Joan Ryan
Main Page: Joan Ryan (The Independent Group for Change - Enfield North)Department Debates - View all Joan Ryan's debates with the Home Office
Drug Consumption Rooms
Joan Ryan Excerpts(6 years, 9 months ago)
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Caroline Lucas
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, and that body has recommended that DCRs are a policy that we should pursue. Would he agree that it is the case that not only have DCRs not been a venue where people have died, but they have been one of the most effective interventions at getting people away from addictions? DCRs are not being complacent about addiction; they are being realistic—[Interruption.]
Joan Ryan (in the Chair)
Order. We have two more speakers, and they will be able to get in. We will resume immediately once everyone is back from the Division; we will not take the 15 minutes. If there are two Divisions, the same applies. As soon as the second one is done— I think there will be two—I ask everyone to get back quickly, apart from Members who have informed me that they cannot do so.
Crispin Blunt
I shall conclude by saying that one should recognise the challenge facing the Minister, given the circumstances she faces. It is difficult enough when our policy and, I believe, global policy are stuck in absolutely the wrong place; we have had 60 years of the policy not working. She then has to deal with the legislative framework that she has to operate within. She then has to try and find a way actually to get drug consumption rooms working, when the overwhelming evidence on the ground is of the benefits they can bring to the communities in which they are placed. They get needles and addicts off the streets, stop people shooting up on the streets, and put addicts on the route to recovery. That is able to happen in an entirely safe place. The public health outcomes need to be a priority for us.
Recognising those difficulties, all I ask of the Minister is that she learns, as I am learning about this issue as I engage with it, and that she and the Government remain open to all the evidence that is coming in from all around the world, through all the different examples. On drug consumption rooms, I very gently suggest that the evidence from around the world is utterly overwhelming about their merits.
Joan Ryan (in the Chair)
May I just say that if Back Benchers who wish to speak stick to three minutes each, everybody will get a turn to speak?