Approved Premises (Substance Testing) Bill

Aaron Bell Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 29th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rob Butler]

That has been addressed recently through legislation to ensure that the appropriate Department can incorporate different types of psychoactive substances so that there does not need to be primary legislation on each and every occasion a new substance is named. It is very easy to tinker with one or two of the chemical elements, thereby taking them out of the scope of what is illegal and what is legal. Thankfully, that has been addressed, so it would apply to this proposed legislation as well, making sure that we were not always chasing our tails. I thank my hon. Friend for making that very important point.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for promoting this Bill. It is clear that he speaks with great authority on the matter. From reading the notes and listening to him speak, it seems to me that the danger is not just to the people taking the drug. In the case of prescription medicine, residents who are trying to go straight are being bullied by residents who are trying to get the drugs off them. Could he set out how the testing regime he envisages would protect people who are desperately trying to be rehabilitated, go straight and become productive members of society again?

[Rob Butler]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. That can indeed be a risk, although having had conversations this week with the staff and management of approved premises, I have been reassured to learn that, for the most part, the staff look after any prescription medicines and issue them to residents at the appropriate time. Therefore, there is a little less concern than one might have thought about residents obtaining those drugs from others through distinctly unhelpful ways such as bullying. In fact, the current concerns seem to be rather more as I have described them—namely, people from outside obtaining substances legally and then sharing them illicitly, or, indeed, substances being obtained from overseas via the internet. My hon. Friend raises an important point and I know that the management of approved premises in Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service are keen to tackle it. They believe that they have already taken serious steps through their regime of handing out medication.

Let me turn to the reasons why it is preferable to test via urine. It is very clear that this will enable a wider range of substances to come under a testing regime. It will also, importantly, extend the time period in which testing can identify drug use. That is because some drugs are detectable for only 12 to 24 hours when using oral fluid, whereas when using urine, drugs such as heroin are detectable for up to five days.

The second aspect of my Bill aims to ensure that the Government understand the prevalence and nature of substance abuse in approved premises. It would allow HMPPS to use resident samples to test for the prevalence of various substances on an anonymised basis.

Approved Premises (Substance Testing) Bill

Aaron Bell Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 21st January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rob Butler]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. She is absolutely right that drugs are never the answer, and we need to make sure we tackle the blight that they bring. Thames Valley police, which covers the area of Aylesbury, has a very interesting programme of diversion. Diversion for young people does not mean letting people off the hook, but it does sometimes mean steering them towards help, rather than necessarily taking them to court as a first step. That can sometimes be a very valuable part of the process of helping young people make the right decisions ultimately, and that feeds into the approach that staff in approved premises will take towards people who are tested, if this Bill becomes law. I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point, and I will build on it a little when we get to the specifics of how it applies to this Bill.

Based on the context I have set out, this legislation is very much needed. Sadly, in recent years the number of deaths among residents in approved premises has increased, and many of those deaths are believed to be related to drugs. As I have highlighted previously, it is an unfortunate fact that patterns of drug misuse both in custody and in the community are changing for the worse. In recent years, psychoactive substances have become much more prevalent in the illicit economy in approved premises—indeed, a recent questionnaire of staff in approved premises suggested that they are now the primary substance of choice.

Psychoactive substances can be especially dangerous, not least because of the unpredictability of their effect. In some cases they appear to have almost no effect and perhaps leave the user just dozing slightly, but it can be much worse and they can be left in a virtually catatonic state. In other cases the use of psychoactive substances can result in convulsions, vomiting, the temporary loss of vision or speech, reduced levels of consciousness and anxiety.

It is more concerning still that the use of psychoactive substances can provoke extreme, volatile or unpredictable behaviour that can often be violent. That poses a serious risk not only to the person who has taken the substance but to people nearby. Members may have seen a recent television documentary that showed prisoners in jail who were thought to have taken psychoactive substances and who behaved as though they were animals: they were literally on the floor, howling and fighting extremely aggressively. It was profoundly disturbing to watch such scenes.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on getting the Bill to this stage—and further, we hope, later today. He is right to raise the problem with psychoactive substances and the risk of people turning violent or aggressive. Is there not a risk of a domino effect? If people are on the mend and clean in approved premises but then go into an unstable environment, that is more likely to put them back on the path that we are trying to get them off.

