Approved Premises (Substance Testing) Bill

Debate between Jane Hunt and Rob Butler

2nd reading
Friday 29th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rob Butler]

My hon. Friend’s point is absolutely spot on. That is why the first step will be to try to encourage people to help themselves. The answer to stopping people reoffending is not always to come down incredibly harshly the first time that people make a mistake. I remember that when I was involved with the Youth Justice Board I asked some young people, “What would you really like me to take away from my conversation with you, given that you have committed an offence?” They said, “That one mistake does not define your entire life.”

It is important to get the balance right: not letting people off if they commit offences time after time, but adopting a progressive approach. That is what the Bill seeks to do, and it is, I think, what the Government’s approach to criminal justice is all about. We need to be very tough at the hard end, but we also need to give people the opportunity to live a crime-free life if they can be helped to do that through positive interventions, rather than criminalising them.

[Jane Hunt (Loughborough) (Con)]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. People must serve their sentences, but then be given the opportunity to change, because that is how we really reduce reoffending,

[Rob Butler]

Absolutely

Let me now say a little more about the consequences if someone tests positive, to make sure that I have it on the record. The first step is a discussion with the resident, which should lead to a plan to help them tackle the problem and stop using drugs with the support of the substance misuse services to which I referred earlier. The aim, as I have said repeatedly, is rehabilitation. Of course, if the drug use continued or resulted in wider problems—as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Tom Randall)—that could lead to breach proceedings or, in extremis, a recall to prison.