise yard and were unconscious. That is gravely concerning to me.
The shadow Minister says that we currently have powers. Under the Bill, simple possession of a psychoactive substance in the wider community is not criminalised, but the Government have rightly concluded that the problem is such that it requires a different approach in the context of the secure estate because it is particularly destructive there. All my experience of working inside and outside prisons is that control and order is fundamental to prison life. When that breaks down, we have anarchy and people unfortunately die. People are dying in prisons at an alarming rate. There are many and varied reasons for that, but they are dying under our care. The state is their guardian and they are dying under our care.
I completely agree with and want to restate this point made by the Minister in his letter to us:
“The introduction of a criminal offence for possession…in a custodial institution would complement the continuing work by the National Offender Management Service to educate prisoners, staff and visitors about the harms caused by psychoactive substances and…enable firm measures to be taken to punish those who possess psychoactive substances in prison.”
The shadow Minister is right to say that at the moment there is an offence that can add 42 days to an offender’s time in custody. [Interruption.] I think that the Minister agreed from a sedentary position. However, this measure takes that on much further and sends a much clearer message.
Lyn Brown
I completely agree with everything that the hon. Gentleman has said. I want to ask him, however, about education. If we are going to deal with individual prisoners for possession rather than supply—pushing—I am absolutely with him, but surely education and treatment would be more beneficial to not only the prisoner but the community at large.
Steve Brine
I was just about to come on to that; the shadow Minister is a visionary. I want to have my cake and eat it too; I want to strengthen the law in this area, but the wider challenge, as the governor at Winchester prison said to me, is that the debate today is not only about making NPS illegal and changing the law on possession in prisons. In my experience, prisoners will always want to use illegal substances. They will always want to get “loaded”, as I said on Second Reading, whether that be through a class A drug, a class B drug or NPS.
Mike Penning
The Government made a commitment in the other place during the Bill’s passage there to review the existing exemption for research activities and to strengthen it. That commitment was important and we shall push forward with it now, as we would all agree that bona fide research is a vital area. In doing so, we are following the consultation of the Academy of Medical Sciences and others, and we are confident that this exemption is necessary, sufficient and robust.
The new schedule also provides an exemption for healthcare-related activities, which I think we would all support. That is obviously very important. We do not want to make a problem for individuals. We see that this exemption has a complement in the exemption of medical products in schedule 1. In providing the new exemption we are going for a belt and braces approach, and we fully accept that that is what we are doing. I think that is very important.
New clause 3 enables the Home Secretary to add and vary a list of exempted activities in a new schedule. This regulation-making power replaces that in clause 10 of the Bill which covers the same ground, so we will effectively be removing clause 10 and replacing it with new clause 3. In the light of what we have seen in the other place, we felt that that is important. When we get to clause 10, obviously we will not move it. Hopefully we can move on, because I think this is an agreed part of the Bill. It is important that as different substances become available, the Home Secretary has the powers to add to and vary the list.
Lyn Brown
Government amendment 2 is consequential on later Government amendments, providing for exceptions for medical and academic research. One of the concerns raised by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs was about the impact of this legislation on legitimate scientific work. As the ACMD made clear, in the original drafting there was an exemption for clinical trials but no mention of exemption made for laboratory research in academia or industry.
The Academy of Medical Sciences also wrote to the Home Secretary to raise its concerns. An example picked out by the AMS is that the Bill could criminalise neuroscience researchers using psychoactive substances as experimental tools to help us better understand the causes of some mental illness. Several Members of the House of Lords raised that as an issue prior to Report in that place. Lord Rosser, who led on the Bill for Labour in the House of Lords, highlighted on Second Reading that it is of vital importance that the Bill does not
“inhibit or restrict important medical research that will help us to improve our knowledge of drugs and their impact”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 30 June 2015; Vol. 762, c. 1964.]
I thank Lord Rosser for highlighting that, and for seeking assurances from the Government that the original clause 10 of the Bill will not inhibit or restrict legitimate research by the terms of the Bill. I also thank him for emphasising the need for procedures relating to medical research to be made exempt under the Bill. Without his diligent work, the Government’s new clause, which deals with many of the inadequacies of the original drafting, may not have been possible.
I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish, who spoke passionately on Second Reading about the need for clearer exceptions for medical research. He was absolutely right to raise concerns that the vague definition of psychoactive substances in the Bill will impede legitimate research.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s flattering remarks. The United Kingdom is a world leader in research of this kind. Does my hon. Friend share my concern that the unintended consequence of parts of the Bill may be to inhibit some of that research? We need to ensure, therefore, that the Bill is absolutely tight, so that that research can continue.
Lyn Brown
I certainly agree. On Second Reading, my hon. Friend said:
“Would it not be a tragedy if the United Kingdom, one of the leading research nations in the world, avoided finding a cure for some awful psychiatric disorder due to our failure to include the appropriate exemptions for scientists?”—[Official Report, 19 October 2015; Vol. 600, c. 779.]
Thanks to pressure exerted on the Government, Lord Bates, who led the Bill through the Lords for the Government, wrote to Lord Rosser and other peers to state that the Government were actively considering the issue and were in discussion with the ACMD. He pledged that the Government would table amendments addressing concerns about medical research during the Commons Committee stage. His colleague, Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen, stated that the Government have no intention of stopping “bona fide research”. I am glad that the Government listened to Labour’s concerns and have delivered on Lord Bates’s promise by introducing a new clause that will specifically exempt academic activities. I absolutely support the amendments.
However, I cannot help but feel that the Government could have avoided the need hastily to draft the amendments and table some significant information if they had properly consulted the ACMD before they produced the first draft of the Bill. This has been a very quick—I would not say rushed—Bill. We had Second Reading in the Commons a week ago and here we are in Committee, and there are still issues that are yet to be completely ironed out in Committee to make the Bill enforceable in our courts of law.
We need to take into consideration organisations such as the ACMD, which consists of leading experts on drugs, many of whom work in academia. If they had been consulted on the original draft of the Bill, they would undoubtedly have spotted the problems with the Government’s original plans. The amendment could have been in the Bill from the beginning, and parliamentary time could have been spent more productively in looking at the goals of the Bill and how well the Bill will help the Government to achieve them.
Mike Penning
At the outset, I want to say that legislation is passed in Parliament by introducing a draft Bill, which is then scrutinised. I welcome the scrutiny that took place in the Lords. The reason why the Bill started in the Lords—this is probably above my pay grade—is that there are so many genuine experts there. Perhaps if it had started in this House the same amendments would have been introduced by colleagues on both sides of the House. I do not mind that; colleagues who know me well enough know that I am pragmatic.
I have a couple of points about the shadow Minister’s comments. This should have been done years ago under previous Administrations—I think we all know that. For every day that we do not do this, people are dying. I accept that it is rushed, to a degree—there was a huge gap between the Bill being in the Lords and coming to us—but it is right and proper for this House to expedite the Bill, while doing everything possible about any anomalies that generally concern groups of people, in particular on the research side. If there were any such anomalies in the legislation, I would let no one prevent us from changing things. That is why we have tabled the amendments. Unashamedly, I have already mentioned belt and braces. If we need to amend things further as we go on, we will do so, so that we do not prevent research in such an important area.
I wanted to touch on the scrutiny work done in the other House. I sat in on the debate on Second Reading and Report, on the steps of the Throne—it is a great honour to be able to do such things—and it was fascinating. One group of people was fundamentally opposed, as in our House, but it was a tiny group. We got around bits such as “Will this affect people in churches with incense?” and, once we had got rid of that stuff, we could actually ask, “Does the Bill do what it says on the tin?” and “Does it allow the research to continue to take place?” which is absolutely vital. New clause 3 would improve the Bill, and that is why we can take out clause 10. That is because we were listening, and this is the way forward.
Amendment 2 agreed to.
Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
Lyn Brown
I fear the clause gives rise to three issues, which it is important to consider. The first concerns the intended scope of the Bill and how it has apparently widened with Government drafting. The second issue is how the state can prove that a substance is psychoactive, particularly when seeking prosecution. Our amendment is based on language recommended to the Home Secretary by the ACMD, which offers a new definition of a psychoactive substance. We believe that the ACMD’s language may provide a better response to these issues than the current drafting.
The final and related issue is that we need to know whether we have the necessary resources in place to test for psychoactivity. The Committee will be aware that one concern that the ACMD raised about the drafting of the Bill is that it refers merely to psychoactive substances, whereas in previous discussions of the problem—including the impact assessment for the Bill and the expert panel report, which recommended the approach taken by the Government—the words “psychoactive substance” have always been prefixed by the word “novel” or “new”.
According to the ACMD, the prefixes of “new” or “novel” indicate that we are referring to substances that have been produced in order to mimic the effects of controlled substances but currently sit outside the controls of the 1971 Act. The ACMD is concerned that, by excluding the words “novel” or “new”, the Bill has expanded in scope beyond its intended target and is now disproportionately broad.
The Home Secretary has written to the ACMD and indicated that she thinks that the inclusion of the words “new” or “novel” in the Bill would be unworkable, as that would suggest that substances that existed before the Bill came into place ought not to be controlled. She also pointed out that many of the NPS that we want to control are not new, in the sense of being newly created; it is just that they have only recently been used for recreational purposes. For example, mephedrone was first synthesised in 1929 and “forgotten” until it was rediscovered in 2004. Its use became widespread around 2007.
However, on Lords Report, Baroness Meacher proposed that the word “synthetic” be inserted before “psychoactive substances” in order to restrict the Bill to its intended scope of drugs synthetically designed to mimic existing drugs.
On 17 August the ACMD wrote again to the Home Secretary with a series of recommendations of how the definitions in the Bill could be tightened. One recommendation was to include a definition of substance in the Bill to include the word “synthesis” and specifically to mention an effect that has a pharmacological similarity to drugs controlled by the 1971 Act. That would, it argued, cover the intended scope of the legislation.
On Friday, the ACMD wrote once again to the Home Secretary and reiterated that its recommendation was that language be used that invokes pharmacological similarity to drugs controlled by the 1971 Act. Our amendment is based on the language recommended by the ACMD.
I am sorry that I am not able to take in the information just laid before us. I will use my lunch break to read, digest and understand it. I am a woman who did not know what poppers were until two weeks ago. It is not a feasible idea for me to listen to the Minister and the debate and take in this new information.
On Lords Report, it was argued from the Government Benches that adding the word “synthetic” would be inappropriate as there are organic substances such as salvia and kratom that are both psychoactive and harmful and ought to be controlled. In the Home Secretary’s letter to the ACMD she makes a similar argument. She suggests there are substances that have long been tolerated in the absence of a more comprehensive legal framework, yet have known harms.
