Ten-Year Drugs Strategy

Debate between Kit Malthouse and Tony Lloyd

Monday 6th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I understand what my hon. Friend said about the implications of the Act. At the moment, we do not have any plans to revise it, but we will bring forward a White Paper in the spring that will lay out, in particular, where we want to go on dealing with the overwhelming volume of drug consumption, which is among those who do not regard themselves as addicted.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

I also welcome the move, if it is genuine, to begin to treat the serious use of class A drugs as a health, rather than a criminal justice, problem. That will make a material difference if the money is there. We know that one driver of criminal gangs is high-volume cannabis sales that allow the structure to remain intact. Will the Minister look very seriously at evidence from Portugal, for example, on using administrative methods, or from parts of North America or other European countries where cannabis has been taken out of the drug supply industry? It is radical, but it may make a real difference.

[Kit Malthouse]

Our intentions are genuine and the money is there; I hope and believe that the strategy will make a difference over the next decade. As I said, we will look at evidence from around the world. I have to tell the hon. Gentleman, however, that it is widely accepted that the legalisation of cannabis in California has been a disaster. Although Portugal has seen the number of drug deaths drop, drug consumption has risen, and it still does enforcement very heavily on supply. The picture across the world definitely needs examination, but I am not sure that it will lead to the lessons that he outlines.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kit Malthouse and Tony Lloyd

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend rightly identifies an expanding area of business, sadly, for the courts and the police. He will be pleased to know that just last week, I held a meeting with the National Economic Crime Centre at the National Crime Agency to talk specifically about this issue. He will understand the complexity of online fraud in particular, whereby the offender may well be overseas, laundering money through a third territory and banking it in a fourth. Nevertheless, we need to do more to increase our capacity and capability to tackle this issue, to which we are all, including me, subject.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab) [V]]

Far too many women are sentenced by our courts to short or very short prison sentences. The overwhelming evidence is that non-custodial sentences, with properly resourced and properly structured alternatives to prison, work better in preventing reoffending. What are the Government doing to ensure that we invest in these non-custodial options for the courts to use?

Police National Computer

Debate between Kit Malthouse and Tony Lloyd

Monday 18th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

What a novelty to be asked a question in person! I can confirm what my hon. Friend says. We are working extremely closely with policing partners—the National Police Chiefs Council, the National Crime Agency and others—who use the computer system for their vital day-to-day work. They are involved in the gold group on this particular incident and obviously there have been ongoing conversations between the Home Secretary, the chairman of the National Police Chiefs Council and others to make sure we are in lockstep in our plan to mitigate and then restore the database to its previous integrity.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab) [V]]

Will the Minister confirm that among types of crime that very often lead to no further action are those involving domestic abuse? In that case, can he give an absolute guarantee to the House that there will be full recovery of all the data, or do we put at risk victims of domestic abuse when we know that building up a pattern of criminal behaviour is so important for the police and other agencies to bring offenders to book and to protect victims of domestic abuse?

[Kit Malthouse]

As I have said before, I am afraid I cannot, as yet, give the absolute cast-iron guarantee that the hon. Gentleman seeks on the restitution of the data. The early indicators are optimistic that we will be able to retrieve it, but until we have analysed the report that has been run today, we will not know for sure. That will take a few days. It is, however, worth pointing out to him that there are other systems elsewhere where the police retain intelligence about criminals and identifying markers, whether database or fingerprints. For example, for somebody who has been accused or for whom there is intelligence around domestic abuse, that detail may well be held on the police national database, which is a separate system to the police national computer. From that, the sort of person he is talking about may well be identifiable. However, I am afraid I cannot give him a full picture until, probably, the early part of next week.