Ten-Year Drugs Strategy

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely spot on. A lot of people underestimate the impact that illicit drugs can have on not only their physical health, but, importantly, their mental health. I think all of us may have experience of meeting those who have perhaps taken too many drugs in their past and have seen the damage that that has done to their brains, as well as to their bodies. That is perhaps one of the education items that we need to include in our deterrence campaign.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

In 2016, in response to an HIV outbreak, Greater Glasgow and Clyde health board proposed a supervised drug consumption room—an overdose prevention room. The Home Office has sat on that request and blocked it for five years with absolutely no justification, while people in Glasgow, in my constituency, have died. When the Minister next comes to Glasgow, will he show the bravery that the Scottish Government’s Minister for Drug Policy has shown, come for a walk with me and tell me why people injecting in their groin in the snow tomorrow should support his drugs policy?

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Lady often vents her fury and anguish about the situation in Glasgow, which is appalling, on me. She rarely does it on our Scottish Government colleagues—

[Alison Thewliss]

Because they have listened!

[Kit Malthouse]

They, of course, have presided over the incidence of drug deaths in her city for many years now. Happily, they have made an investment in health just recently—just before the election in which they were standing to be re-elected as the Government. The hon. Lady can shout at me all she likes, but until she shouts at me and the Scottish Government, it will be hard to take her completely seriously.

Having said that, I believe that the strategy that we have put in place will have an impact in the hon. Lady’s constituency, not least because in the early part of 2019, as she will recall, it was enforcement efforts by the National Crime Agency in this country—in England—that intercepted 27 million street benzo tablets destined for Glasgow. That is the kind of impact that we can have on behalf of the whole United Kingdom.