[Rob Butler]

My hon. Friend gets to the nub of the challenge we face, and I glad he has highlighted it. I express my appreciation for his work with a similar Bill on substance testing in prisons that he stewarded through the previous Session, inspired by our former colleague, the much-missed former Member for Chesham and Amersham, Dame Cheryl Gillan, about whom I shall say a little more later. He picked up the mantle and speaks with great expertise in this policy area.

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[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

After what has been a difficult week for many of us, it is absolutely lovely to be here in the Chamber with so many colleagues, and so many Conservative colleagues, working together and doing important business in this place—scrutinising Bills and getting Bills passed. I briefly offer my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) on the successful passage of his Bill a half-hour or so ago. I fervently hope that in half an hour’s time, I will be offering the same congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler).

I congratulate my hon. Friend on everything that he has achieved with this Bill. From his declaration of interest, it is clear that he literally fits the bill in this instance, given his experience as a magistrate and with the Sentencing Council and everything that he talked about. I was pleased to be able to attend the Chamber and intervene on him on Second Reading. I was disappointed that I was unavailable for his Public Bill Committee, but I have read through the good debate that took place in that Committee as well.

As my hon. Friend said in his speech today, 80% of crime that involves cautions or convictions involves repeat offences. Anything that we can do to support rehabilitation, in both the criminal sense and the health sense, we should do, and approved premises, as he has rightly identified, are a huge part of that. They are of course undermined, as he said, if residents are accessing drugs—in particular, psychoactive substances such as Spice, or Skunk. As I said in my intervention, there is the problem of the domino effect: if drugs are in a place, it makes more people likely to use drugs because they realise that there is not a regime that takes that seriously, and it is more likely to put them in an unstable position that sends them back to the place they have come from.

As my hon. Friend said, the existing regime is now inadequate for the challenge that we face. His Bill is very much part of the answer to that. It is only part of the answer; Government investment and Government strategy are absolutely key on drugs, too. Therefore, I was glad that in Committee, the Policing Minister outlined the Government’s strategy and their investment into tackling the scourge of drugs, which he said is happening on three levels: first, trying to cut off the supply of drugs and preventing drugs getting into the country through tighter control of our borders and airports; and thirdly—I will come to his second point in a moment—there is a generational shift in the appropriateness of drugs. More teenagers probably took drugs when I was a teenager than now. We are winning the war on drugs. For a long time, it has been fashionable to say that we are not winning, but it is a winnable war. What my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury is doing today will be a huge part of that.

The Minister’s second point in Committee was that we are creating a world-class treatment and recovery system, which is germane to the Bill. There is also money going into tackling drugs. Good intentions and strategies need to be backed up by Government investment, and nearly £900 million of additional funding is being put in over the next three years, which brings the total up to £3 billion.

I will be brief, because I know that several hon. Members wish to speak. With that investment and the Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury, I am greatly reassured that the Government—unlike the Labour Mayor of London, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) said—are determined to tackle the scourge not just of drugs and the damage that they do to people’s health, but of crime that is associated with drugs that ruins other innocent people’s lives. Once again, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury on his efforts to get to this point and I look forward to voting for the Bill in the near future.

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[Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)]

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) for introducing the Bill. As others have said, it is a concise and precise piece of legislation which will hopefully give Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service and others associated with approved premises a broader understanding of the needs of people in such premises.

The prevalence of drugs is of great concern to all of us, as is the huge—indeed, worldwide—business that continues to promote it. In my own constituency, I am concerned about the pain that people must be going through to want to take drugs in order to remove themselves from real life, when there are so many valuable things we can do when we are fully focused on real life.

