Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Dobbin Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[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.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Dobbin Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

What I can promise my hon. Friend is that we will have such legislation on the referendum lock, so that it will not be possible in future for a British Government to pass powers from Westminster to Brussels without asking the British people first. That is absolutely right. The referendum on the alternative vote was part of the coalition agreement, and he will be free to campaign on whatever side of the referendum he wants. However, the referendum was part of the agreement that put together this Government, who, I believe, are rolling up their sleeves and sorting out the country’s problems.

[Jim Dobbin (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab/ Co-op)]

Q6. About 1.5 million people suffer from involuntary tranquilliser addiction as a result of medical prescribing, and it completely ruins their lives. Will the Government consider investing in cost-effective, supportive, long-term withdrawal treatment programmes to enable them to lead normal lives, come off benefits, and go back to work?

[The Prime Minister]

Let me praise the hon. Gentleman for his interest in the work that is being done. I know that he is chairman of the all-party group that deals with this extremely difficult issue. The last Government set up a review of addiction to prescription and over-the-counter medicines. We are waiting for the report to be published, and will study it carefully when it is.

Let me make two points. First, I think that there is a problem in our national health service more generally, in that we spend too much time treating the symptoms rather than necessarily dealing with the causes. We could probably reduce the level of painkillers and tranquillisers if we did more—through physiotherapy and other therapies—to deal with the problem in the first place. Secondly, all addictions need proper attention, and proper treatment and therapy, to rid people of their addictions, whatever they happen to be. I am sure that the report will mention that.