Ten-Year Drugs Strategy

Debate between Kit Malthouse and Steve Brine

Monday 6th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I obviously recognise the hon. Gentleman’s concern in this area, given the scale of the problem in Scotland, which is by far and away the worst in the western world. I know that the party of which he is a member, and the Government in place in Scotland, have relatively recently made a similar investment along the same lines in health treatment.

On drug consumption rooms, I have always said that my mind is open to the evidence, and I am in correspondence with my counterpart, the drugs Minister in the Scottish Government, about what that evidence might be. As far as I can see thus far, it is patchy. It is very hard to divine the difference between an overall health approach on drug consumption and the specific impact of a drug consumption room. However, we continue to be in dialogue with the Scottish Government, as we are on pill presses and, indeed, on drug checking. My commitment to the drugs Minister in Scotland was to continue that dialogue and see what we could do.

On overdose prevention centres, at the moment, under current legislation, we believe there are a number of offences that would be committed in the running of one of those rooms, and that is a legislative obstacle to their running. In the end, though, the biggest impact we have seen in all parts of the world that have been successful in this area has been from a widespread investment in health and rehabilitation. I hope that the Scottish Government will support the efforts of my hon. Friend the Member for Moray (Douglas Ross), the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, who has been very concerned about this issue and has been driving a campaign forward in the Scottish Parliament.

On stigma, I am afraid I do not necessarily agree. While we want to work closely to make sure that those who are addicted to class A drugs get the treatment they need, we need to be careful not to send confusing signals to those people who otherwise indulge in class A drugs and drive a huge amount of trade but do not regard themselves as addicted. I will be interested to see what the progress is in Scotland.

The key thing in all the home nations is that, as we roll out our various policies, we learn from each other. My pledge is that I will continue the home nations summits, which I have been holding regularly, most recently a couple of months ago in Belfast, to make sure that we do exactly that.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

I think this new long-term strategy looks excellent. It is a thoughtful piece of work, it is funded, and I think it strikes the right balance between head and heart, so well done to the Government. Chapter 3 deals with support for families and mentions “family-based” treatment, particularly where

“parents are themselves dependent on drugs or alcohol.”

Could the Minister expand on that a little? Is that through the new family hubs that were announced in the Budget? Is it through local authorities? Will he just say a bit more about that, please?

[Kit Malthouse]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his words of encouragement. It has been an enormous effort across the whole of Government to put this plan together. I congratulate my team, and I thank my fellow Ministers who have worked on putting it in place. My hon. Friend is quite right that we need to focus very much on drugs in the home. The funding that is put in place, although it is routed through the Department of Health and Social Care, will go to local authorities, which will then be able to design their own services locally to fit their own requirements and demographic. Some of that might be in the home, some of it might be residential, and some of it might be on an out-patient basis. We do not want to be prescriptive at this stage, but this will be channelled through local authorities, which can design services appropriately.