[Aaron Bell]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful and heartfelt speech. I know that, given her experience in her constituency and what she did before she came to the House, she is aware of the risk that drugs pose to young people; perhaps she could say a little about that. As I said in my own speech, I believe we are seeing a generational shift, and I think the Bill will be part of it.

[Lia Nici]

My hon. Friend has alluded to my career in education and working with young people, including children and teenagers. I believe that, thankfully, we are seeing a cultural shift as people start wanting to be healthier and live longer. The progress with vaccination in the last couple of years has shown that people want to lead healthier lives, and to be more careful about what they consume. We know that in criminal circles drugs provide a way of coercing and controlling people, especially young people, who, even if they are not starting to take the drugs, are delivering them. The clampdown on county lines is making a huge difference in towns such as Great Grimsby, where, at various communication and travel points, youngsters on bicycles can be seen meeting people with carrier bags or rucksacks.

I do not know whether my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury will be able to respond to this point, but obviously the biggest concern is that if people in residential approved premises are being tested regularly, presumably they are able to get hold of and take drugs while they are in such premises. Perhaps the Minister will be able to say whether it will be possible for that to be pinpointed in the Bill. It is not just a question of rehabilitating offenders, ex-offenders, or people going through the various stages of a sentence or post sentence; what about those who are clearly getting hold of illegal substances while they are in those premises? Will this or other legislation allow for us to find out what is happening with the supply and where it is coming from—whether it is coming from people who are visiting, whether people are going out into the community to get it, or whether, sadly, it is coming from people who are employed in the system?

Although this is a tight and concise piece of legislation, it is vital in our fight against drug use, and hopefully it will help us not only to rehabilitate people, but to pinpoint where those supplies are coming from.

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[Rob Butler]

With the leave of the House, I would like to thank all those who have assisted me in getting the Bill this far. First, though, I must apologise that in the heat of the moment, I inadvertently misled the House when I suggested that it was my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell) who stewarded the Prisons (Substance Testing) Act 2021 through the House on behalf of Dame Cheryl Gillan, when it was in fact my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden). I cannot think how I possibly mistook the two; I leave that to others.

[Aaron Bell]

I thank my hon. Friend for his generous apology. I suspect that as my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham is five years younger than me, he may be getting an angry text from him, rather than me. [Laughter.] I understand that he has a similar problem with my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (James Wild): perhaps he could address that.

[Rob Butler]

I do indeed: it is my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk who is often angry, because he is, I think, 10 years younger than I. I will move on, but I beg the indulgence of the House and apologise profusely for inadvertently misleading the House and Members.

First, I thank the Ministers in the Ministry of Justice. My right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) has been alongside me throughout much of this process, but today, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) has picked up the mantle with her normal expertise on the brief. I am very grateful to her for stepping in today, and to both Ministers for their help, assistance and advice. I echo my hon. Friend’s words and extend my thanks to the Ministry of Justice civil servants whom she has just named. They have worked incredibly diligently on this Bill, devoting many hours of work to its progress, and have been a constant source of information, advice and—at times—just calm reassurance. I also thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, Mr Speaker, and the other Deputy Speakers for your guidance and for ensuring that there was always a firm hand on the tiller.

On the parliamentary side, my thanks go to the Chairman of the Bill Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid), and all the Members who served under his chairmanship. If I may beg the House’s indulgence, for his expert knowledge of procedure, his willingness to answer even the most basic questions, and his warm, reassuring approach to a new MP potentially overwhelmed by the complexities of legislation, I record especial thanks to the Clerk of Private Member’s Bills, who sits at the table today. This would not have been possible without him, so I am deeply grateful to Adam Mellows-Facer. If I have broken protocol by naming him, I apologise, but I hope that all will understand the circumstances of doing so.

I thank my Whip, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson). I also thank the Whip in charge of private Member’s Bills, my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) for her military-like precision and firm guidance, which right now extends to waving me to sit down. I will do so in 15 seconds after I finally, and most importantly, pay tribute to the staff working in approved premises, working alongside people at an incredibly sensitive moment in their lives. As the Minister has summed up so well, we owe a great deal of gratitude to them.