Jim Dobbin
Main Page: Jim Dobbin (Labour (Co-op) - Heywood and Middleton)Department Debates - View all Jim Dobbin's debates with the Scotland Office
(13 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister
I wish that my wife were as easy to please. I was worried about where that question was going.
I am afraid that I must disappoint my hon. Friend and Mrs Bone. I think that we are better off inside the EU but making changes to it, in the way that we are setting out.
Jim Dobbin (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab/ Co-op)
Q9. There are 1.5 million individuals throughout the United Kingdom who suffer from involuntary tranquilliser addiction, which is not a misuse of drugs by the individual but prescription addiction. It has horrendous side-effects. Can the Prime Minister ensure that special withdrawal programmes are set up across the country to give those people their lives back? I understand that the Government are reviewing the situation, but the reviews keep being put back. These people are victims of the system, and they are suffering all the time.
The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman has raised this matter with me before. He speaks very powerfully on behalf of people who have that addiction, which is an extreme problem in our country.
We published a drugs strategy which set out an ambition to reduce drug use, including the use of prescription and over-the-counter medicines. That should include programmes to help people to withdraw from and come off those drugs. However, as I have said to the hon. Gentleman before, I think that we must deal with the problem at source. That is part of the purpose of our health reforms, which is to ensure that the national health service is genuinely concerned with the health of the whole person rather than being a national drugs service in which there can sometimes be too much prescribing of drugs.