If these organic substances have known harms, will the Minister tell us why they cannot be controlled by existing powers in the Misuse of Drugs Act? After all, it is surely not possible for drug producers to come up with hundreds of new organic compounds and so overwhelm the authorities in the same way as they have managed with synthetic substitutes. The ACMD does not seem to be worried by a reference to synthesis and has said:
“The small number of problematic psychoactive natural products could be considered by the ACMD for control under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.”
We should take seriously the issues raised by the ACMD and look carefully at the language it recommends, so that we can be sure that the Bill targets as well as possible the problem that we all want it to tackle. Currently, there is much feeling that the definition is too unspecific and does not adequately define a psychoactive substance. Unfortunately, that could lead to a situation in which the Bill is unenforceable and open to legal challenge on whether a substance is psychoactive.
I understand that the latest letter from the ACMD to the Home Secretary, published last Friday, suggests a more objective, technical definition with reference to specific groups of psychoactive drugs. Many substances in those groups have been tested and researched and those found to be harmful have already been controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. Including a specific list of classes or groups of substances that are associated with psychoactivity and harm, as in the Misuse of Drugs Act, makes it more likely that new related substances will have the same psychoactive capability.
On rereading amendment 43, I wonder whether two different interpretations are possible. The possible ambiguity is in what the phrase
“identical or pharmacologically similar to substances controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act”
might refer to. My initial understanding was that it referred to the pharmacological response or the chemical response—that is, a substance would be controlled if it produced a response identical or similar to the responses produced by substances controlled under the MDA. However, I wonder whether the phrase could refer to a compound, and so imply that a substance would be controlled if it produced any pharmacological or chemical response and is identical or similar to substances controlled under the MDA.
If interpretation one is correct, the clause captures substances according to their effect, which is what I would have expected; but if interpretation two is correct, the clause would seem heavy-handed as, in principle, it would capture a benign substance that had only a limited effect but happened to be similar to a drug controlled under the MDA. Many exclusions might then be needed. If interpretation one is correct, the approach would capture all substances the ACMD has dealt with to date. Also, I would have thought that adding an inclusion list to the definition of psychoactive drugs would make it easier to manage an exclusion list, as well as helping on the resources required for that.
The Minister will see that I am genuinely struggling on this: we all want the legislation to work, but unless the definition is strengthened and underpinned with ways of testing psychoactivity, the Bill might not result in successful prosecutions or controls. What response does he have to the difficulties I have outlined? If he will not accept the amendments, will he give this matter full consideration before Report and Third Reading?
These are not party political concerns but concerns that emanate from a desire to see this Bill have a proper effect and safeguard all our communities. I genuinely believe that we do not have this matter right as yet, because major loopholes might emerge as attempts are made to prosecute the producers and suppliers of these pernicious drugs.
I now move on to the issue of proving that a substance is psychoactive. I am sure that the whole Committee is aware that the ACMD has written to the Home Secretary warning her that we will have to rely on proxy measures of psychoactivity, such as in vitro neurochemical tests, to prove psychoactivity, and again these tests “may not stand up” in court. It could result in a very resource-intensive forensic strategy and legal costs could well rise due to the need for expert witnesses, who obviously may disagree with each other. In vitro tests—that is, tests carried out in glass test tubes—are not conclusive and some substances that seem to be psychoactive in a test tube have been found not to be psychoactive in vivo, that is in humans. A conclusive test of psychoactivity would require randomised tests on human beings for definitive proof, and obviously that is fraught with difficulties.
I suggested on Second Reading of this Bill that we should take the ACMD’s warnings seriously. There have been only five prosecutions in Ireland since similar legislation was introduced in 2010. Police in Ireland admit that one of the reasons that there have been so few prosecutions there is that it is difficult to prove psychoactivity. Detective Sergeant Tony Howard from the Irish Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau told the BBC:
“We are relying on scientists to assist us with these prosecutions and, unfortunately, they haven’t been able to provide the evidence to us.”
We need assurances from the Government that they are making good progress with the ACMD in resolving this issue. Without the credible threat of prosecution, it will be much harder to disrupt and break up the supply chains.
Amendment 43, which I remind the Committee is based on an ACMD recommendation, would define a psychoactive substance as
“a compound capable of producing a pharmacological response on the central nervous system or which produces a chemical response in vitro, identical or pharmacologically similar to substances controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971”.
It is my understanding that one of the benefits of this definition is that it would be harder for defendants to challenge proxy evidence of a substance’s psychoactivity, because legally psychoactivity would be defined by proxy indicators. It is important that the Minister outlines why this wording would not be more legally robust than the current wording, because psychoactivity is, after all, right at the heart of the Bill.
If the definition of psychoactivity is limited to the known drug groups, we know that the resources required would be more manageable, and a series of simple biological tests could be done on known targets to indicate the drug group of a substance. According to chemists and toxicologists, this is
“run of the mill profiling”.
Thus, a library of known compounds could be built up and additional testing would only be required where the law was challenged. Leading chemists, including Professor Les Iversen, assure us that it is highly unlikely that new substances will be found that fall outside the known drug groups. If the Minister cannot accept the limitation to known drug groups, I would appreciate his telling the Committee why that is and outlining his difficulty with such a limitation.
Finally, I will move on to the issue of resources needed to test for psychoactivity. The Government will recognise that the proposals in the Bill are not immediately cost-neutral. As we have already seen, this clause gives rise to the need for neurochemical tests in order to prove the psychoactivity of substances. These tests need to be paid for, presumably both by the prosecution and defence teams in any court case. The Forensic Science Service, a public body, was abolished in 2011 and what we now have is a patchwork collection of commercial forensic science providers.
Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)
With some laboratories charging up to £100 per test for each individual product to be tested, would my hon. Friend agree that trading standards would need extra financial resources to make any future legislation viable?
Lyn Brown
I certainly agree with my hon. Friend. The expert panel on new psychoactive substances make it perfectly clear that those forensic science providers will only take on the work if they consider it commercially viable. The state will have to pay competitive rates if it wants to test for the psychoactivity of drugs. I would like the Minister to assure us that the burden of paying for these tests will not fall entirely on the prosecution services or local government. The Bill is a radical addition to our drugs control policy and the Home Office has a responsibility to ensure that it is not acting as a drain on already depleted resources at the CPS. Local authorities and police forces may also want to test for psychoactivity before pursuing action against local suppliers. They too need support in this area.
In the Home Secretary’s letter to the ACMD she argued that data sharing in the police and forensic community would be the key factor in the forensic response to the Bill. She also pledged that the Home Office would drive for the mechanisms to ensure data is shared efficiently. I would like to ask the Minister what progress is being made on this front. We do not want unnecessary duplication adding to the expense of enforcing the Bill, nor do we want prosecutions not be brought because prosecutors do not have the same knowledge of a psychoactive substance as a police force or indeed the Home Office.
The Home Affairs Committee report on the Bill highlighted a number of concerns regarding the expenditure needed to achieve a prosecution. The Chartered Trading Standards Institute argued in its written evidence to the Committee that proving psychoactivity in order to gain prosecution would require
“rigorous scientific testing and analysis to obtain a toxicology report detailing the specific chemical components found in the drug.”
That point was made earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East. The CTSI estimated that the approximate cost would be greater than £100 per substance to conduct a basic test. What is more alarming is that typical head shop investigations will require multiple tests to be conducted due to the content of NPS being different in different packets of the same branded drug. One packet of something exotic bearing the same name as another packet will contain different compounds. That just will not stand up in court.
Owen Thompson
A Scottish Government expert review group that reported in February this year included a recommendation that a toolkit be developed to support trading standards staff tackling NPS in our communities. Does the hon. Lady agree that it would be particularly useful to roll that out, so that we can ensure the best possible approach, consistent across the country?
Lyn Brown
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that data sharing across police forces is essential to ensure we get the right information and can prosecute cases where possible. Police Scotland has voiced similar concerns, stating that a successful case would require evidence from a qualified expert with experience of working with NPS who could identify the substance and prove its psychoactivity. Furthermore, Police Scotland also states that every case that involved NPS offences would require the suitably qualified medical expert to provide evidence in court, which would also incur a cost.
The critical issue in the Bill—the definition of psychoactivity—still has to be addressed, although I suppose there might be something in the letter that has been submitted to the Committee. The ACMD published further advice on 23 October and is still of the view that
“the current definition on the face of the Bill is too unspecific and does not adequately define a psychoactive substance”.
Essentially, the Home Secretary has rejected any qualification of psychoactive substances—for example, by including only synthetic products. The definition in clause 2 remains as originally drafted, without reference to harm, to which we will come later.
Much of the detail of the Government’s discussions has not been published, so the reasoning behind their position is not entirely clear to me. They have not accepted any suggested amendment to the wording of clause 2. It is unfortunate that there has been no agreement between Ministers and the statutory body of expertise, the ACMD. I fear that that risks destabilising the overall soundness and public perception of the proposals, by which I mean the ability to prosecute successfully. If the definition remains largely unchanged, there will be consequences relating to harm measurement, proportional sentencing and credible messaging. If the criminal sanctions apply equally to substances of widely different harm thresholds, that will remove the possibility that sensible and honest messages about health harms can be created.
We tabled our amendments not to be difficult or party political but to try to secure clarification from the Government on the intended scope of the Bill. We need to know that they are certain that they can legally prove that a substance is psychoactive and secure prosecutions. We want to know what provisions they have made to ensure that the necessary funds and resources are available to conduct extensive and expensive tests for psychoactivity.
Mike Penning
I thank the shadow Minister for her detailed and extensive comments, which I take in the context in which they were delivered.
I want to address some of the points that were made. The SNP spokesman mentioned the idea of a toolkit—we do not need to reinvent the wheel every time, do we? In England, local authorities, which have responsibility for public health, spend £830 million a year on tackling drug and alcohol misuse. That is 30% of the national budget, which makes it logical to address the issue.
The explanatory notes set out that the measures will be cost-neutral to the police and local authorities. Let me use some anecdotal evidence to show why. Take, for example, Belfast and Lincoln, two very diverse communities where head shops were banned using local powers. I still do not understand why other local authorities have not used those powers, but there we are. The cost and type of policing in those communities changed dramatically, without the Bill, just by banning head shops. Belfast, which I know all too well from my time as a Minister in the Northern Ireland Office, was transformed simply by people saying, “We do not want that sort of product sold in shops in our communities because people will think it is legitimate and safe.”
