Drugs Policy

Debate between Norman Lamb and Caroline Lucas

Tuesday 18th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Norman Lamb]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. The briefing from Transform states:

“No one has died from an overdose, anywhere in the world, ever, in a supervised drug consumption room”.

If Transform has made a mistake, I apologise.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, because he is making such a powerful case about the importance of evidence-based policy. Is it not the case that drug consumption rooms allow us to reach people who would otherwise be very hard to reach and, over time, build up trust and bring them into recovery? The purpose of drug consumption rooms is not simply to go on handing out drugs to people, day after day. It is to reach those hard-to-reach people and bring them into recovery, over time.

[Norman Lamb]

I totally agree, and I applaud the hon. Lady for the work she has done in arguing the case for reform. Trials of this type of approach have shown huge reductions in acquisitive crime resulting from illegal drug use and in the small-time dealing indulged in to pay for the habit, but the Government withdrew the funding for these trials in April 2016. How short-sighted! The strategy stresses the importance of listening to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, but it recommends the use of rooms where drugs can be taken safely, heroin prescribing and, in effect, the decriminalisation of the use of drugs, and the Government are doing none of those things. If the Government say they should listen to the council, they should please listen to what it is arguing for.

It seems to me there is a dishonesty to this debate. In the foreword to the strategy, the Home Secretary says:

“By working together, we can achieve a society that works for everyone and in which every individual is supported to live a life free from drugs”.

Incidentally, does that mean “free from drugs” other than the most dangerous drug, alcohol, which we of course allow to be sold and take the tax from? The objective or ambition of a world free from drugs is unachievable, as other hon. Members have pointed out, so let us just get rid of this fantasy at the heart of the so-called war on drugs, which has been a stupid and catastrophic failure. Such an international policy approach has had extra- ordinary consequences. It has massively enriched organised crime, to the tune of billions of pounds every year. It has also criminalised young people in particular, and it has had a disproportionate impact on ethnic minorities.

Illegal drug use is actually lower among black and minority ethnic groups than in the white population in this country, but black people are six times more likely to be stopped and searched for drugs than white people. Our son, who is in the music business, was driving in London in the middle of the night, on his way back from a recording at the BBC, when he was stopped in his car. He happened to have a black artist with him, who said, “This is just a fact of life in London for us. This is what happens to us.” They were all pinned up against a wall as they were searched for illegal drugs. There were no illegal drugs in the car, but this is too often what black people in our inner cities have to cope with week in, week out, and it is not acceptable. Black people in London are five times more likely to be charged for the possession of cannabis than white people. This is extraordinary discrimination.

We criminalise people with mental health problems. We know that there is massive comorbidity: if people are suffering from mental ill health—depression, anxiety or obsessive compulsive disorder—they may well end up taking drugs as an escape from the pain that they are suffering, and then we prosecute them and give them a criminal record. How cruel and stupid! There is hypocrisy in that the former Prime Minister famously took cannabis when he was at Eton and many members of this Government have probably taken drugs in their time, yet they are happy to see the careers of other citizens blighted by criminal convictions for what they did in their younger years. Surely that is intolerable.

The strategy addresses the issue of decriminalisation and refers to the evidence of harm, yet we know that the most dangerous drug for causing harm is alcohol, as I have already said, to which the Government take a completely different approach. They still use the language of having a tough approach to enforcement, yet the Home Office’s own report from a couple of years ago showed that there is no link between the toughness of a regime and the level of drug use in society. The illegal market also causes extreme violence in our communities. To control the market in a particular community, all people can do is resort to extreme violence to protect it; they cannot have resort to the courts, as other capitalists do. It has always been disadvantaged communities that suffer the most.

I recommend to anyone here who is interested in this subject the book by Johann Hari, “Chasing the Scream”, which refers to the extraordinary spikes in violence—particularly in America, where there is ever a legal clampdown on the suppliers of drugs to communities—when new suppliers come into a community and seek to gain control of the market. The only way they do that is by using extreme violence.

As I have said, in Portugal, after initial resistance, there is political unity across the spectrum. In the United States, more and more states are moving towards regulated markets for cannabis. In Canada, a Liberal Government are legislating to introduce a legal regulated market. In the UK, I commissioned an expert panel that included a serving chief constable, Michael Barton from Durham. Its recommendation was that in the interests of public health—not despite public health, which is an important point for the Minister—we should move towards a regulated market where we control potency, who grows it and who sells it. That protects those at risk of psychosis and memory impairment because potency is controlled. If people buy from a criminal, they have no idea what they are buying. The criminal has no interest in people’s welfare; they simply want to make a fast buck from them. If people buy from a regulated seller, there is a chance to avoid the sort of harm that we see so often at the moment.

