Drugs and Crime

Lord Brett Excerpts

Tuesday 15th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brett]

My Lords, I should add to the chorus of gratitude to the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, for bringing forward this debate. It echoes the debate on 22 January last year when we heard many of the same strands. I was sitting where the noble Lord, Lord McNally, is now sitting, and I found the power of the arguments from the Cross Benches, in particular, somewhat more overwhelming than parts of my brief.

We owe a debt of gratitude to all colleagues who have taken part. I do not want to be the purveyor of buckets of cold water to throw over the enthusiasms of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, but 14 years in the UN system taught me that conferences and discussion papers come and go. This is not a policy statement; it is not a strategy; it is not even a position paper; it is a discussion paper. It is no less valuable a step forward for that, but it has to be seen as something that will not necessarily lead to any immediate change. In the UN system, those are two words that cannot occur in the same sentence. But I expect the coalition Government—I think that we will see this—to look more seriously at enhanced healthcare solutions and decriminalisation. Much of the evidence coming forward in this debate is telling us what is wrong with our present system—about which, the truth is, I think that we have had our doubts. Whatever our capacity over a period, the question is always how we should move forward and deal with it.

I was much impressed by the contributions of several noble Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, told us that this was very much Lib Dem policy, to which I will come back in a minute. I should particularly like to relate to the contribution made by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, who brought children, who are very important, into the discussion. The debate was also sobering—if not by cold water, but by at least a chill—in pointing out the difficulties that we would have with decriminalisation in terms of any United Nations or international areas.

The noble and learned Baroness also posed a question, which I think was also asked in the debate on 22 January 2009, about why we cannot simply buy the crop of poppies from Afghanistan and make that country free from the opium production that is so much an issue there and far beyond. The answer is simply that the Government of Afghanistan do not believe that they could operate a licit system. If it is an economic argument, that needed for medical production could be produced at half the cost by Australia. What can appear to be a simple solution to many of these cases can turn out to be very difficult.

I was very grateful to my noble friend Lady Massey for setting out the improvements that have been made. They are not as much as any of us would wish in terms of solving the problem. The noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, also pointed to some of those difficulties.

I should like to ask the Minister a couple of questions. First, I am interested in the Lib Dem policy. When we discussed it on 22 January 2009, the then spokesman for the Opposition referred to several noble Lords, at least one of whom has taken part in this debate, as being in favour of the prospect of decriminalisation. She said:

“That is a perfectly respectable view. It is not one that I share, because we are an enormously long way from being able to do that”.—[Official Report, 22/1/09; col. 1798.]

That was the view of what is the major party to the current coalition. Will the Minister confirm whether that is still the policy?

Secondly, in the discussion that will no doubt take place on this interesting and valuable report, will the Minister indicate what discussions will take place with our European colleagues? In many of these areas, influence at the international level is much better when done in concert with our European colleagues than when we do it on our own. That would help us to move forward.

Thirdly, no one can expect a very detailed response from the Government tonight on a report which came out in March and was followed by a general election taking place in May. I was interested very much in the suggestion that there might be a return to this discussion at a later date when the Government’s policies are more clearly thought through and their solutions more to hand.