I understand that there are concerns, and I know that there are different views coming back from the Republic of Ireland. I went and met the Irish Minister and his scientific experts. I asked why there had been five prosecutions, and the answer was twofold, and not exactly what we have heard so far today. In Ireland, they felt that they had got the prosecutions they wanted using powers that are also in the Bill. A huge part of the Bill has nothing to do with the CPS and the police prosecuting, but is about local authorities. What happened almost overnight after using those powers was that the head shops and the industry collapsed, because people had been educated correctly. Where the local authorities were using their powers—powers that are also in the Bill—it transformed the communities in the way we would all like to see. The Bill is not designed to pick on people who have been using these products perfectly legally and, they feel, safely; it is designed to get the really bad guys—the dealers and those sorts of people. The seven-year prison sentence is in the Bill as a last resort.
In terms of applied science and technology, the Home Office will identify and bring forward the capability throughout the UK on the forensic requirement. We are going to do that. I accept that we will have to give more detail, perhaps on Report, and we are happy to do so.
I am sorry we disagree so early in the Bill, but I have real concerns about amendment 51, which runs counter to the blanket ban. If we are going to go for a blanket ban, we are going to go for a blanket ban. If we start fiddling around the edges, that blanket ban becomes difficult, so I do not support the amendment. I fully accept the fact that the shadow Minister and other members of the Committee have not had enough time to read the ACMD’s latest correspondence. Perhaps that can be addressed on Report. The ACMD understandably moves with debate, as it moves in different areas. As I said earlier, using “synthetics” in the Bill is wrong. A blanket ban is a blanket ban. We have to get ahead the game, and that is what we have been trying to do.
I fully understand why the amendments have been tabled, and that the one from the hon. Member for Midlothian is probing, but sadly at this stage I cannot support amendments 51, 43 and 44 for the reasons I have given. If more discussion and investigation is needed, the Report stage may be a better time for that. A lot of the concerns are that we will not be able to prosecute, but we will. It happens in other parts of the world and in Ireland. There were concerns about harm, but if a blanket ban happens, we are ahead of harm, rather than waiting for harm to happen and for people to die. On that basis, I hope that colleagues will not press their amendments to a Division.
Lyn Brown
I hear entirely what the Minister is saying, and I have some sympathy, but may I push him on a couple of things? The first is the issue of the definition. I did not hear him explain why we cannot use the words “new” or “synthetic”. That would give us a better focus on the things we want to ban. Secondly, I did not hear why we were not able to put the organic substances that we know to be harmful, such as salvia and kratom, within the scope of the 1971 Act. That just seems logical. We know that those substances are harmful and we know what they are. People will not be able to graft new bits on to plants to create new organic substances—certainly not at the rate at which they have managed to create new synthetic substances.
The Minister talked about costs. I used the words “immediately become cost-neutral” in my notes, but I say gently to him that while I accept that there may be savings to the local community and the local police from banning head shops, cutting the supply and getting rid of the demand from our streets, I genuinely do not believe that those savings will be immediate. I gently suggest that one reason why there have not been more prosecutions by local authorities is that they have not had the wherewithal—the finance— to know that what they are taking to court will actually stand up. There is a cost issue that we need to look at.
The Chair
If the hon. Lady has further points to make, it might be advisable to make them at this point.
Lyn Brown
My problem is that it was such a big thing that I did with three clauses that I am worried that I have missed something and I am not getting it out. I am not sure we have got to the bottom of the evidence around psychoactive substances, whether it is provable, and whether the definition that the Government are currently going with would enable provability within the court.
The Chair
I wonder whether it would be helpful to the hon. Lady, and sensible at this point, if the Minister responded to the points that she has made. If she thinks of other issues that she wants to raise, she could do so by way of an intervention.
Mike Penning
I do not want to go round in circles, as I have made the points that I would almost certainly make again. At this point I would like to make some progress. “New or novel” substances have, according to my legal team, no legal meaning within the law, which is why we are not going with that.
Mike Penning
Ireland is a much smaller country and, if we proportionally move the percentage in population up from 5%, we would see substantially more prosecutions. I am really pleased that I went to Ireland as I was amazed at the amount of work done by local government on prevention. One reason why the measure will not come into force until April is to allow what happened in Ireland to happen here. Prosecutions did take place and were not thrown out of court; the evidence base was almost identical to what we have. We are slightly tougher, but only marginally, and perhaps learning from some of the mistakes. They have said they will probably follow us and our legislation going forward, which is exactly what New Zealand and Western Australia are doing as well.
We have to be careful not to pre-empt something that might happen but which has not happened in countries where measures have been taken. I am conscious that the measure needs to be tight and a blanket ban is needed. I am happy and confident that we will have the scientific evidence and the experts out there to make sure that we can do this. Let us hope that, before the legislation comes in, and as they did in Ireland, we get into the schools, we get into local government and talk to communities, and that we get programmes out there that we will all support to make sure, categorically, that everybody is aware not only that the substances are no longer legal, but that they have definitely never been safe and, by the way, there are severe penalties for importing, manufacturing or selling these products.
Lyn Brown
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for clarification on the words “new or novel”. That is the first time I have heard that they might not have a legal standing as a definition. May I push him, therefore, on the definition and ask if he is confident that the definition in the Bill will be robust enough for us to deal with provability within a court? Secondly, may I ask him to address the issue of cost?
Mike Penning
The answer to the first question is yes; I am more than confident about that. As the explanatory notes say, the CPS is responsible for the costs in prosecution terms. We do not think that will be an enormous burden. I am responsible for 43 police authorities, and the costs of policing this type of problem in our communities is huge. Public health is obviously for local authorities. I used to be shadow Minister for public health, and the cost burden is very interesting. We have seen in Ireland that the number of people who turn up to A&E has dropped dramatically. The number of people needing rehabilitation and treatment has also dropped. Those are all cost negatives.
Owen Thompson
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 3
Exempted substances
Lyn Brown
I beg to move amendment 45, in clause 3, page 2, line 14, at end insert—
‘(3A) The Home Secretary must consider making regulations under subsection (2) if she receives a recommendation from the Advisory Council of Misuse of Drugs to bring forward such a regulation in respect of a psychoactive substance.”
This would enable the ACMD to proactively request that the Home Secretary consider regulations.
On Second Reading, I asked whether the Minister had considered providing credible measures for relatively harmless substances to be excluded from the controls introduced by the Bill. That, after all, is something the expert panel envisaged as a potential part of the Bill when it made its recommendation, following the Irish model. Amendment 45 would be one way of providing such measures, as it would allow the ACMD to proactively request that the Home Secretary consider adding a substance to the exempted list.
There is broad support for the Bill across the political spectrum. However, we know one concern is that it may restrict trade in harmless substances. I put it to the Committee that if people knew it was possible to make representations to the ACMD about substances they wish to exempt and for convincing and evidence-based arguments to make their way up to the Home Secretary, the Bill might have even broader support than it currently does.
As we know, the Home Affairs Committee received much written and oral evidence about the issue of poppers. Colleagues in the SNP have tabled an amendment about them and I will have more to say about poppers in that debate.
Mike Penning
I think there is a very important debate to be had on poppers. That will be the Chair’s decision when we get to poppers—however, at the present time I did not realise we were talking about poppers.
Lyn Brown
I like help, so do not stop trying to help.
I admit that I am sympathetic to the SNP’s amendment. If the ACMD, through Professor Iversen’s evidence, is suggesting that poppers pose a low risk of harm, it would be within the scope of the Bill to place poppers on the exemption list—but I am not an expert.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
I am a little puzzled. Perhaps the shadow Minister or members of the SNP might be able to shed light on this. Why, exactly, is the Scottish National party putting forward amendments about poppers that would, presumably, have an effect in England but not in Scotland itself?
Lyn Brown
When we get to poppers, experts will need to assess the evidence and decide whether the case for exemption has merit. If I may link this to our discussion on the second clause of the Bill, we know that there will be significant costs in testing the psychoactivity of substances, as there will be for enforcement measures contained within the Bill. By introducing a charge on applying for exemption, the Government potentially could raise the revenue and ensure that what is left of the industry pays for its own regulation. Does the Minister think that there might be scope for that?
While we are discussing exempted substances, I want to raise a concern that is pertinent to schedule 1. Paragraph 1 of schedule 1 exempts those drugs that are controlled by the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 from the scope of the Bill. That is appropriate, because we do not want suppliers of drugs that we know to be very harmful being subject to the lesser tariffs contained within this Bill, rather than those in the 1971 Act. As the Home Secretary herself has stated, the 1971 Act must remain at the apex of our legal controls, and this Bill ought to be considered as complementary.
I want to press the Minister to ensure that part of this legislation will not slow down the process by which NPS we know to be harmful are brought under control through the Misuse of Drugs Act. It seems that there is a danger that the impetus for action will be lost, given that this Bill will provide some measures of control of new psychoactive substances. I do not want to see a time gap between a dangerous drug hitting the market and finding its way on to the controlled substance list as a result of this legislation—particularly given the lower tariffs contained within this Bill for supply. My worry would be greatly eased if the Minister resolved to ensure that this issue is included in the Home Office’s statutory review of the Bill.
In conclusion, the capacity to exempt substances from the controls introduced by this Bill is clearly central to the Bill’s receiving widespread support. The focus of the Home Affairs Committee report on the issue of poppers has already made that clear. I hope that the Minister will give serious consideration to our amendment or to other ways around the problem. I look forward to being able to offer a reassuring response to my concerns about the relationship between this Bill and the 1971 Act.
Mike Penning
The shadow Minister would have a point if not for section 1 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, which allows the council—or ACMD—to issue advice to Ministers when it considers it expedient to do so. That provision is in the Act. A protocol between the Home Secretary and the ACMD allows the council to consider drug issues without any advice from us at all. That is in the Act.
Lyn Brown
Okay, but we have tried to helpfully suggest that there might be a way of making this a cost-neutral thing with the industry, proving that a substance should go on to the exemption list because it is harmless. The Bill and the public’s acceptance of it will be strengthened if harmless substances are put on an exemptions list, as we have done with incense.
Mike Penning
That was looked at extensively by the expert panel before the legislation was introduced, and it was rejected. The panel looked particularly at New Zealand, which had already introduced a licence, basically, which is what we are alluding to—to people applying for a licence—for low-harm substances. That has not worked.
Mike Penning
No one has applied for a licence and there is basically a blanket ban. The experts, who are much more expert than I am, looked at it extensively. They examined it and rejected it and were happy with the way we are moving forward. With that in mind, I am more than happy—as I suggested earlier to the hon. Member for Midlothian—to look again at that between now and Report to make sure that I am 100% comfortable with the proposals, because I understand the hon. Lady’s passion for this issue.
Mike Penning
However, at this stage I am comfortable, unless something comes forward between now and Report.
