Ten-Year Drugs Strategy

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, noble Lords will know that when you follow the Opposition Front Bench on a Statement you are concerned that you might have your thunder stolen, but as we are talking about drugs there was no danger of that today.

The Statement sets out the impact of the illegal drug trade on individuals, families, and the economy, and the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, has reinforced that. What assessment have the Government made of what the impact would be if there was a regulated market for cannabis, for example? What evidence is there from other parts of the world? Did the Minister see, for example, the documentary authored by the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, the former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Government often rely upon to support their position, where his conclusion from looking at how such a policy operates in the United States called for a feasibility study into how such an approach could be adopted in the UK? In particular, he noted the marginal impact on drug use and the positive impact on tax income, providing resources for community policing and drug rehabilitation programmes. Does the Minister think there could be similar benefits to the UK?

The Statement talks about “a blueprint for driving drugs out of our cities, towns and villages”, but the so-called war on drugs has failed to have any impact on the demand for and use of illegal drugs. There has been temporary success in taking out county lines, which are soon replaced by others, temporary success in arresting drug dealers, who are soon replaced by rivals, and temporary success in occasionally seizing large quantities of drugs, which are dwarfed by the huge quantities of drugs that get through to users, all of which demonstrate that these so-called victories are pyrrhic. The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, has already asked about what progress has been made on county lines. What evidence is there of a net reduction in county lines?

Does the Minister think the sight of the Prime Minister dressed as a police officer, as we saw on Monday, looking like Paddington Bear in fancy dress, is likely to strike terror into the hearts of drug dealers? “Tough enforcement action”, to quote the Statement—attempting to control the supply of drugs when demand for drugs continues to grow—is completely the wrong approach. It was the wrong approach at the time of prohibition in America in the 1920s and it is now. Does the Minister think that, instead of tough enforcement action, a similar approach to that taken with alcohol—a system of regulation and control to mitigate the harms caused—is what we need in relation to drugs other than alcohol?

We need to focus on demand. Behind the smokescreen of Paddington Bear against the drug dealers, there is some welcome news on that front in this Statement. Increased funding—in fact, the majority of the increase —is to support drug-dependent people to move from chronic use into recovery.

Dame Carol Black’s review called for an additional £552 million a year by year 5, on top of the baseline annual expenditure of £680 million from the public health grant, to provide a full range of high-quality drug treatment and recovery services. The Government are providing £530 million over three years—less than Carol Black was asking for in year 5 alone. In fact, Dame Carol asked for £119 million extra in year 1, £231 million extra in year 2 and £396 million extra in year 3, a total of £746 million, against the £530 million promised in the Statement. That £746 million can be achieved within the budget announced by the Government, but only if the majority of the £300 million the Government are putting into enforcement is diverted into treatment, where it would be far more effectively spent. Will the Government consider reallocating the budget even further in favour of treatment?

When the Labour Government moved cannabis from a class C to a class B controlled drug, with harsher penalties for possession and supply, there was no impact on cannabis use. Later, when the media covered the fact that excessive use of extremely strong, genetically modified cannabis, particularly by young people, could have serious health impacts on users, cannabis use declined. Does the Minister not agree that the evidence shows that a health-based approach, where demand is reduced by informing users of the danger and where the supply and strength of the drugs is controlled, is likely to be far more successful than continuing the failed and pointless war on drugs?

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords—oh, I am so sorry.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

I am looking forward to hearing from the noble Baroness; I think I know what she is going to say.

I will respond to the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Paddick. On the impact—the question of what the problem is—I think most people would agree that illegal drugs inflict some devastating effects on a quite horrifying scale. The cost to society is colossal, running to about £20 billion a year. There were almost 3,000 deaths relating to drug misuse in 2020. This represents two-thirds of registered drug poisoning deaths and accounts for 52.3 deaths per million people. Heroin-related deaths in England have more than doubled since 2012 and make up the largest proportion of drug misuse deaths at 45%.

In 2020 alone, referrals of children suspected to be victims of county lines—I will get on to that shortly—increased by 31%. Drugs drive nearly half of all homicides and a similar proportion of acquisitive crimes such as robbery, burglary and theft. More than 3 million adults reported using drugs in England and Wales in the last year, and more than one in three 15 year-olds report having ever taken drugs.

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, asked whether we had done an assessment on the impact of a regulated market for cannabis. I do not think we have. Our position on cannabis remains the same as the last time I spoke about this, but if I have anything new to add I will let him know.

On the additional three-year investment from April next year, the total is £900 million. There is a £300 million three-year Home Office investment, and we commit to making up to £145 million of funding available for county lines—as I said, I will get on to that in a second. There is £533 million—more than half a billion pounds—for DHSC to increase and improve treatment services, £120 million for MoJ for drug treatment and probation services, £68 million for DLUHC for treatment and support in England for those with a housing need, and £21 million for DWP to roll out individual employment support across all local authorities in England. As noble Lords can see, it is a cross-Whitehall effort—across six departments, in fact. The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, talked about co-ordinated programmes. He is absolutely right: if we are operating across six departments, we must certainly have a co-ordinated approach.

