UK Drugs Policy

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Like every other Member here today, I welcome the opportunity to debate this matter. I congratulate the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on securing the debate. It has been a high-quality and wide-ranging debate. We have heard from two Select Committee Chairs. We have talked about prescription drugs, prisons and the international issues that we need to address.

I welcome the international comparators report which was published today. It received a lot of media hype overnight. I found it quite difficult to get a copy of the report until the Home Office provided a link to the Table Office at about 11 am, so I have not had a chance to digest the contents of the report fully. It has been a long time coming and it is a shame that we could not have had it a few days earlier so that we could have reflected on it in full.

I was rather bemused this morning to hear the Minister on Radio 4. I was not quite sure whether he was speaking as the Minister or as a Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament, as the Home Office later put out a contradictory statement. Perhaps he can clarify whether he is speaking on behalf of the Government today. I know that he has had difficulty in the past in speaking on behalf of the Government, and that he had to absent himself from the khat debate because he did not agree with the Government’s policy on khat.

The report on legal highs has also been published today alongside the international comparators report. Again, we welcome this, but it has been a long time coming. We on the Labour Benches called for the issue to be tackled much earlier; the growing market in legal highs has been allowed to flourish over the past few years. We are pleased to see the report. I pay tribute to Maryon Stewart and the Angelus Foundation, who have pushed the issue of legal highs and the need for legislation to deal with the problems that have developed.

Three key issues on legal highs emerge from the report, on which I hope the Minister will be able to reassure me. First, I hope there will be a comprehensive prevention and awareness campaign on legal highs. Secondly, we need a clear legislative framework to try to disrupt the supply of new psychoactive substances and stop headshops proliferating on our high streets. Thirdly—perhaps this should have been the starting point—we need a proper framework for assessing the scale and the danger of legal highs. We need to know when legal highs enter the UK and what dangers they pose. I hope the Minister may be able to assist with that today.

Of course, we all want to look at the evidence. In the Home Affairs Committee report, one of the first bullet points in the key facts section states:

“England and Wales has almost the lowest recorded level of drug use in the adult population since measurement began in 1996. Individuals reporting use of any drug in the last year fell significantly from 11.1% in 1996 to 8.9% in 2011-12. There was also a substantial fall in the use of cannabis from 9.5% in 1996 to 6.9% in 2011-12.”

Let us consider all the evidence and see what is happening.

I want to focus on treatment and all the comments that have been made today about the situation in Portugal, which is a key part of the international comparators report. Little has been made of the fact that the trends in Britain are very similar to what has happened in Portugal. It is important to remember that the changes in drug laws in Portugal were accompanied by significant investment in drug treatment, as we have had in the United Kingdom. When we examine drug harms and what has had an impact, it is not clear that a change in legislation is the driving force.

[Caroline Lucas]

I want to make sure that there is no risk of complacency creeping into the hon. Lady’s remarks. It is important to know that there were 2,000 drug-related deaths in England and Wales in 2013 and a 32% increase in heroin and morphine-related deaths. The number of deaths involving both legal and illegal drugs last year was at its highest level since 2001. There are different ways in which we can look at the figures, but the bottom line is that we need a review of the evidence. Will she support that?

[Diana Johnson]

I do not want to be considered complacent, but we need to get all the evidence on the table so that we can assess it. There is some merit in looking at what has happened regarding treatment in this country over the past 10 to 12 years. The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction says that this country is well ahead of comparators. In 2010 60% of opioid users were in treatment. That compares with 12% in the Netherlands and 25% in Sweden, so I am not sure that I agree with the motion that the status quo is failing. Drug-related deaths among the under-30s have halved in a decade, and it has been calculated that getting people into drug treatment has prevented 4.9 million crimes being committed, saving the economy £960 million. This is evidence that we should all consider.

[Keith Vaz]

My hon. Friend has always been very thoughtful and careful in the way in which she has dealt with this issue. I agree that we need to get all the evidence out and examine it. Will members of the Opposition Front-Bench team commit to establishing a royal commission to look at the issue in detail so that we can base our policy on the evidence?

[Diana Johnson]

I am grateful to the Chair of the Select Committee. What worries me about the idea that a royal commission will solve the problem for us is that there are issues that we need to tackle now—for example, legal highs. I am pleased, as I said at the outset, that we now have a plan from the Government for legislation in relation to legal highs. I am not discounting a royal commission, but we need to keep abreast of the issues that are developing now. We need to put in place ways of tackling legal highs and other issues.

It is important to remember that access to treatment is a key issue. In 2001 it took nine weeks to access treatment; in 2011 it took five days. We should be mindful that that was because of the investment in health services. Once people are in treatment, it is important to make sure that they complete it. In 2005-06, 35,000 people dropped out and only 11,000 completed treatment, whereas in 2011-12, 17,000 dropped out but 29,000 completed treatment. We should be aware of such evidence when we debate the drugs situation.

[Crispin Blunt]

I acknowledge that, as the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Lady is in a difficult position. She is calling for evidence. Whatever her comments on the early part of the motion, it concludes by calling

“on the Government to conduct an authoritative and independent cost-benefit analysis and impact assessment of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and to publish the results of those studies within the next 12 months.”