Mike Penning
Some of them are. Some of them are genuinely and legitimately people doing business, for example, selling a certain gas that is inappropriately used by other people, such as laughing gas. The Bill is specific in that area to make sure that we protect people. We cannot protect everybody who completely ignores what a label says, but if someone is selling certain products, they will get up to seven years in prison. That is why the harshness is there at that end of the scale, although I fully understand and do not want to penalise people at the other end, who perhaps take the products—in my opinion wrongly, and I am sure that everyone would agree—thinking they are safe. We do not want to criminalise that. I hope that the hon. Lady will not press her amendment. We can look at this carefully again, if necessary, on Report.
Mike Penning
I beg to move amendment 3, in Schedule 1, page 38, line 7, leave out from “products” to end of line 12 and insert—
‘“Medicinal product” has the same meaning as in the Human Medicines Regulations 2012 (S.I. 2012/1916) (see regulation 2 of those Regulations).’
This amendment replaces the definition of “medicinal product” in paragraph 2 of Schedule 1. The revised definition adopts that in regulation 2 of the Human Medicines Regulations 2012, which includes, but is wider than, medicinal products for which a marketing authorisation or an Article 126a authorisation is in force.
Lyn Brown
I rise to speak to Government amendments 3 and 4, which would replace the passages on investigational, homeopathic and traditional herbal medicine in the list of exempted substances with a single wide definition of a medicinal product. Will the Government provide further detail on the exempted substances list and the forensic strategy that underpins the Bill? Some representations, including from the ACMD, have described the exemptions list as potentially unworkable, particularly if there is no inclusion list in the definition of psychoactive substances, as recommended by the ACMD. It is possible that adding an inclusion list into the definition of psychoactive substances makes the management of the exclusion list much more manageable. I would be grateful for the Minister’s view.
Mike Penning
I am really sorry if I am looking slightly puzzled, but I did not think that we were considering these matters at the moment. I will get some notes passed to me, a service which the hon. Lady does not receive. I am puzzled.
Psychoactive Substances Bill [Lords]
Baroness Brown of Silvertown Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mike Penning
The hon. Gentleman makes a comment when he is not even in the Chamber—he should know better, as he has been here long enough.
Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
I am a little confused by the diversion from where I thought we were going. Would not a purchaser need to know that the substance was illegal when purchasing it? If so, we will need a definition of what psychoactive means. Is that not right?
Mike Penning
That is exactly the situation, and that is exactly what the Bill says. I do not understand the diversion either.
Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
The Opposition support the principles of the Bill. The 2015 Labour manifesto included a commitment to ban the sale and distribution of dangerous psychoactive substances, which is why we are with the Minister tonight.
The illicit drugs situation in the UK and throughout the world is constantly changing. Protecting young people from harm is our responsibility, even if we know that there is no silver bullet to reduce the trade in drugs. New psychoactive substances can be a significant danger to public health, and they have taken people’s lives. Jimmy Guichard was a fun-loving, sporty 18-year-old bloke living in Kent. He had heard of legal highs and decided to try them. He bought a packet of Clockwork Orange from a local head shop, and he may have taken a high dose, possibly the same as he would have done for ordinary cannabis. He had a severe reaction, suffered a heart attack and, sadly, died the next day.
Owain Vaughan was 14 when he tried a brand of synthetic cannabis with friends and was overcome by its potency. He described the effects to BBC News:
“It made me physically ill, I collapsed, I started fitting, I tried to get up, but fell straight back down and banged my head…I felt my own heart stop and I was scared.”
Unfortunately, stories like Jimmy’s and Owain’s are not isolated incidents. The Office for National Statistics reports that there were 67 deaths in England and Wales involving psychoactive substances in 2014, so the problem is clearly growing.
We do not have comprehensive evidence about the overall harm of psychoactive substances, but people have died as a result of taking these drugs. Some of the substances can cause severe adverse effects such as heart palpitations, panic attacks, hallucinations and even psychotic episodes.
The supply of these drugs is becoming an industry. They are made, marketed and supplied by unprincipled organisations for financial profit. Our understanding of the dangers of legal highs has been greatly enhanced by the work of the Angelus Foundation, and I pay tribute to Maryon Stewart, who established the foundation after losing her daughter Hester, a medical student, to the legal high GBL in 2009. Research by the Angelus Foundation has estimated that there were more than 250 head shops in the UK selling these products in 2013. According to the crime survey of England and Wales, around a third of all new psychoactive substances purchased in the UK came from such businesses. Head shops claim that they do not sell illegal substances, but Home Office tests have shown that almost 20% of packets of new psychoactive substances contain illegal drugs.
Head shops and other high street retail outlets normalise drug taking and encourage people to experiment with and use drugs. The names and packaging are designed to attract young adults to experiment, and free samples are regularly used as part of marketing strategies. The fact that substances can be bought on the high street in broad daylight without any sanction whatever gives the illusion that the substances are both safe and legal. There are hundreds of internet sites that sell these substances online, with little or no knowledge of who they are selling to. The Home Office estimates that the industry has an annual turnover of £82 million. Overall, the UK has the largest new psychoactive substances market in Europe.
As the Minister stated, drugs have traditionally been controlled in the UK through the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, under which the Home Secretary has the power to put substances on a banned list, so long as he or she has consulted the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. Since the middle of the previous decade, that mechanism has been put under great strain by the explosive growth of new psychoactive substances. We have managed to control some of them, but let us be under no illusion—that has not solved the problem.
The relatively easy process of creating new psychoactive substances means that these new drugs are appearing on the market all the time. In each of the past six years, more substances appeared on the market than was the case in the previous year. The Home Office and the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs cannot keep up because the traditional process of classifying the drugs, with its independent and objective process of assessing the overall harms of a particular substance, can be cumbersome. It is a game of whack-a-mole that the authorities are hard pressed to win. In 2011, the Government tried to deal with the problem by introducing temporary class drug orders. TCDOs allow the Government to ban the production and sale of new psychoactive substances while the ACMD gathers more information on the risk and harm associated with those drugs.
There are problems with TCDOs. First, they are inherently reactive, and there is always a time gap between a drug coming on to the market and being subject to control. The second problem is that TCDOs last for only 12 months, which puts significant pressure on the ACMD to assess the harm caused by the drug quickly. Another approach taken by the Home Office under the Labour Government was to add generic groups, rather than specific compounds, to the list of controlled substances. Although this procedure has had some success in controlling new psychoactive substances, it is clear that we are dealing with an evolving problem that our current legal framework cannot get to grips with.
In December 2013, the Government appointed an expert panel that recommended that the most effective way to deal with new psychoactive substances would be to introduce a blanket ban on the supply, importation and exportation of any psychoactive substance that was not specifically controlled or exempted. This approach, as we have heard, is modelled on legislation passed in the Republic of Ireland in 2010. There were 102 head shops in Ireland at that time, according to the Irish police force, and they have now “virtually disappeared”. The expert panel was clear that the number of clients attending drug treatment services had declined: 368 people received treatment for problems in 2011 and that number fell to 220 in 2012. Although I accept that it is too early to make a long-term judgment on the success of the Irish model, it seems to have made a start at tackling the problem.
The Bill takes up the expert panel’s recommendation and makes it a criminal offence to produce, supply, import or export these drugs. I am not so naive as to think that we are going to shut down the industry altogether, even though that is what many people would want, but by more quickly containing production and supply upstream, we will hopefully reduce the harms to young people downstream.
Stephen Phillips
Does the hon. Lady share my concern, which we need to consider when we think about the Bill, that the closure of the head shops makes it possible that the entire trade will be driven underground, that it will link itself with the illegal drug trade, and that those who might at present go on to the high street or into a garage and purchase what they think are legal highs, which may be very dangerous for them, will end up using much more serious class A and class B drugs?
Lyn Brown
I accept what the hon. and learned Gentleman says, but one of the things I find particularly repulsive is that our young people see these head shops in front of them on the high street, and then think that the shops are legal and safe because if they were not, the police would have come along and nabbed them. I will answer him later because we do need to think about what happens with an underground market.
This Bill sends out a message to young people who are unaware that these substances are dangerous. Many of those that are sold in the shops are illegal now, let alone before we ban the lot of them. As I support the aims and general approach of the Bill, I want to ensure that it is drafted and implemented as effectively as possible, so I will press the Government on several issues and worries. I hope that the Minister will take my recommendations and concerns in the constructive manner in which they will be intended.
My first point is about education. The Bill is an appropriate way to try to tackle the supply of dangerous psychoactive substances, but we need to reduce demand. Unfortunately, there is a load of misinformation about psychoactive substances. Research by the Royal Society for Public Health found that a quarter of young people aged between 16 and 24 believed that so-called legal highs were safer than illegal drugs. This is a dangerous misunderstanding, because some of the new psychoactive substances have gone on to be controlled and designated as class A, indicating that they were some of the most harmful drugs around before they were controlled. Passing this legislation has the potential to put to bed the dangerous myth that psychoactive substances are safe, but the measure will do so only if it is supported by a concerted communication and education strategy.
The Labour Administration in Wales have shown us how that can be done by putting education at the forefront of their drug prevention strategy. There is now a core substance misuse education programme in 97% of Welsh primary and secondary schools to ensure that almost all Welsh schoolchildren receive accurate, consistent and credible information about the potential harms of drugs, rather than having to rely on myths and guesswork. Labour Members have consistently emphasised the role of PSHE—personal, social, health and economic education—in reducing drug use. I have voted to make PSHE compulsory in schools, and that needs to be considered again.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
This aspect did not go to the Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs and has therefore been put together without its advice. The use of illegal drugs has been going down not because of locking people up and criminalisation, but because of education. We all want these chemicals not to be used, but we must not overreact and not use education enough, because it is a key tool.
Lyn Brown
The hon. Lady is absolutely right; I completely and utterly agree. Education is the key to this. We need to reduce the demand for the supply.
Thus far, a mere £180,556 has been spent on education programmes on new psychoactive substances, as the Minister told the House in a written answer on 2 June. Sadly, the Government rejected Labour’s amendment to the Bill in the Lords which would have placed a statutory duty on the Secretary of State to increase public awareness and help schools to educate children about the dangers of these drugs. Let me say gently that that is a wholly inadequate response given that the Government themselves recognise that these drugs are a serious problem. If we want young people to have the resilience, the confidence and the knowledge to say no, we have to be fully committed to a comprehensive education programme across the UK.
The next area where the Minister needs to exercise care and caution is proportionality of sentencing. Under the Misuse of Drugs Act, sentences are linked to the harm caused by the drug possessed, supplied or produced—the more harmful the drug, the harsher the maximum sentence. Of course, there is judicial discretion in applying individual sentences, but the general approach of linking to relative harms is important.
