Children: Drugs

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Monday 11th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to help local authorities fulfil their statutory obligation to safeguard children with respect to preventing the use of controlled drugs.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and at her request, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in her name on the Order Paper.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, nothing is more important than keeping children safe from harm, including from drugs. The Children Act 1989 places a duty on local authorities to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. Social workers assess children’s needs and work with other agencies to provide help and support to meet those needs. Reducing drug misuse is a key part of our evidence-based drug strategy. Education plays an important role in supporting children to make healthy choices.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, I welcome the sentiment uttered by the Minister. However, is he aware of the testimony of the charity Mentor to the Home Affairs Select Committee:

“We are spending the vast majority of the money we do spend on drug education on programmes that don’t work”?

Given the very serious risks for young people exposed to unscrupulous drug dealers, should the Government not rise to their proper responsibility and ensure that the evidence-based and effective drug education programmes that do exist are provided for every child in every school?

[Lord Nash]

Drug education is a statutory part of the new curriculum for science at key stages 2 and 3. Teachers are best placed to understand the needs of their pupils and it is for them to develop their own PSHE programmes, drawing on resources and evidence-based tools such as ADEPIS, which provides accurate, up-to-date information and resource on what works. In March last year, we published a PSHE review of what works best in drug education and the PSHE Association has an excellent programme of study on drugs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness makes an extremely good point. Certainly, this is something I have seen on a number of occasions. Last month we launched a new campaign—“Together, we can tackle child abuse”—to encourage members of the public to report child abuse and neglect and just this kind of situation. I hope this has some effect on the point the noble Baroness makes.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, will the Minister enlarge on the obligations on teachers in schools that are not required to deliver the national curriculum, and the Government’s expectations of them?

[Lord Nash]

All teachers are required to keep their children safe. Our expectations are just the same across all schools.