Summer Adjournment

Debate between Bob Stewart and Stephen Phillips

Thursday 16th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

It is a great honour and privilege to follow the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) after such a powerful and eloquent maiden speech. I fear that she is going to have spend some of the next five years here teaching me how to pronounce all the names in her constituency. She stands in a long tradition, in that I think it took the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) at least five years before I started to get the name of his constituency right. I know that she will be a valued Member of the House, not only from that contribution, but from the fantastic work she has done in her constituency in her profession before she came into politics. On behalf of the whole House, I would like to congratulate her on such a fantastic speech.

These are, of course, the debates before the summer recess and I shall try not to detain the House for too long, but I hope I can be forgiven for making one observation about the procedure of the House. These debates previously took place in a way that permitted Ministers from across the whole of Government, by Department, to respond to the concerns of hon. Members that were raised before the long break and fell within their particular areas of ministerial responsibility. Although it is an enormous pleasure to see my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House on the Front Bench, and although he and the Deputy Leader of the House will take the concerns of the House back to each individual Department, the transition that we have made so that the Leader or Deputy Leader of the House now responds to this debate and individual Ministers do not do so is one that should be looked at by the Procedure Committee. It is, in my respectful observation, a change that does little to enable the concerns of Members to be brought to the forefront of Ministers.

I wish to detain the House briefly on two matters. The first of those is one that troubles me greatly, as my right hon. Friend knows. I have campaigned on it in the past and I intend to campaign on it in this Parliament: it is the effect of corruption across the world and what it means for the people of this country.

The House debated the matter recently in an Adjournment debate, and there have been other opportunities to raise it. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made it clear that this is an issue that must be tackled not only by this Government, but by the international community. It is a fact that very many of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people have their lives touched to a considerable degree, and not in a way that is good for them, by the corruption that is rife, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and the developing world. The effect of that is devastating for those who live in appalling conditions, as many do in the developing world, but it also has an effect on all of us in the United Kingdom, because while that corruption takes place, our security is threatened. It is the thing that drives economic migration to Europe and drives people to take the desperate measures to try to cross the Mediterranean to look for a better life in Europe, albeit illegally. It is also the thing that runs the risk of driving the terrorist threat not only in this country but in all the countries that are allied with us. It is therefore something that the Government are rightly focusing on in this Parliament.

I wish to hear not only that this matter is a priority for the Government—the Prime Minister has rightly said that it is—but more details on the anti-corruption seminar that the Prime Minister intends to run in this country next year for all UN nations and, indeed, what is intended to be achieved by that summit. Although we have a framework that is principally centred on the UN anti-corruption convention and to which many nations are signed up, it remains the fact that very little effort goes into monitoring and enforcement. As I have said, that is something that not only affects those in the developing world—some of the most vulnerable and poor people to whom we owe a moral responsibility—but threatens our security here.

[Bob Stewart]

I thank my hon. Friend, who is also a very good friend, for giving way. It has always struck me in so many nations in the world that, when the leader of a country takes up the reins of power, far too many of them believe that every single thing in that country belongs to them, which leads to the suffering of the people.

[Stephen Phillips]

As ever, my hon. Friend makes an excellent point. The trouble is that corruption permeates in many of these countries from the top to the bottom. The view that previously held sway in much of the developed world was that there was nothing that could be done about it, and that it was, if not a desirable thing, something that we had to put up with because there was no way of getting people to enter public service—given the rates of pay on offer to them—unless they could subsidise their income through corruption. I hope that that view has largely disappeared, but it is something that must be stamped on. We in the developed world need to take action and tackle this scourge of corruption throughout the developing world—and in the developed world where we see it as well—not just because it is our moral responsibility, but because it affects our own security. I hope that I will hear something on that matter from the Deputy Leader of the House.

I want to touch on a very far-flung corner of this land—perhaps not as far-flung as the constituencies of some of those on the Scottish National party Benches, although having talked to civil servants in Whitehall, I could be forgiven for holding the belief that they seem to think that the part of the country that I am about to come on to is even further away than Orkney and Shetland. I speak, of course, of God’s great county, Lincolnshire, in which my constituency lies, as well as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), who I see is in her place.

Contrary to popular belief in Whitehall and, dare I say it, among some Ministers not only in this Government but in Governments of the past, Lincolnshire does not lie somewhere in the North sea. It is only an hour and 20 minutes or so from King’s Cross station or perhaps two hours’ drive up the A1. It would be rather nice if we could see Ministers and, perhaps more importantly, civil servants occasionally taking the trip to Lincolnshire so that they could see for themselves not only what a wonderful county it is, but quite how much we are affected by some of the spending decisions made here in London. I have in mind two particular areas that I want to focus on.