The Bill represents a radical departure from previous attempts to control drugs, because it legally decouples controlled substances from an independent and objective assessment of the harm they cause. We understand why that may be appropriate. The process by which the ACMD determines the harm of a substance can be lengthy and resource intensive, which is precisely why the Home Office cannot keep up with the illicit market. It is difficult to introduce the concept of harm to the Bill without denying the Home Office the tools it needs to deal with that central problem.
It is because this Bill suggests such a radical change that we need carefully to consider the impact it will have when implemented. I am worried that we might end up in a situation where someone who is prosecuted for selling a weak psychoactive substance faces the possibility of the same seven-year custodial sentence as someone who sells a very dangerous substance. The Bill contains no classification system to differentiate between those two crimes. I fear that the proposed laws could lose the confidence of the public and the judicial system if the issue of proportionality is not looked at carefully. As the Minister will be aware, the issue has exercised the Home Affairs Committee.
I am particularly worried about the proportionality of sentencing for young people involved in social supply. It is not unusual for a number of young people to club together and for one person to buy substances off the internet and distribute them among friends, or even for one individual to sell a small amount to a friend. The Bill makes no distinction between those people and large-scale importers. We need to look at that.
Has the Minister considered providing credible measures for a relatively harmless substance to be excluded from the controls, if that is deemed appropriate? Conversely, if a new psychoactive substance proves to be particularly harmful, surely it should be removed from the scope of the Bill and controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act. Reviewing that may be an appropriate responsibility of the ACMD.
Another issue that needs careful consideration is how the police and prosecutors can both determine and prove that a substance is psychoactive. I am sure the Minister is aware that Professor Iverson, chair of the ACMD, has previously written to the Home Secretary warning her that we will have to rely on proxy measures of psychoactivity, such as in vitro neurochemical tests, in order to prove psychoactivity, but that they may not stand up in court.
We should take Professor Iversen’s warnings seriously. Although similar legislation in Ireland appears to have been broadly successful—given the statistics I quoted earlier—there have been only five successful prosecutions. Police in Ireland have admitted that that is because they find it difficult to prove the psychoactivity of substances. We want sellers to stop selling psychoactive substances voluntarily, and for consumers to stop purchasing the drugs. However, it is hard to imagine that that would work without any prosecutions at all. The law simply would not provide a credible deterrent.
Mike Penning
I raised this issue with the Minister in Ireland, where local authorities and others can use the powers they have been given without having to go all the way to the criminal courts. This Bill also gives extensive powers to local authorities. That addresses some of the hon. Lady’s concerns, but the Bill Committee will look at the issue in more depth.
Lyn Brown
I am grateful to the Minister for that assurance. If the ban pushes supply away from the high street and increases online sales, there will be a need for resources and to look at how technology and international co-operation can disrupt supply and delivery routes. Is the National Crime Agency going to take the lead on online sellers? Does the Minister have the information to hand? Perhaps he could inform us of the plans when he winds up the debate.
Paul Flynn
The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction in Lisbon has reported that the lifetime use of these substances in Ireland before the ban was 16%, but that four years after the ban it had increased to 22%. Is it not true that almost every drug ban has resulted in an increase in usage?
Lyn Brown
I have only been in this job for two weeks, but if I had been in it for a bit longer and the Public Bill Committee was not next week, I would have nipped over to Ireland to find out. My information is that the ban has closed down the head shops. The second piece of information from Ireland is that the number of people going to hospital with the effects of psychoactive drugs has also declined. I have managed to glean those two pieces of information from Ireland. I promise that I will do more research on Ireland before the Committee next week. Even if I am not allowed to go across to Ireland—can I go?—I will certainly have a look at that. [Interruption.]
Norman Lamb
I will not take that groan personally. To follow up on the intervention by the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn), the hon. Lady may be interested to know that in Poland, where the same approach is being applied, the number of poisonings—this is about damage to young people—has gone up dramatically since the ban came in from 562 cases in 2010 to 1,600 in the first 10 months of 2014. Does that not give her cause to pause in supporting the Bill?
Lyn Brown
I thought I had said that, but I obviously did not say it well enough. However, I thank my hon. Friend for his assistance.
I understand that the ACMD has offered to work with the Home Office to try to overcome the problem of needing to prove psychoactivity, and that the ACMD believes the issue can be resolved. I look forward to the Minister informing the House about what progress is being made on that issue so that we can be assured that the Bill has the teeth it needs. The definition of psychoactivity should be at the core of the Bill, so I am rather surprised that the Government felt able to move the Bill’s Second Reading without that point being resolved. The ACMD recently met the Home Secretary, and the House really needs some detail on how the discussions are progressing.
I want the Minister to consider monitoring and evaluation. I am pleased that the Government are now making a statutory commitment to review how well the Bill works. However, it is important that we are given more details of the intended scope of the review. We need to know that we are breaking up not just the legal market, but the overall supply chain as well. Ultimately, the ban may have the effect of reducing the number of users of NPSs, but of increasing the risk for those who continue to use them. It is clear that a wide-ranging and comprehensive review, backed up by thorough and better research, will be necessary.
I also want the Minister—he can see that I have a long list—to speak to his colleagues in the Ministry of Justice to see whether the impact on prisons can be given particular attention. I am sure that he was as alarmed as I was by the prisons and probation ombudsman’s report in July, which found that new psychoactive substances were a factor in the deaths of at least 19 prisoners between 2012 and 2014. The annual report of Her Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons was just as concerning. It found that NPS
“has had a severe impact and has led to debt and associated violence.”
That is a real problem for our prisons, and we need to know that it is being dealt with.
Stephen Phillips
A point that may not have occurred to the hon. Lady arises from the two points that she has put to the Minister—the impact on the MOJ’s budget of the difficulty of proving that something is a psychoactive substance within the meaning of clause 2. That issue will inevitably have to go to a jury, and will therefore require expert evidence on both the prosecution and the defence sides. Has she considered the potential financial effects on the legal aid budget if clause 2 is not amended?
Lyn Brown
I am clearly being far too subtle. I am not often accused of that. I talked about resources and clearly we understand that that will be an issue. I thank the hon. and learned Gentleman for drawing the point out and for being so succinct.
The Home Secretary has said that the Home Office is actively considering the point about prisons and intends to table an amendment in Committee. I hope that that is still the Government’s intention. I will examine any such amendment carefully.
Mike Penning
Perhaps I was a bit too subtle as well, because I think I said that we would do that.
Lyn Brown
In conclusion, the Opposition want the best possible Bill so that young people are not exposed to these dangerous, untested substances and so that we reduce the harm that they do. I want to work with the Government to ensure that that happens. That means looking seriously at the potential weaknesses in the Bill. We will stress throughout the legislative process and beyond that this problem cannot be tackled through law enforcement alone. We need to restrict supply and demand. That means looking once again at the state of drugs education in this country, alongside reducing the overall public health harms.
Several hon. Members rose—
Cannabis
Baroness Brown of Silvertown Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mrs Gillan. I start by thanking the Petitions Committee for scheduling this debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) for his measured and well-researched contribution. The e-petitions process is an invaluable addition to our democracy, as it ensures that we can directly respond to the interests of the British public. That can only be a good thing. The petition that sparked this debate was signed by 125,000 people in just four days. It is clear that there is a degree of public interest in the legal status of cannabis, and it is right that we carefully consider the issue. The debate’s quality has allowed us to do precisely that, although this is clearly not the end of the debate.
Since the late 1990s, cannabis use in Britain has significantly reduced, particularly among the young. According to Home Office statistics, nearly 30% of 16 to 24-year-olds had used cannabis in 1998. In 2014-15, it was a little over 16%, although the percentage had slightly increased over the previous two years from 13%. We are still on a positive trend, although it would be invaluable to understand what has driven the increase in the past two years. I wonder whether that is related to the cuts we have seen to youth services. It is also important to note that there has been an increase in synthetic cannabinoids.
As has been discussed, Portugal and other countries have chosen to decriminalise cannabis and other drugs. I know some would like to see us go down the same route in Britain. When considering lessons from Portugal, we should be clear that its drug policy is far from permissive. It removes criminal penalties for simple possession of small amounts, rather than having the wholesale decriminalisation of possession, supply and production offences. Those caught with drugs are summoned before a tribunal or dissuasion commission, which includes a psychiatrist and a social worker, who often mandate rehabilitation services or issue financial penalties. There is still a concerted effort by law enforcement, working in conjunction with the health service, to reduce drug use and in particular to control production and supply.
I am aware that Björn Hibell’s study of European drug trends shows that cannabis use is reducing among the Portuguese young. However, we must recognise that cannabis use is decreasing even faster among British youths, although from a higher base, and that there has been an increase in the use of cannabis and other decriminalised drugs among older groups in Portugal.
I understand that one reason why many may have signed the petition is that too many people, young and old, feel that they have had their lives blighted by a conviction for the possession of cannabis. A conviction may well prevent someone from getting a job while it is still on their record, and some professions—in law, accountancy and medicine—even require the disclosure of spent convictions. Our police have discretion over how to enforce the law against possession. In some areas, such as Durham, that means a force-wide policy of not charging people for possession, or even for growing their own plants. In other areas, individual police officers are allowed to make their own judgment, which includes charging people with a first offence and the possibility of a custodial sentence. We have de facto decriminalisation in some parts of the country and enforcement in others. This is an extraordinary postcode lottery. Given that a drug conviction has such a serious impact on a person’s life, this postcode lottery is simply unacceptable.
We should also recognise racial disparities. Black people, on average, use drugs less than white people, but are six times more likely to be stopped and searched for drugs. This inequity needs to stop, so I say gently to the Minister that what we lack at the moment is Government direction and leadership. If the debate does nothing more, I hope that it will flag up to the Minister that he might have some work to do to ensure the equity of law across the country and for all citizens.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newport West has consistently campaigned for the use of cannabis to be legalised for medicinal purposes, and he has made that case again today with characteristic eloquence and sincerity. I have enormous sympathy for anyone who seeks the most effective way to access pain relief. I do not doubt the reports made by those with multiple sclerosis and other illnesses that drugs can bring pain relief and improve muscle control. However, I do not believe that we need to legalise cannabis to have access to its medical benefits.
THC, the active ingredient in cannabis, is used as an ingredient in the drug Sativex, which we heard about earlier. It is already licensed in the UK—in Wales—to relieve the symptoms of MS and other medical conditions. We can and do benefit from THC without legalising forms of cannabis that are used recreationally. I understand that this is something that the Government’s drug advisers, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, support.
