Draft Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) Order 2024

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2024 General Committees

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Hollobone. I apologise for my tardiness—as colleagues explained, I inadvertently got stuck in a lift trying to get to Committee today and I missed the beginning of the Minister’s statement.

I am pretty sceptical about these orders adding more dangerous drugs to the already quite long list of dangerous drugs and about the effect that will have. Adding drugs to a list certainly does not prevent or deter people from taking them. The analysis of the risk at paragraph 79 in the impact assessment from the Home Office states:

“The analysis does not consider any deterrence effect in which indivduals stop misusing the controlled drugs as a result of the intervention. This is not included due to a lack of evidence on the likelihood of a deterrence following drug control both across all controlled drugs and the specific drugs controlled in this legislation.”

I would be interested to hear from the Minister why he thinks that adding these drugs to the list will stop people taking drugs. The very nature of drugs is that they are quite moreish, and people tend to keep taking them. That is the history of the Misuse of Drugs Act.

I also reinforce the findings of the Home Affairs Committee report, which asked the Government, among other things, to look again at the Misuse of Drugs Act, which is a very outdated and largely ineffective piece of legislation. I very much agree with that point.

The hon. Member for Nottingham North mentioned the significance of naloxone in tackling opioids and in reversing the effects of opioid overdoses. That has been used to great effect in Scotland. It is carried by the police, and I and my office staff have been trained in how to administer it, not just the nasal form but the injectable one. It is available in Scotland for people to have training on. The Scottish drugs agencies help to make sure that people can get that training in the community, which is really important, given that drug addiction and overdoses are, sadly, still too prevalent. I would encourage all Members to take up the opportunity if it is available to them, because it is important to be able to make that intervention and to save lives where we can. I will not oppose the order, but I certainly remain sceptical about the effect that it will actually have.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison Thewliss]

On the point about synthetic opioids, many charities are concerned about the impact that the stymieing of the flow of drugs from Afghanistan may have on the development of synthetic opioids in Europe, because they do not need to be transported; they can be made right here. That is a risk factor should the supply of heroin into the UK be stopped as a result of the action taken in Afghanistan. What assessment has the Minister made of that risk?

[Chris Philp]

We have assessed the risk. We are aware of the new Taliban policy to ban opium production in Afghanistan and the consequent likely reduction in the heroin supply into western Europe and North America. It will take a while to filter through the supply chain—it will not have an immediate effect—but we are aware of the problem. The hon. Lady identifies one of the risks, which is why staying ahead of synthetic opioid importation through surveillance, border control and a zero-tolerance law enforcement approach is particularly important—more so than it would ordinarily be because of the substitution risk that she rightly refers to.

My right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings asked about the ACMD’s remit. The Home Office is able to commission the ACMD to look at various matters. Whenever a matter of concern arises, we commission ACMD to look at it, and monkey dust is an example of that. A number of colleagues, including my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) and for Newcastle-under-Lyme, raised that issue, and we commissioned the ACMD to take a look at it. We can take action whenever a new harmful illegal substance pops up.

The final question relates to treatment. Although members of the Committee will discern from my comments that I believe in having a strong—indeed, a zero-tolerance—approach to enforcement, treatment is also important. Naloxone should be used as routinely as possible because, as Members know, it combats the effect of opioid overdose. It is successful and effective at doing that, but treatment is also important for getting people off drugs. We have invested £532 million over three years in creating 55,000 extra treatment places, and we are tracking the uptake of those places. I am encouraging the police to refer addicted people into treatment in addition to prosecuting criminals, and I am encouraging the courts to do the same thing. A combination of strong enforcement and referrals to treatment can keep our society free from drugs, and today’s order is an important part, but only a part, of that fight.

Question put and agreed to.