It would be of immense help if the Opposition proposed such a motion on an Opposition day so that it could be voted on in the House. It would then carry greater authority and they would achieve exactly what she wants—to get the evidence out there.

[Diana Johnson]

I recognise that it is important for the House to have these debates, and it is good that the Backbench Business Committee granted this one, but I think that the hon. Gentleman is right and that the Government perhaps need to ensure that such issues are debated in Government time, with clear options for what they feel should be taken forward.

[Ms Abbott]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Diana Johnson]

I will give way one last time.

[Ms Abbott]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, for whom I have the utmost respect, but when she says that the status quo is not failing, I do not understand what world she is living in. It is failing young people in London. I think that her faith in the statistics on access to treatment is misplaced, because young people in the east end of London have great difficulty accessing treatment. The status quo is failing. Young people of all classes—not just the underclass—are continuing to suffer from drug harm because Members of this House are too frightened to look at the recent evidence.

[Diana Johnson]

I am not frightened to look at the evidence, but we need to look at what is happening today in the round; we must not cherry-pick. I have the same concerns as my hon. Friend about treatment now, because of the Government’s misguided reforms of the NHS. There is fragmentation in the treatment services across the country, which is something that many people are genuinely concerned about. [Interruption.]

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Diana Johnson]

I am going to carry on, because it is important that these issues are brought to the House’s attention. They might not be what everybody wants to hear, but I think they need to be recognised.

One of the key issues raised in tackling drugs policy in this country is the link between criminal justice and health. That resulted in the establishment of the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse, which brought together the Home Office and the Department of Health, recognising the social harms that come from drug abuse and from people breaking the law by engaging in acquisitive crime as a result. There was a recognition that in order to tackle that we needed to get them into treatment. Huge investment was made, but it was a combined effort from both Departments. It is important to remember that that has been successful, because crime has been dropping. One of the reasons for that was the commitment to getting people into treatment so that they were not committing offences.

I want to mention France, because there drugs are seen as a health issue, not a criminal justice one. We know that France tends to invest less in treatment as a percentage of GDP—about one fifth of the investment that this country makes. Saying that it is just a health issue and thinking that that will solve the problem is not reflected in the facts.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Diana Johnson]

I am going to carry on, because I am conscious that time is short and the Minister has still to speak. [Interruption.] Well, I think it is important not just to have a one-sided debate in which we all say that the war on drugs has failed. The UKDPC has said that this country is a world leader in treatment, and I think we should recognise that as something very positive.

I am concerned, as is my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), about what is happening to the spend on treatment. Health and wellbeing boards do not need to have criminal justice representation. I think that is a problem, because it means separating health and criminal justice. I hope that the Minister will be able to respond to that concern.

Local authority budgets are under enormous pressure. Their public health budgets—the majority of the funding comes from the pooled drug and alcohol treatment moneys made available—are being raided. John Ashton, president of the Faculty of Public Health, has referred to this asset stripping of public health by local authorities. Perhaps the Minister will respond to that point.

I am also concerned about the role of police and crime commissioners, because they had responsibility for £120 million that went into treatment through drug and alcohol partnerships. They now have no incentive to spend the money in that way, and I am concerned that because of their lack of representation on health and wellbeing boards, a real problem is developing.

I want to make a few final points. On recovery, the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt)—I know and respect him as a former Prisons Minister—talked about the complex needs of drug addicts, particularly those in prison. I think we need to have a much wider debate on what recovery means and how we support people recovering from drug addiction. That means how we support them into housing, how we shore up family relationships, which are very important, and how we secure employment opportunities. Those are all key issues that have to be part of a bigger debate on drugs.

I think that it is absolutely right that the police’s focus must be on disrupting the supply of drugs, disrupting organised crime and ensuring that addicts get treatment. It is very disappointing today to see that there has been a 60% drop in the amount of heroin seized by police over the past year, because that is another important part of tackling this problem.

On prosecuting for possession, the previous Labour Government introduced the penalty notices that were used for the possession of cannabis, and the Government have adopted them for khat, so it is not the case that someone in possession of drugs will get a custodial sentence. However, I think that the Liberal Democrats have now said that there should be no prison sentences at all for possession, so I want to check with the Minister whether that is the new Government policy. As I understand it, that is for repeat offenders, not one-off offenders.

I think that we have a lot of work to do on how we deal with criminal records. The hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips) mentioned the fact that someone with a drugs conviction can be prevented from entering the Unites States. We need to look at what simple possession means for criminal records, especially for young people who might be found with a pill or an assortment of pills on one occasion. That will result in a caution, which will then result in later problems for employment and travel. That is another issue that we need to include in a wider debate.

I feel that it is important that we do not just have a one-sided debate. We need to look at what has worked in this country and around the world and base the debate on evidence. Some of the evidence that I have tried to present has in effect been queried and shouted down, and that is absolutely fine, but we need to have the debate. We cannot just say that it has all failed without recognising some of this country’s huge successes in drug treatment.