Ten-Year Drugs Strategy

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I agree that addiction is an illness or affliction that is outwith an individual’s control. Although addiction often drives individuals to commit crime, for which they must be punished, we have a duty to make sure that there is no repetition, which means that we need to treat the addiction in the best way possible in the circumstances. I am very sorry to hear that my hon. Friend has experienced that loss; there are too many families in this country who are in the same situation. I hope that our strategy will mean that those numbers reduce.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

Richard Lewis, the chief constable of Cleveland police who is soon to take the helm at Dyfed-Powys, wrote in The Guardian recently that problem drug use must be seen as a health issue as opposed to a policing issue. His view was based on his experiences of the heroin-assisted treatment pilot programme in Middlesbrough. Will the Minister work with the Welsh Government to roll out that pilot across Wales so that it is seen as a treatment-based alternative to street drugs, dismantling the demand that sustains the operations of criminal gangs?

[Kit Malthouse]

I am already working with the Welsh Government as much as possible. As the hon. Gentleman will know, we have an ADDER project in south Wales, and we are working in close partnership with the Welsh Government on the health side to try to drive the numbers down.

While I am interested in examining heroin-assisted treatment, I am more interested in the new pharmacological treatment that is being rolled out in Wales. A monthly injection of depot buprenorphine effectively kills the craving for opiates, particularly heroin. I think that 600 or 700 people are now receiving it in Wales and indeed in England, with fantastic results. That is the kind of innovation of which we would like to see more.