Ten-Year Drugs Strategy

Justin Madders Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

As my hon. Friend may know, alcohol-related crime is of deep interest to me. That interest was behind my 10-year campaign to bring in sobriety ankle bracelets, which are having an enormous impact across the country with 97% compliance. While this strategy is drug-focused, it is worth pointing out that, as I am sure he knows, quite a number of people have an addiction both to drugs and to alcohol. The provision of treatment services that are primarily for their drug addiction will have a spill-over effect on their alcohol addiction; I hope that he will see an improvement in that as well.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

One of the frustrations that my constituents have is that if they live in a flat and someone else in the block is a persistent cannabis smoker, the whole block can reek of cannabis. It affects their health; it affects their children’s health. They go to the landlord, but the landlord says, “We won’t get involved unless there’s a police prosecution”—and more often than not, the police will not prosecute people for smoking in their own home. Is there anything in the strategy that will put an end to the misery that people experience in that situation?

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Gentleman raises a good point—a good counterpoint to issues that others have raised. As part of our strategy, in the next year we will produce a White Paper that we hope will contain a new system for changing such behaviour and deterring individuals from such casual, thoughtless and often cruel drug consumption, which not only interferes with his constituents’ happiness and enjoyment of their home, but drives an enormous amount of violence on the streets.