Drugs Policy

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2010 Westminster Hall

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

My name is Neil Carmichael, in case there is any doubt about my being anonymous.

I welcome this important debate. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth) not only on securing it, but on having the courage to say something different from what he has said before. I do not agree with him, but it is right and proper to have such a debate from time to time, because in respect of the current drugs strategy we are looking back to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. Time has marched on. This is a good opportunity to review the situation.

Decriminalising drugs and drug use will not be helpful. Instead, what do we do about people who are on drugs? That is the more important and immediate issue.

Colleagues have mentioned the use of methadone, which is one of the big issues that we have to confront. Methadone is not a satisfactory solution to the problem, and we simply have to state that. Let me give hon. Members an interesting statistic. When the Labour Government’s programme kicked off back in 2000 or 2001, it was spending £60 million on methadone. By the time it had finished, the figure was more than £400 million, which is an astonishing amount to spend on something that really is not solving the problem. The first key point, therefore, is to recognise that the methadone strategy is the wrong one and that we need to look much more carefully at getting people off drugs altogether.

Another startling statistic is that fewer than 5% of people are in a form of drugs treatment whose task it is to get them off drugs altogether. We are therefore not only pursuing a methadone strategy with wild abandon, but being very reckless, given that we know that there are glittering examples of good practice, where people are treated for drug addiction and leave the system—usually very speedily—with a satisfactory outcome.

We have one of those glittering examples in Gloucestershire. The Nelson Trust was visited by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and its work has won an award from the Centre for Social Justice. That is quite right, too, because a huge number of people go to the trust with a drug addiction and a large proportion come out completely free of drugs. That is the direction of travel that we should be encouraging, and the Government have actually signalled that that is the direction of travel. We need to be sure that we get resources to organisations such as the Nelson Trust so that they can deal with the problem.

As a result of a question to the Secretary of State for Health, the right hon. Gentleman discovered that most of the money that we spend on treatment is being spent on methadone. We need to transfer resources away from methadone and towards taking people off drugs altogether. It is important that we flag up to the Minister right now the fact that organisations such as the Nelson Trust really need to be seen, examined and then supported, because there is clear evidence that they work—and that they work well.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice is also signalling an interest in dealing with drugs. He has noted that too many people are on drugs in prison; indeed, it is probably easier to get drugs in prison than it is on the outside, which is an astonishing fact. Of course, if we are talking about comparisons, we should remember that it costs about £675 a week to treat somebody and take them off drugs, but, as we know, it costs more than £800 to keep somebody in prison. We need to act on that, and the Secretary of State for Justice is doing just that in the prison reforms in his recent Green Paper.

It is really important that we start supporting organisations such as the Nelson Trust with finance and Government policy, because it is essential that we tackle this question rigorously. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has pointed out that nearly half of all crime is related in some way or other to drug use and abuse. That is a staggering fact, which signals not only the scale of the problem, but the gains that we could make if we simply tackled addiction in the way that the Nelson Trust does and other organisations can. We really need to focus on a strategy that moves us away from methadone and towards getting people 100% off drugs.

The Nelson Trust recognises, as we all should, that this is about more than just the immediate issue of getting someone off drugs. We need to provide family support and opportunities for people to transfer into work. We also need to sort out what can sometimes be pretty difficult housing circumstances. When somebody is on drugs, of course, all those things and more become very problematic. To get somebody off drugs, therefore, we also need to tackle some of those surrounding issues. The Nelson Trust has pioneered some really good work on that, and that is the direction of travel that we should take. I finish with a strong appeal that we think less about methadone and more about getting people off drugs for ever.