Medicinal Cannabis

David Mundell Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I commend the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for bringing forward this debate on an important issue.

On the number of Members present, the Thursday afternoon slot in Westminster Hall is challenging because Members often have to return to their constituencies. For people outside who have an interest in this matter, it is very important to convey that there are a large number of Members on both sides of the House who are focused and interested in this subject. I am a member of the all-party parliamentary group for medical cannabis on or under prescription, which is chaired by the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi). I contributed—as did the hon. Member for Strangford and the Minister as the then Opposition spokesperson—to the last debate that took place on this in Westminster Hall.

The hon. Member for Strangford, as is often the case, delivered a tour de force on the issues and concerns, with the appropriate level of compassion and empathy for those who are caught up in this issue and affected by it. I do not want to overly dwell on the issues that he set out, because he did that very well.

Medical cannabis is demonstrably a cost-effective way to treat an array of conditions, including childhood epilepsy, to ease the impact of chemotherapy, or to alleviate the stiffness and spasms of multiple sclerosis. There is a strong body of evidence that it could be used for even more conditions, and the hon. Gentleman highlighted the continuing and ongoing need for trials.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

The right hon. Gentleman touches on something that piqued my interest in this subject 20 years ago, when my constituent the late Biz Ivol, who was a sufferer from multiple sclerosis, told me that the only relief she got from multiple sclerosis was by her own—shall we say—non-prescribed use of cannabis. She described multiple sclerosis to me as being not just stiffness and spasms, but like somebody was pulling barbed wire down inside her spine. When somebody is feeling that sort of pain and discomfort, surely it is incumbent on us all to find a way, through medicine, to give them some relief if we possibly can.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Mundell]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. Indeed, over time, I think all of us who have taken an interest in this issue have heard from multiple sclerosis sufferers about the pain and difficulties that they have encountered. It is incumbent on us, those in Government and those in the medical world to do what we can to make sure that that is no longer the case.

I want to focus my remarks on the economic case for medical cannabis. I will talk about the contribution that a different and more progressive approach could make to the economies of rural constituencies such as mine—those were some of the points that I touched on in the previous debate—because, at its core, the nascent medical cannabis sector is horticultural in character and is situated in rural and agricultural communities such as the one I represent.

In my constituency, I see Hilltop Leaf develop growing and processing facilities that are pristine and equipped with high-tech quantum sensors, microscopes or leaf barometers. It is a stark contrast to the damp tinfoil-wrapped rooms of illegal production, referred to earlier. It is certainly a marked contrast to the circumstances in which some people feel forced to acquire cannabis and the dangers and difficulties that they place themselves in through doing that. As the hon. Member for Strangford said, they do that because they love the person who is suffering. They do not want to see them suffer, and they are willing to take risks and do things that they would not otherwise consider.

In that context, it is all the more important that we see the industry—a modern, progressive industry—as a step forward. I enormously support the investment in my constituency. I particularly hope that good horticultural, administrative, managerial and logistics jobs, which will anchor the young people in the constituency, will flow from it; young people all too often feel the need to leave such communities for the want of opportunities.

The facilities at Hilltop should also be able to provide some 10% of the UK’s medical cannabis needs. I have hopes that Hilltop can go further still, because the medical cannabis sector could potentially bring more than £1 billion to the UK economy. I do not wish to divert into the Chancellor’s remarks about economic growth, Dame Esther, because we have heard a lot about that in the Chamber. But this industry is there and ready to grow—ready to create wealth and jobs, particularly in some of the most difficult rural environments in the UK. It has been estimated that tens of thousands of good quality jobs could be created if the UK’s regulatory, legal and medical frameworks were in line with norms elsewhere.

Sadly, byzantine rules on prescribing and overlapping and onerous regulations are holding the sector back. Medical cannabis was legalised in 2018 by my former colleague Sajid Javid, then the Home Secretary, but it remains unduly difficult to prescribe on the NHS across every part of the United Kingdom. Those in need—we should be clear that this is a matter of need—turn to private medical services, with the huge costs that they bring; the hon. Member for Strangford also highlighted that. They turn to criminals as well. It is absurd to make something of medicinal benefit legal, but for it to be put out of the reach of so many people who need it.

The situation has a knock-on effect on the sector. In recent years, we exported 213 tonnes of medical and scientific cannabis of the 329 tonnes produced in the UK. The sector could meet domestic patients’ needs and international demands, but incoherence in regulation and approach is hindering that. That also extends to cannabidiol or CBD, which has many benefits too. It is readily available to purchase on the high street, so much so that the CBD market in the UK is the second largest globally. However, hemp licensing laws mean that the flowers and leaves where CBD is found must be destroyed. Overseas imports then fulfil the needs of the domestic CBD market, and British supply chains do not benefit. Because of that approach, growers have to forsake the opportunity of a crop yielding £10,000 per acre, compared to £400 for wheat. At a time when rural Britain is struggling, such yields would be a real boon and bring income into the pockets of farmers.

Patients, producers, taxpayers and even the police, as the hon. Member for Strangford mentioned, could all benefit from unblocking the bottlenecks in prescription and production. As I have said on many occasions, for that to happen the various strands of Government need to be stitched together. Instead of keeping the strange patchwork of overlapping and clashing components, there needs to be a clear policy of supporting the prescription of medical cannabis, and the necessary regulation and official approach that would allow that to happen. The UK Government and, where appropriate, the devolved Administrations should review the prescription process, medical guidelines, acceptable technical levels and the overlapping regulatory and legal regimes.

We have debated and discussed this issue many times. I hope that we will see some progress and that we do not have to repeatedly debate an issue to which we should have a common-sense approach. It benefits patients and our economy. It has an adverse effect on criminals. Why would we not do it?