I make this plea: do not claim that the case for change is irresponsible, but bring about change because it will save lives, it will reduce HIV and hepatitis C infection, it will protect people better, it will end the ludicrous enriching of criminals, it will cut violence in our poorest communities, it will end the self-defeating criminalisation of people who have done exactly the same thing as successful people in government, in business and in all sorts of walks of life, and it will raise vital tax revenues. Follow the evidence. Do not perpetuate the stigma and the fear. End this catastrophic approach to drugs policy.

Energy and Climate Change

Debate between Norman Lamb and Caroline Lucas

Tuesday 20th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)]

I thank all hon. Members for their thoughtful and measured contributions, including that wonderful description of the Planning Inspectorate’s recent decision. Many hon. Members will have some sympathy with the views expressed there.

I must confess a personal interest. I am the son of a climatologist, so I spent many of my formative years learning about the natural cycles of climate, visiting sites such as medieval vineyards around Tewkesbury and so forth as friends were heading off to Torremolinos. Today, however, our focus is on man’s impact on climate and how we respond to it.

I shall deal first with the contribution from the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). The hon. Lady’s case is that the 2% target—limiting the increase of global average temperatures to 2% above pre-industrial levels—is not ambitious enough and has potentially devastating consequences. I share and the Government share her absolute concern about the need to take effective and decisive action to deal with what is an enormous challenge globally, and we do not dismiss it at all.

The target of less than 2%, however, is likely to be at the very edge of what is possible in terms of the technological and economic implications. It also involves radical lifestyle changes, and dealing with that globally and in democracies is often very difficult.

Achieving the 2% target globally will itself be immensely challenging. On the current trajectory, as the hon. Lady rightly said, we are looking at a 3.5° C to 4° C rise in temperature, the consequences of which certainly would be devastating, and if anything the gap is widening.

[Caroline Lucas]

The figure is 2° C, not 2%, but does the hon. Gentleman agree with me on the key point that runaway climate change would also require radical changes in lifestyle?

[Norman Lamb]

Absolutely, I do. I accept that completely, and that is why the Government are determined to take decisive action.

The consequences, however, of a 3.5° C to 4° C rise would be devastating, including a 2 metre rise in sea levels, a massive impact on food production and so on, but to hit the 2° C target we need global emissions to peak by 2020 and, after that, to reduce by 4% annually. That target is achievable if decisive action is taken by both the developed and the developing worlds, and this Government are determined to take a lead internationally —one of the things that the hon. Lady raised specifically —in seeking to achieve it.

Developing countries on their own are likely to account for 60% of emissions by 2020 owing to rapid development, and the Government recognise that the European Union must show leadership, so we are pressing for a 30% 2020 emissions reduction target, rather than the current 20%.

To answer the hon. Lady’s specific question about whether we need to review the target level, I note that the Cancun conference agreed to a review of the science to see whether to adjust the target and whether the 2° C target is adequate to prevent the disastrous consequences of climate change. I acknowledge what she said about the outcome of the recent Durban conference, but it did make progress on the design of that review and on the steps, including negotiating a new global agreement, to get the global community back on track to achieve at least the 2° C goal. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change for playing a key role in the Durban negotiations, which have taken things forward.

All that sets the context—the imperative of building a low-carbon economy—for dealing with the contributions from the hon. Members for Warrington South (David Mowat), for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) and for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies). Not only do we need to reduce carbon emissions because of the imperative of tackling climate change, but we face the massive challenge of energy security.

I shall deal first with the hon. Member for Warrington South, who criticised the focus on renewables and sought to concentrate on the optimisation of decarbonisation, arguing for the importance of nuclear and gas in the short term. We face the immediate and remarkable challenge that nearly one third of our energy supplies will be going off-grid in the next decade. That is because of decisions already taken. Nuclear cannot deliver in that time frame. There are disadvantages in relying heavily on imported gas because it makes us more vulnerable to risks with regard to security of supply, fluctuating and volatile cost, and availability of supply. To replace the lost capacity and to hit challenging emissions targets, we need a new supply quickly, and wind and other renewables are a crucial part of that. Over the longer term, the Government have no intention of favouring one form of low-carbon energy production over another. Our intention is to secure a level playing field for low-carbon technologies competing with one another. Tidal power, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire, should be given its chance along with other technologies.

The Government have already issued a White Paper on electricity market reform. That is an important way to deliver the change that we need to secure proper competition between low-carbon technologies. It will mean that a level playing field is introduced by 2020, and it covers nuclear, carbon capture and storage, and renewables. The carbon plan published on 1 December, which sets out how we will meet the requirements of the fourth carbon budget—between 2022 and 2027—does not favour one form of production over another but offers different scenarios and different combinations within the whole mix. We are not looking to lock in any one form of production. The Government have stressed the importance of reducing energy demand and of improved energy conservation. That is why our green deal is so important, as is the radical step of introducing smart electricity and gas meters across every home. We do, however, stress the need for immediate and decisive action.