The noble Lord asked whether the statistic of 1,500 county lines being shut down means we have caught 1,500 criminals or just that 1,500 phone numbers have been taken out of circulation. In the last two years, our county lines programme has delivered more than 1,500 lines closed, more than 7,400 arrests, £4.3 million in cash and significant quantities of drugs seized, and more than 4,000 vulnerable people safeguarded. It means that 1,500 active county deal lines have been closed and found to remain out of use, which is good news. Through our programme we will continue to focus on arresting and charging the line holder and securing criminal justice outcomes to ensure that we put offenders behind bars. The National County Lines Coordination Centre determines that a line is closed when there is evidence that the controlling gang is no longer capable of distributing drugs using that telephone number, with check-backs to ensure that the telephone number remains out of use.

The noble Lord also asked me how we would measure ourselves and what progress looks like. By 2024 we expect the whole-of-government mission to have prevented nearly 1,000 deaths, reversing the upward trend in drug deaths for the first time in a decade. We expect it to have delivered a phased expansion of treatment capacity, with at least 54,500 new high-quality treatment places, which would be an increase of 20%, including 21,000 places for opiate and crack users, delivering 53% of opiate and crack users into treatment. We expect at least 7,500 more treatment places for people either sleeping rough or at immediate risk of sleeping rough, which would be a 33% increase on current numbers. We expect to provide a treatment place for every offender with an addiction, because the two are so often linked.

We also expect that this strategy will have contributed to the prevention of 750,000 crimes, including 140,000 neighbourhood crimes, through increases in drug treatment. We expect it to have closed over 2,000 more county lines through our relentless and robust action to break the model and bring down the gangs running these illegal lines, and to have delivered 6,400 major and moderate disruptions—that would be a 20% increase —against the activities of organised criminals, including arresting influential suppliers, targeting their finances and dismantling their supply chains. These are the ambitions on which we should be judged.

On the noble Lord’s point that we are simply reversing the cuts made since 2010, the strategy is underpinned by a record investment of nearly £900 million of additional funding over the three years, as I said, taking the total investment in combating drugs to £3 billion over the next three years. It sets out our landmark whole-of-government approach to tackling drug misuse, with more leading departments than ever before.

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, asked about county lines, on which we are already delivering real impact. In the past two years, our county lines programme has delivered more than 1,500 lines closed, as I told the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, with 7,400 arrests and £4.3 million in cash. The latest national co-ordination centre assessment of county lines shows a reduction in the total number of potentially active lines, an important point, with numbers reported to have fallen from between 800 and 1,000 in 2019-20 to 600 in 2021. There is more to be done on county lines programmes through this strategy. We will be investing up to £145 million to tackle the most violent and exploitative distribution model seen yet. We will continue funding the National County Lines Coordination Centre to provide that vital national strategic oversight. We will also focus on the largest exporter areas, alongside dedicated surge funding for local police forces to tackle county lines and grip the transport network through the dedicated British Transport Police’s county lines taskforce, invest in new technology including ANPR, and fund provision of specialist support for vulnerable children, young people and families involved in county lines activity.

We do not have plans for decriminalisation of drug possession generally. Our approach to drugs remains clear. We must prevent drug misuse in our communities and support people through treatment and recovery, which is one of the main planks of the strategy.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, in the absence of any evidence-based drug policies in this country, which would include heroin treatment centres linked to staffed consumption rooms to tackle very effectively polydrug use and heroin use, and in the absence of readily available medical cannabis to about 1 million people who need it—I could go on—can the Minister confirm that the small increase in funding for treatment envisaged in this strategy will not, even in the third year, fully compensate for the cuts in spending on treatment? Taking into account, as the Government tend not to do, the cuts to Home Office and probation service funding of treatment, as well as the funding from local authorities, can the Minister confirm that even in year 3, when the largest increase will come into play, we will not even get back to all those years ago, before the cuts began? As the Minister knows, Carol Black was prohibited from looking at any change in the law, and it is only with change in the law that one will achieve good evidence-based policies on drugs.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I think that the noble Baroness knows, even before asking the question, that we do not intend to change the law. However, I thought that she might be quite pleased by the focus of one of the pillars, which is treatment and support for drug users. She will also not be surprised to know that we do not have any plans to introduce drug consumption rooms. Anyone running them would be committing a range of offences including possession of a controlled drug and being concerned in the supply of a controlled drug. We support a range of evidence-based approaches to reduce the health-related harms of drug misuse, such as maintaining—oh, I cannot find the page in my notes, so I will get back to her on this in a second.