The first of those is Lincolnshire police service, which is now the poorest funded police service in the country per capita. That is notwithstanding the fact that our population is as sparse in many ways as the population in some other areas of the United Kingdom, such as those in Scotland. The result of the underfunding of Lincolnshire police, which has been going on for decades, is that the police service in Lincolnshire is now stretched so thin that no further cuts can be made other than on the front line, and if that happens, the service received by people in Lincolnshire will be even worse than it is now.

The permanent secretary in the Home Department came to the Public Accounts Committee this week and I tackled him—quite feistily, it has to be said—on the past settlements which have been made in relation to police funding in Lincolnshire. He effectively admitted what we who live in the county have all known for far too long—that we have been on the receiving end of a very unfair funding formula which, thankfully, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice is now looking at. I hope we will get a new funding formula by the end of the year.

That discrimination, which is what it is, against the rural folk of Lincolnshire has been going on for far too long. What I would like to hear from the Deputy Leader of the House is something about the timetable for the introduction of the new funding formula, even if she has to write to me about it, so that I can go back to the police commissioner and the chief constable in Lincolnshire in due course and tell them precisely when we can expect the police service in Lincolnshire to be properly funded.

It is not, of course, just the police. My hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) raised as recently as this morning in Transport questions the gross underfunding of our road network, about which the House has heard from Members on all sides during this debate. That, too, needs to be tackled.

The other area on which I want to focus is local authority funding and, in particular, the funding of Lincolnshire County Council. As matters stand, Lincolnshire County Council is facing a 55% reduction in its grant funding over the next four years. That is, in effect, a £68 million reduction for one of the largest counties in the country with one of the most difficult areas to serve because of the sparsity of its population and the fact that we have ribbon development along many of our arterial and other roads. At the same time as that reduction, budget pressures will fall on the county council, which mean that in 2015-16 alone approximately £31 million will have to be found just to cover inflation and an increase in adult social costs.

The funding formula for local government, not just for Lincolnshire but for many rural counties, has been unfair for far too long. Many of us argue in this House year after year that rural English counties need more money, yet very little ever seems to change. I hope that as a result of this debate the Deputy Leader of the House will go back to colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government and make it clear that this inequity, which results in public services—which cost just as much to run in rural Lincolnshire as they do in rural Scotland—being underfunded, has to be brought to an end. Staffing numbers are already reducing, and many programmes that the county council has been running, including, for example, in relation to public health, which we all trumpet in this House, have already had to be cut. Our libraries budget has had to fall, to the great detriment of those who use them, and the same is true of children’s centres. The number of firemen on each fire engine has fallen from five to four, which I understand is the absolute minimum allowed by statute.

All these matters indicate that counties such as Lincolnshire—it is Lincolnshire that I am concentrating on, of course—have been at the thin end of the wedge for far too long. Far too much funding has gone into urban areas and perhaps, dare I say it, to the devolved regions. That has to be remedied. It has to be a task of this Government. It has to be something we tackle, as I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle would agree. Unless we tackle it, there will be a real problem with rural England continuing to feel that it is discriminated against at a time when more money is being ploughed into our towns and cities and to the devolved regions, and at a time when every single public service in Lincolnshire for which local authorities are responsible has been cut to the bone.

UK Drugs Policy

Debate between Bob Stewart and Stephen Phillips

Thursday 30th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Bob Stewart]

Forgive me, Madam Deputy Speaker, you are certainly not a criminal, but others may well be criminals if they take drugs or alcohol and put members of the public in danger as a consequence. They are criminals, but just taking a drug or drinking something does not make them criminals.

[Stephen Phillips]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. If we look at the difference between recreational drug usage and smoking, we will see that the harm is so much greater with smoking. For every 1,000 smokers who are admitted to hospital, 123 of them are suffering from health problems directly caused by smoking. If we look at 1,000 drug users who are admitted to hospital, only two of them are there because of the use of illegal drugs. We have at least one drug in this country—we could add alcohol to the list —that is far more dangerous than anything that anybody uses by way of recreational drugs or other illegal drugs. We must focus our attention on dealing with that as a health problem rather than as a criminal problem.