I am also aware that Sativex is not available on the NHS in England owing to the cost of the drug. Although that is ultimately a decision for NICE—I accept that—I ask that Ministers look at this again. Sativex is, after all, available on prescription in Wales, as I have said, and MS sufferers in England should not face greater pain and difficulty simply because they live on the wrong side of a border. Despite the medical benefits of THC, which can be accessed through Sativex, there remains real public concern about the negative impact that recreational cannabis has on health. I share many of those concerns. My main worry about the drug is its impact on mental health, as eloquently outlined by the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter). We know that regular users are more likely to develop psychotic illnesses, including schizophrenia. There is also a link between cannabis use and developing depression or anxiety, particularly among those who started smoking cannabis as adolescents.
Britain has some of the highest rates of mental illness in the world. The Mental Health Foundation and Mind tell us that one in four Britons suffers from a mental health problem over the course of each year. According to the Office for National Statistics, 15% of us will seriously contemplate suicide at some point in our lifetime. Given these mental health concerns, I think it would be irresponsible to support measures that may make the drug more readily available—something likely to occur if we legalise the drug.
As I understand it, Holland abandoned its model of completely ignoring personal possession due to the impact of the drug on mental health conditions. This is worrisome, especially given the potency of cannabis on our streets. According to the Home Office’s most recent potency study, intensively grown cannabis, which is the most common form of the drug in the UK, has on average a 15% THC concentration. Traditional cannabis, if there is such a thing, has just 9%. Strong strands of cannabis have all the more impact on minds. We also have the growing problem of synthetic cannabinoids.
In conclusion, I ask appropriate Ministers to look again at Sativex and the use of cannabis for those with particular physical conditions that can be alleviated by the drug. I believe the Minister should look at the postcode lottery of criminalisation due to cannabis possession and use, but I am not persuaded of the case for the legalisation of cannabis. In this place, we should always have mind to the impact of our actions on public health. Legalisation will not improve this. Legalisation has the potential to exacerbate the problems that we have with drug dependency and mental illness.
Mrs Cheryl Gillan (in the Chair)
Before I call the Minister, it may be helpful to tell you that I intend to call Mr Flynn, the proposer, at the end. He has indicated that he would like to speak.
Assisted Dying (No. 2) Bill
Baroness Brown of Silvertown Excerpts(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
I am afraid that I cannot support this Bill. My concern is that we will fundamentally change the way that our society thinks about and deals with the terminally ill, severely disabled people and the vulnerable, troubled and elderly.
My mum died suddenly and unexpectedly, riddled by cancer, but I know that my mum, faced with a terminal prognosis in a world where there was the possibility of state-assisted suicide, acceptable and accepted by society, would have tormented herself during her last months with the question of when she should ask for that button to be pressed. She would have worried about the stresses that my sister and I would have endured, she would have worried about the weight of her care being shouldered by the nurses and the doctors, and she would have been anxious that folk would think that she was consuming too many resources, selfishly staying alive, costing money, when she could and should just die.
My mum was not vulnerable. She was not alone or a depressive. She was dearly loved; and yet I know that the mere existence of legal and assisted suicide would have placed an enormous burden on her. But what of those without a loving family? What of those elderly people—let us face it, they do exist—with families more interested in the cost of care, and its impact on their dwindling inheritance, than the priceless gift of life? Would not some of my more vulnerable constituents think that they ought to take a course of action because it is available and despite the safeguards in the Bill, which I acknowledge have been carefully crafted? Can we be absolutely sure that they would not be pressured into it?
It is naive to believe that we can prevent an elderly, expensive or asset-rich relative being encouraged, coerced or emotionally blackmailed into taking their own life. And if just one person makes that decision to end their life as a result of such pressure, that would be a tragedy.
The Bill seeks to provide the right to assistance in dying only to those who are terminally ill. I believe supporters of the Bill have real integrity and do not intend its scope to be extended further. But if the Bill is passed, I believe that its scope will be extended, partly by case law, to apply to more people. Holland introduced assisted dying for the terminally ill in 2002. Initially, hardly any patients with psychiatric illnesses or dementia sought suicide. Now, just 13 years later, assisted suicide is sought and granted to elderly, lonely or bereaved people. Pressure for doctors to accede to requests comes from patients and relatives, as I believe it will here.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
The hon. Lady is talking about the consequences of giving the Bill a Second Reading. Will she address for a second, though, the consequences of not giving the Bill a Second Reading? Assisted suicide will be available; it will simply be available to those who have the means and the determination to go elsewhere. What does she think should happen for these people, and for those who are currently protected from prosecution by the DPP’s guidelines?
Lyn Brown
I am against this Bill because I worry that the mere existence of the process of assisted dying will make the vulnerable more vulnerable. It will change fundamentally the relationship between a patient and a doctor, and I oppose it most strenuously, because I think it will fundamentally, slowly but inexorably, change our society’s attitude to death and the dying, with a creeping invidious expectation that our elderly, infirm or disabled should take themselves out of the igloo of old, and die a dignified death, leaving the young, fit and able unencumbered by their burdensome, difficult, messy, expensive, pain-filled and challenging lives.
Life is precious. But the virtues in a society that set it apart as wholesome, decent and ethical are those which nurture and value that life. They are the qualities of tolerance, understanding, forbearance and, dare I say it, love, which are such precious commodities. They engender and sustain compassion and ensure a growing humanity, a more civilised society for the living, that shields and truly values life.
Police
Baroness Brown of Silvertown Excerpts(12 years, 2 months ago)
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Damian Green
Obviously there are a number of such proposals, and the most sensible thing I can say at this point is that the Government will soon publish their response to the Knight review on fire services. That will, I hope, put all this in perspective.
Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
I am fascinated to hear the Minister mention the Knight review because we thought it had been quietly shelved. Given that it has taken months and that the Minister seems to know more about it than we do, will he enlighten the House on when the Government might consider thinking about publishing their response to the Knight review?
Damian Green
I assure the hon. Lady that the response will be published shortly and I hope that that satisfies her.
Our vision is for policing to be digital by 2016 because technology has the potential to transform policing the way it has transformed many other areas of life. Hampshire police already use mobile data on a variety of devices to give officers a full digital experience through their work, and it found that it could demonstrate a 26% reduction in the time spent by officers in stations, and a 20% reduction in mileage covered by patrol vehicles. Again, we are using the police innovation fund to support mobile working and invest in mobile devices, data storage and transmission. Indeed, we found that digital working can increase efficiency, even in forces that are not geographically next to each other. For example, Northamptonshire and Cheshire have united to create a joint shared service, providing 24-hour human resources advice, uniform ordering, and admin functions. I am delighted that 32 forces have now agreed to become digital pathfinders, because the thought that we can transform policing through the use of technology is spreading throughout the police service.
At a time when public spending has been under severe pressure, this adds up to the most significant reform of the police in a generation. It has already led to more effective and efficient policing, which delivers value for money for the taxpayer and ensures that significant falls in overall crime continue year on year.
Of course the challenge does not end there. We need to make further cuts to public spending and the police must play their part, despite the protections that we have been able to provide. Importantly, we are taking a long-term view on police funding. Last year, we announced that the Government would undertake a fundamental review of the formula used to allocate funding between police force areas. That complex process will take time, but the first phase of the work—an internal analytical review—is already under way, and we will consult a full range of partners, both inside the police and the PCCs, at the appropriate point as the work develops.
I recognise that the funding settlement will create further challenges for PCCs and forces, but it will also bring opportunities, particularly for those prepared to innovate, collaborate and transform, drive efficiencies and deliver even better policing across England and Wales. I commend the motion to the House.
Legal Aid Reform
Baroness Brown of Silvertown Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
Rightly, a lot of attention has been given to the changes to legal aid for criminal law and the removal of choice of solicitor, and those are serious matters, but I will focus on the cuts to legal aid for judicial review. I do not speak as a legal expert—I am not a solicitor or a barrister—but I will illustrate how judicial review has worked in the past and how the proposed changes will militate against good outcomes.
A 12-year-old boy was excluded from school and his local authority placed him in the pupil referral unit. After a couple of days he stopped going, because the PRU was in an area where a different gang was based and he was scared. For two years, the boy received no education: the local authority occasionally organised meetings with the family and occasionally threatened to take his mother to court. Understandably, she wanted her son to be educated, but she understood his fears.
A local charity recommended a solicitor, who made repeated attempts to resolve the problem with the local authority. They were ignored. Eventually, the mother issued judicial review proceedings. They were ignored. An order was made for the matter to be expedited, with a date for the authority to set out what it steps it was taking to provide the boy with an education. That order finally galvanised the authority into action to avoid judicial review. A package was worked out, with good will, between the council, the PRU and the local college—a right and welcome outcome. Under the Government’s proposals, the case would not have received legal aid, as it was settled before the permission stage.
There are other cases that illustrate my worries about the future, such as the woman receiving treatment for cancer who was evicted because the landlord wanted to sell the property unoccupied. She would no longer be able to challenge the council’s decision not to provide her with emergency accommodation. A 16-year-old girl fleeing the physical abuse of her alcoholic mother and stepfather was living on the streets until the threat of judicial review convinced the council to find her accommodation. Shelter, which represented the girl, would not have been paid for the case because the local authority acted after it was threatened but before the case got to court.
What do those case studies tell us? They tell us that under the new regime, lawyers are unlikely to take on a case where there is a likelihood that it will be settled before permission stage, as they will not be paid. Perversely, the strongest cases will not be funded and taken up. People on low incomes will have much less chance of getting access to judicial review and to justice. We are told that cases such as the ones I have described are less likely to have a good outcome. The young man whose case I described is now enjoying learning and, hopefully, he will grow up to have a decent job and contribute positively to society. Imagine what might have happened if that intervention had not occurred early enough.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that when changes are so far reaching, there really ought to be some sort of pilot scheme and evaluation before anyone takes any steps any further to try to implement any changes of this nature?
Lyn Brown
I absolutely agree. In the examples I gave, if the outcomes that were, in effect, negotiated before the cases got to court had not been achieved, the costs of the alternatives in terms of alienation, unemployment, ill-health, petty crime and worse, replicated across the country, would far outweigh the £1 million that I understand the change is designed to save. How much more would it cost us to keep that young man in the criminal justice system and to replicate that across the country?
Lyn Brown
No, I will not.
Even if we were to save £1 million, would that be worth the cost of losing the ability to change the lives of people like those in my examples? People must be able to hold power to account, and I fear that the proposals are a serious attack on the right of the most vulnerable in our society to do just that.
Metropolitan Police Service
Baroness Brown of Silvertown Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
I am grateful to Mr Speaker for allowing this debate. It is right to begin by saying that we in the House owe a continuing debt of gratitude to the men and women of the Metropolitan police. They are, in general, superb public servants, doing a very difficult and very important job extremely well.
