Psychoactive Substances Bill [Lords]

Debate between Crispin Blunt and David Burrowes

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Crispin Blunt]

I will be very brief, Madam Deputy Speaker.

It is a pleasure to follow the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee. I agree with nearly every part of his argument and I certainly agree with the conclusions of the Committee’s report. I commend every Member who took part in its deliberations. I want to leave enough time for my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) to speak, because he has been fighting a battle behind the scenes to ensure that this Bill does not do anything really daft.

Sometimes a measure is proposed that becomes personal to oneself and one realises that the Government are about to do something fantastically stupid. In such circumstances, one has a duty to speak up. I use poppers—I out myself as a popper user—and would be directly affected by the Bill. I am astonished by the proposal to ban them, as are very many other gay men. It simply serves to bring the whole law into disrepute. If this drug—which I use and which has, as the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown), said in her extremely good speech, been used for decades—is banned, respect for the law will fly out of the window.

All the effects warned about in paragraph 43 of the Home Affairs Committee’s report—in particular, the Gay Men’s Health Collective warns that a ban would result in increased class A and B drug use and increased transmission of sexually transmitted infections—will obviously happen. Driving the supply underground will simply put the trade in the hands of criminals.

[Mr Burrowes]

It is right to focus on supply, which is the focus of the Bill. It is important to give the clear message that the Bill will not ban use, but supply: it will not ban the continued personal use of poppers, but it will ban their supply.

The issues are complicated. There are controls on alkyl nitrites in that the sale of poppers to under-18s is caught by the Intoxicating Substances (Supply) Act 1985. There is a wider debate about whether that is a proportionate response for under-18s. However, there are already controls on supplying under-18s. We need to be aware that this is a complicated area of law, beyond the issues relating to psychoactive substances.

[Crispin Blunt]

I know that my hon. Friend has done a significant amount of work on this and that he, too, has been trying to use his influence in the right direction. He kindly sent me a message saying that he has been working to make sure that we do not do something really daft on this issue. He is, of course, loyal to Conservative Front Benchers, as am I—or I try to be—but we may differ on how to influence them. I will not be party to something that I know is, frankly, really foolish by voting for such a piece of public policy.

The issue is about supply. The policy might put someone like me into the hands of criminals if he wanted to get a supply of something that he used to think was perfectly okay. Under legislation that I think is absurd, someone like me—obviously not me, because I will, of course, respect the law of the land—might be so minded, and would then find himself in the hands of those who supply everything with which they might conceivably tempt people.

It is manifestly stupid to go down the path we are going down. Let us get the evidence; if the Government then come forward with a case that convinces the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee and his colleagues, we can then discuss the issue in due course. Please let us not have a ban.