Let me come back to one of my opening propositions, which is that the war on drugs has been lost. A survey of the public earlier this year proves that that is not just my view. It is the view not just of the world leaders who used to hold office to whom my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate referred, but of 84% of people in this country. It is true that only 39%—up from 27% in 2008—of those in the same survey believed in the widespread decriminalisation of illegal substances. The likely reason for that is the hangover from the debate that we have not been having in this country for the past four decades. We have not had a national debate on this issue, which is why people have not turned their minds to the question of whether some form of liberalisation, some different approach, taking into account the detrimental health effects, is the right way forward.

As the hon. Member for Newport West said, what is the point of this war on drugs? If it is to prevent people from taking substances that may harm them, plainly it is not working. According to the most recent crime survey for England and Wales, 2.7% of adults had taken class A drugs in 1996 compared with 2.6% now—statistically not significant.

My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), who is no longer in her place, referred to the fact that there has been a seeming reduction in cannabis usage among young people. There are many reasons for that, one of which might be the tougher line that has been taken on cannabis by the Government, which has driven people into using so-called legal highs, on which the Minister has today published his report.

If we talked to criminal justice professionals—judges, the police and probation officers—we would learn that they do not support the war on drugs. It is a war that has been lost. If we acknowledged that fact and looked at the experience of Portugal and the other jurisdictions that have liberalised their drug regimes and taken away criminal penalties for small amounts of possession, we would free up enormous resources for the police. More importantly, we would free up enormous financial resources for the treatment of those who are addicted to these substances. Therefore, I venture to suggest that I am correct in my first proposition—I think the Minister will agree with me—that the war on drugs has been lost and that we must look very carefully at a new policy.

My second proposition was that the health outcomes of existing policy are at best poor. In fact, what also happens is that society is harmed by existing policy. We know that funding a drug habit is not a cheap business. It increases crime, particularly acquisitive crime. Drug dependency is therefore one of the drivers of crime in this country. Home Office figures for 2003-04 show that the annual cost of drug-related offending is £13.9 billion, £9.9 billion of which goes to the victims of crime. The other £4 billion of public money is being poured into the criminal justice system every year to deal with the issue. If that £4 billion were taken away from the criminal justice system and put into the health system to try to encourage better outcomes, we would not only get something better for those who use illegal substances and for society, but achieve a reduction in the total amount that has to be spent.

If existing policy is not deterring drug use and drug dependency, it is leading to crime, and that cannot be in anybody’s interests. A great deal of money is evidently being wasted, and it is money that, in these times of austerity, should not be wasted.

Let us turn now to the health of those who take illegal substances. By criminalising them, are we dealing adequately with them? Many young people who take drugs have no idea not only what they are taking, but what the effects might be. Those who are standing in a nightclub at 1o’clock in the morning having consumed, no doubt, a large amount of vodka are much more interested in getting the pill than they are in what is in the pill. What is in the pill is not always what people have been told. They might be told that it is MDMA when it is some other entactogen that has not been tested on humans. It may be rat poison, or it may even be harmless. Even if someone does know that the pill they are about to pop is ecstasy, there is no guarantee that they are aware of its potential effects. Although there are admirable websites such as Talk to Frank, not many young people necessarily go on them. Not everyone knows about the risks of these drugs or how to mitigate those risks. We know that from some of the tragic cases that we have seen in the past of users taking excessive amounts of drugs in clubs and elsewhere.

Let us consider those who inject their drugs, and look at the comparative treatment in other places, and the experience of the criminal justice system in Georgia. Georgia reduced its prison population from 24,000 to 10,000 by taking out of prison those who had been put there for possession of small amounts of drugs. The first result of that was a massive saving to the taxpayers who fund the Republic of Georgia. Much more importantly, there was an incredible improvement in the health of the prison population. Deaths in prison fell, and there was a significant reduction in the hepatitis C and HIV infection rates among the prison population. I am not sure whether that experience is included in the Minister’s report, but it is another strong indication that we are not doing this right and that if we focused on this as a health issue rather than as a criminal justice issue, we would serve our constituents and our society a great deal better.

Untrammelled use of drugs, especially recreational drugs, fuels disinhibition in those who take them, and that in itself leads to criminal behaviour. We know that that is a significant part of organised crime. The Association of Chief Police Officers has estimated that 50% of all organised crime in the UK involves illegal drugs, mostly class A drugs. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has said that drugs are the most profitable sector of organised international crime, with a total turnover of $2 trillion in 2009.

My third proposition is that other countries are doing this much better, and that is why the Minister’s views and the report that he and his predecessors, including my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate, have pushed for so hard, are so important. In the limited time available, I will deal only—