The Met was rightly praised for its work during the Olympics and the diamond jubilee last year, but its less high-profile work—the bread and butter of policing work, through its contribution to keeping our communities safe, pursuing criminals and supporting victims—remains fundamental, and the overwhelming majority of its officers do that with considerable skill and dedication.
Nevertheless, the future of policing in London is under scrutiny, and with good reason. Under the stewardship of the Mayor of London and the Conservative party, the Metropolitan police have already seen a drop of more than 4,000 uniformed police—police constables and police community support officers—on London’s streets since the general election, a period in which all Members will acknowledge that there were major riots and growing concern about gang violence. To take just one borough—my own borough of Harrow—we lost 100 PCs and PCSOs, a cut in front-line uniformed police officers of 19%, which is one of the biggest cuts. A cut of almost 20% in the Government’s grant to the Metropolitan police, which was supported by the Mayor and Conservative Members, is the driving factor behind the cuts to police funding that are now being debated across London.
Using a choice of statistics that the characters in “The Thick of It” would have been proud of, the Mayor’s plan promises more police recruitment. However, the truth is that there will be fewer police officers and fewer PCSOs by 2015, and that police officers are likely to be significantly less experienced than now. That drop in police numbers is noteworthy of itself, but comparing the number and percentage of crimes solved reveals that the Metropolitan police saw in 2011-12 a sharp drop in the number, and crucially in the percentage, of crimes being solved. In 2011-12, 22,600 fewer crimes were solved in London than in 2009-10, and the percentage of crimes solved dropped to 21.6%.
Those figures are perhaps not surprising when cuts to the number of prosecutors available to the Crown Prosecution Service in London are taken into account. It would be interesting to hear the Minister and the Mayor of London explain how they think that the number and percentage of crimes solved are likely to rise with fewer police and even fewer prosecutors.
According to the figures that the Mayor of London has published, two thirds of London boroughs will still have fewer police officers by the end of 2015 than they had at the time of the last general election. Estimates for the number of PCSOs per borough have not been published, but with further substantial cuts to PCSO recruitment—some 1,100 will be cut by 2015-16, according to the Greater London assembly’s police and crime committee—it looks as though every borough will have significantly fewer uniformed police officers in total patrolling their streets by 2015 than they did in 2010.
Some people think that PCSOs are an expensive waste of time. I am not one of them, certainly not after I saw the difference that two PCSOs made to stopping trouble outside the gates of one of my major secondary schools. The head teacher said that he and members of his senior team went from being called out to deal with an incident at school closing time four afternoons out of every five to just twice in three months, after PCSOs were stationed outside those gates for the 30 minutes from the end of lessons. So PCSOs do a vital job, offering a direct reassuring presence to the public, helping to build the confidence that is necessary to gain intelligence, and—crucially—supporting the victims of crime.
Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
I echo what my hon. Friend is saying about PCSOs. In Newham, PCSOs have certainly been valuable when incidents have occurred that could possibly have heightened community tensions, particularly around the time of the riots and shortly afterwards. Being without PCSOs would be a real problem for us.
Mr Thomas
My hon. Friend makes a very good point based on her own constituency experience. I suspect that, as I do, she feels that the cut in the number of PCSOs is noticed in her borough, as it certainly is in mine, and I suspect that it is also felt more widely across London.
By comparison with 2010, when Members last faced the people to ask for their support, there will be considerably fewer sergeants in London by 2015. Some estimates suggest that 1,300 sergeants will be axed. Inspectors and chief inspectors are also going, and superintendents’ numbers are likewise being cut. In short, the positions occupied by experienced police officers are being axed. The Mayor’s plan describes those positions as “supervisory grades”. In truth, those roles, and crucially the experience and skill mix of the senior staff occupying them, are fundamental to the effective pursuit of the criminal, the passage of the accused through the legal process and the sensitive support of the victim.
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
Thank you for allowing me to speak, Mr Streeter. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas) for securing this timely debate. We all know that for London to remain one of the best cities in the world it must also be one of the safest. London has been well served in that respect.
The Metropolitan police, although no stranger to controversies or mistakes—my hon. Friend has mentioned some high-profile concerns—is one of the best police services in the world, considering the challenges that it faces. Given the sheer expanse of the city and the ever-present concern about terrorism, the need to forge links across all communities is an important hurdle that the Met overcomes. We would all want to give great thanks to the men and women who serve in our areas.
That is all testament to the previous Labour Mayor, who invested in our police service and in policing technology; it is a testament to the previous Labour Government, who revolutionised neighbourhood policing. The resulting model for the Met that the previous Mayor and Government bequeathed to their current Tory masters was defined by three principles. The first principle was strength in numbers. The number of officers available to the Metropolitan police broke the 33,000 barrier, complemented by 4,000 police community support officers and 4,000 special constables.
The second principle is a relentless focus on the local and the very local. Community relations were forged on the ground, not just over the airwaves. New sergeants and their teams were embedded in neighbourhoods and communities, ensuring that they knew not only the faces of people serving the community, but their first names and addresses.
The third principle was an inescapable presence. The Metropolitan police had a permanent and visible presence in every neighbourhood in the capital. Whether it was an expensive or expansive police station or a local shop front, Londoners knew where to find their police on the high street, and residents and businesses felt safer for that.
As my hon. Friend has outlined so well, that model is now under threat. Those pillars are slowly being kicked away by the swingeing axe that this Government and their Mayor have taken to budgets. Where they have not entirely demolished community faith in policing—I shall come to concerns in Tottenham shortly—they have found a deputy Mayor who has not been present at all in the communities that he is supposed to be serving.
We have already lost 1,500 police officers and 2,000 PCSOs since the spending review. The safer neighbourhoods teams have been decimated, and a quarter of sergeants have been cut. Just last month, we found out that the Mayor has ordered the effective withdrawal of the police from our high streets. Sixty-five police stations are proposed to be closed, and the hours of more than 30 others are being downgraded. Of particular concern to me and my constituents is the fate of Tottenham police stations.
Lyn Brown
I am sorry to interrupt my right hon. Friend’s flow about Tottenham, but may I tell him that Newham faces the same problem? Almost half of our police stations are going, and so is the police station in Stratford, which, as hon. Members may recognise, is a place of major growth and regeneration. How can someone possibly think that that is a reasonable police station to close?
Mr Lammy
My hon. Friend makes her point well. She will appreciate that constituents such as ours in Newham and Tottenham fear the closure of police stations and the hours that police stations might now be open. Concerns in complex, multicultural areas must command the Mayor’s attention, and a present deputy Mayor is needed to answer them urgently.
Oral Answers to Questions
Baroness Brown of Silvertown Excerpts(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
I wonder whether the Minister has had time to reflect on passing the responsibilities for library development to the Arts Council and whether he now regrets not using the money instead to create a perfectly formed, small library development agency.
Church of England (Women Bishops)
Baroness Brown of Silvertown Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) for leading the debate so well and to the Backbench Business Committee for choosing it.
I will declare my interests. I was baptised into the Church of England and confirmed into the Church in Wales—the latter makes me much more comfortable, because I support disestablishment. I am chair of a Church primary school, nominated by my diocese, Southwark, a trustee of a Church secondary school in my constituency and a member of the Ecclesiastical Committee in Parliament.
Like everybody who spoke immediately after the Synod’s decision, I despaired at the folly of the Church of England in making a huge public mistake. After so long, everybody was clear about the view of the Church as a whole. We have heard that 42 of the 44 dioceses are in favour of women bishops, and we have heard the view of the leadership, including Archbishop Rowan Williams, who did everything he could to ensure that the change was delivered during his time as Archbishop, for which we thank him.
I come from the evangelical tradition, and many evangelicals support the ordination of women as both priests and bishops. The situation is not one category in favour and another against. In the church to which I belong, St James in Bermondsey, which would be classed as an evangelical church, I do not think there is a single person who does not support the ordination of women as bishops.
Evangelicals look back to the scriptures, as does everybody else who gets involved in this argument. Although I understand why people have come to the view that they cannot accept that there can be women priests or bishops, that has very little biblical foundation. Nothing in my New Testament says that Christ set up a structure by saying, “You will have churches, and you will have deacons, priests and bishops, and they will all be men.” I may have missed something, but I have read the whole New Testament at one stage or another and there is nothing that says that. Although a tradition of having men has built up, some of the early leaders of the Church right from the beginning, when Christ was executed and rose again, were women. Indeed, in the early days some Churches had women bishops, for heaven’s sake. I do not understand why we are having to revisit this issue after so long.
Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
I find myself agreeing with the right hon. Gentleman. It has always surprised me that women seemed to have a good, established position in the early Church, right up until it was legalised and then became the state religion of Rome. That leads me to feel that we should overturn the centuries of discrimination against women in the Church, possibly by disestablishing it. Maybe, once it is disestablished, it will be able to see a proper route to incorporating women as a proper and fundamental part of the Christian family.
Simon Hughes
The hon. Lady and I are on the same wavelength on that. I understand the arguments for establishment, but I believe that a radical Church should not be part of the establishment. We should be outside the establishment campaigning for Christian values, but we have ended up being in the establishment by accident. That is a debate for another time, and we will not resolve it today.
One paradox is that the established Church of England has decided not to have women bishops when the head of the Church of England, the supreme governor, is a woman. The whole thing is inconsistent. There is another anomaly in the argument that, because of the relatively recent history of the Church, only men can be priests, and that people want to be under the pastoral responsibility of a male bishop. The Church has provided that option in relation to priests, and it works. Now it has come up with a similar proposal for those who want a male bishop. It seems to me that if the first worked, the second is likely to work. I ask people to be generous and less suspicious and untrusting. It is understood that some people have a different view, and everybody has tried hugely hard to accommodate it.
Mr Cox
I will come to my hon. Friend’s question. He cannot complain, and he certainly, in a genial and bluff manner, should not, as the Second Church Estates Commissioner, kick the Church into adopting a view that he represents when, in fact, the constitutional majority was not reached. That is the rule by which the Church agreed that the decision should be made. To begin to bully the Church into taking action to follow his convictions is wrong and unrepresentative of the Church as a whole.
To come to my hon. Friend’s question, first, the code that is supposed to exist was never written. How on earth can we vote something through, expecting protective measures to be written in future? Why did the Church not create the code, in draft at least, so that members such as me would be able to read it? It was not written. Secondly, there is an existing protection for Church councils to be consulted, including councils that have taken the view that they ought to be excluded from the jurisdiction in which women priests celebrate the Eucharist. The priest must consult the Church council before an invitation is extended to a woman to celebrate the Eucharist. That protection is to be removed under the current provision. How can we expect those on the other side, already feeling bruised as a minority and feeling that the Church does not necessarily want them—that may be the case, but it is certainly not the publicly professed view of the Church—to have confidence in Measures that are not written and which remove existing protections?
My hon. Friend asked for another example. As I understand it, if a Church council writes a letter of request asking to be excluded from the dominion of a particular bishop, a priest is able to veto that request. That does not give confidence to those parishes where a majority feel that they do not wish to be ministered to by a woman bishop. It cannot give confidence that they will be able to live according to their consciences.
I have given my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury three examples, and I hope that he will deal with them. First, the code was never written, so one is asked to accept a series of protective measures that have not even been given proper detail. Secondly, an existing protection is removed—these are only examples—and thirdly, the priest in charge can veto the Church council’s view on the dominion of the female bishop.
I say again that I have no wish to engage in expressing divisive or entrenched views. I accept that women bishops will come. As for my doubts on this score, perhaps I will find that I am wrong when I see the good that they do and the astonishing devotion of some that I know. I hope that I am wrong. I am willing to be wrong, and willing to accept that I am. I profoundly hope that others of my persuasion will come round to the idea, and that the Church’s unity can be maintained. I simply ask my hon. Friend for some patience. I know that he and others have been patient for a long time.
Mr Cox
Yes, I know, but we are talking about a minority. The change will come; I ask only for a little further patience, so that we can get the settlement right, and so that those thousands of people who are, as I am, in a state of uncertainty and doubt, can be brought along.
I ask hon. Members to contemplate what it must mean for a member of the Church, who is brought up to it, celebrates it daily, and loves it as so many thousands of us do, to feel that the Church is leaving us behind, and moving away from us. I know that there are hon. Members who disagree and do not feel like that, but others do. Imagine how it must feel. We are wrestling to come to the conviction that other Members have reached. [Interruption.] I can only say to the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown), who is commenting from a sedentary position, that I feel that I have already exposed far too much of my personal convictions, and have probably trespassed on her patience, but I did so because I believed, having listened to the debate, that this particular voice and body of opinion has not been represented in the House. I realised when I stood that what I said would not be popular, and would attract mirth, perhaps mockery; that some might be impatient with it; and that those on the other side of the debate have waited a long time.
I only ask that Members see the other point of view, and that the Church be allowed to reach this decision in its own time. I agree with the right hon. Member for Exeter that sincerity is necessary on both sides, and that the majority have come a long way in order to satisfy the concerns of the minority, but I ask for an extra effort. I ask for compassion. I ask for Christian patience.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
I begin by congratulating my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) on securing the agreement of the Backbench Business Committee to holding this exceptionally important debate.
I thought it would be appropriate to wear purple in this debate. I joined the Movement for the Ordination of Women 30 years ago and I found November’s Synod decision worse than disappointing. It is totally disgraceful that the whole of my adult life has seen this endless struggle over the position of women in the Church of England. I feel deeply sorry for women clergy up and down the country. In my own constituency I think of Jane Grieve, Brenda Jones, Linda Gough—fabulous women doing fabulous work. Even if they are not called to be bishops, the decision is demeaning and demoralising. Furthermore, as other hon. Members have said, women play a huge role in most parishes among the laity. I am sure women are the majority of the laity in the Church of England.
However, my greatest concern is for the mission of the Church. This country faces many challenges where the Church’s unique voice needs to be heard—how to bind fractured communities, how to address alienation and the inexorable rise of consumerism, and how to protect the natural environment. Who will listen to a Church when it behaves as Synod behaved last month? How much more time and energy must we spend on this question?
We have all heard from many members of the public and members of the Church in recent weeks. Some of those who are opposed seem to believe that Members of Parliament are, by and large, in favour of consecrating women bishops because they see it as a justice issue, rather than a theological issue. Of course, some of the people who are opposed to women bishops think this will give the Church a new lease of life, and that is the last thing they want, but that is not, by and large, the view that we have heard.
On the concerns about theological issues, the views were very well represented by the hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox). In the light of what he said, it is clear that we need to go right back to the beginning of the argument. Genesis 1 verse 27 says:
“So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them”,
and the passage goes on to say:
“Be fruitful and multiply”.
The notes in my Bible, which is the New Revised Standard Version—an ecumenical Bible recognised for use by the Protestants, the Catholics and the eastern Orthodox—say:
“Together men and women share the task of being God’s stewards on earth.”
I would like to remind the hon. and learned Gentleman how the passage ends:
“God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.”
Now let me whizz forward 3,000 years to the New Testament. I take my understanding from the much maligned and misunderstood St Paul, who wrote in one of his letters to the Corinthians that in Christ there is neither male nor female but all are one in the spirit.
Since when, I ask those who are opposed to the consecration of women as bishops, has justice not been a theological issue? The justice tradition is the glory of the Old Testament, and in the New Testament we see it radically re-envisioned. Let us take, for example, the beatitudes, the roles given to the three Marys, the Magnificat—
“he hath regarded the lowliness of his handmaiden . . . scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts . . . exalted the humble and meek.”
Lyn Brown
I do not know whether my hon. Friend is going to get to John, chapter 4, in which Jesus reveals himself for the first time to the Samaritan woman. It is not to a man, or to one of the 12 nominated disciples, but to someone who was possibly the lowest of the low, a Samaritan and a woman to boot. For me, that speaks volumes about the equality of the New Testament message.
Helen Goodman
My hon. Friend gives another excellent example from the New Testament.
The legislation in Synod foundered on the adequacy or otherwise of the guarantees offered to those opposed to change. I cannot accept their self-description as a vulnerable and oppressed minority. In modern Britain, people have a choice about whether to stay or go. They do not face being burnt at the stake. If they are excluded, it is self-exclusion. There has been so much fence-sitting in the Church to keep a minority on board that the fence is now collapsing under the weight.
I also know that many people believe that it is extremely important to maintain the historic coalition of the Elizabethan settlement. I remind the House what Richard Hooker, one of the great theologians of that era, did and said. His argument was essentially that it was not about keeping everyone happy in the short term, but about having a coherent polity and coherent Church governance. That seems to me to be absolutely relevant to the position we find ourselves in today. All these exceptions, constraints, conditions and flying bishops are making the situation excessively complex. It would be impossible to know where authority lies in the Church or to give a clear picture of our theological view of the role of men and the role of women.
Hooker also said—I think it is relevant—that because things were ordained by God does not necessarily mean that they were ordained for all time. He felt that we should use our God-given reason to tell which points of scripture had what kind of authority. When the old way, which might have been right in its own time, might be wrong now, he said there was “some new-grown occasion”. I believe that we are now in a new-grown occasion. Of course growth can be painful—we all know that from personal experience—but it is also essential.
By far the best outcome would be for the Church itself to resolve the issue quickly. I know that Bishop Justin wants to address it straightaway, and I endorse everything my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) said about his capacities. It is right that the Church should resolve the issue itself, but if it cannot, that will inevitably raise profound questions about the established Church’s relationship with the state. I will put it simply. What do we want? Women bishops. When do we want them? Now.
Family Justice (Transparency, Accountability and Cost of Living) Bill
Baroness Brown of Silvertown Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Dr Lee
Yes, that warrants consideration and has merit. I shall relate two instances that I recall. One was when I saw a 10-year-old child who presented having been self-harming—let us think about the idea of a 10-year-old child constantly using a razor blade on his wrist—and the other was when I examined an eight-year-old child, as I recall, and had to keep noting down evidence of cigarette burns. Both children had been in the care of their biological parents, I recall. It is all very well looking at evidence in the literature, but when one actually meets the child—when one looks at the child’s face and into their eyes—and encounters such evidence first hand, it is a genuinely heart-rending and extremely difficult thing to deal with. Indeed, I had some difficulty containing my anger at some points.
Moving on, as I said, I want to talk about parts 1 and 3 of the Bill. I particularly want to discuss grandparents’ access to their grandchildren. I am sure that the House will be surprised to learn that I had a spare hour at the weekend, and that I chose to spend it watching an episode of “The Waltons”, the famous 1970s television series. Those who have had the pleasure of watching it will recall that the Walton family all lived under the same roof. The grandparents, the parents and the seven children all lived in the same home. Part of the programme’s charm comes from the sense that the family is taking care of the vulnerable—the very young and the very old.
I was listening to the “Today” programme this morning. It has been running a series of short reports on social care in different countries, and today’s contribution was from the United States of America. I was struck by a suggestion that there could be a return to a Waltons model, with grandparents living under the same roof as their children and grandchildren. I suspect that that will also happen in this country. Putting aside the debate over the need to be able to afford a big enough house to accommodate such an arrangement, I believe that that is the likely direction of travel, given the ageing of our society. That demographic and sociological change could lead to an increase in contact between grandchildren and their grandparents.
Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
Does the hon. Gentleman see, as I do, any irony in his talking about the Waltons’ rather large family living in rather desperate circumstances, working hard and doing their best, given the current proposals to cut benefits for families that have more than two children? What effect would that have on the impact on children that the Bill is trying to mitigate?
Dr Lee
I might be wrong, but I was not aware that any of the Walton family was receiving benefits. Indeed, I recall an episode in which Grandma was railing at an individual for coming into the village and suggesting that the state should take responsibility for the family. Grandma’s point was the family had that responsibility, not the state. I would encourage anyone who shares Grandma’s view of the world, because it is a more sustainable model for the future.
Returning to the Bill, I understand that grandparents do not at present have an automatic right to have contact with their grandchildren. The Library note informs me that they may apply to a court for leave to apply for a contact order, unless an exception to the requirement to obtain leave applies. Clause 2(4) of the Bill states:
“Grandparents shall be permitted to have reasonable direct and indirect contact with their grandchildren if the child so wishes without this contact being supervised unless it is not in the interest of the welfare of the child.”
That proposal has merit, and I support it. Grandparents up and down the country are experiencing difficulty in gaining access to their grandchildren—following the divorce of the grandchildren’s parents, for example—and that situation needs to be looked at. Grandparents have an important role to play in the upbringing of children—I believe that “The Waltons” provides evidence of that—and, in the increasingly atomised world in which we live, it is important that they should have that contact. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley is to be supported in progressing that proposal.
I also want to mention Criminal Records Bureau checks, another bête noire of mine. CRB checks are an example of the knee-jerk reactions to awful circumstances that Governments seem to have, rather like the banning of handguns post-Dunblane. Banning them did not mean that they no longer existed. I can think of a whole series of examples in which the Government thought that they could intervene to stop bad people existing and to stop other things occurring.
Working as a doctor, I have had personal experience of CRB checks. I tried to start working at Feltham young offenders institution, but it took me six months to get clearance to work there. It was an absolute disgrace.