Psychoactive Substances Bill [Lords]

Owen Thompson Excerpts

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Commons Chamber

Who provides that education is also vital. Trained professionals, school nurses and public health workers have the qualifications to deliver that programme. This is therefore not about putting pressure on teachers; it is about enabling health professionals to do their job. I ask the Minister to give this issue due consideration, to ensure that the full public health agenda is brought in, because if we do not couple this Bill with public health and the education agenda around it, its impact will be lessened. We need to make sure that the Bill has real impact and does deliver results, so let us include education. My last point is that the only systematic way of achieving that will be through the PSHE programme.

[Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)]

I, too, will be brief.

First, I wish to thank the other members of the Bill Committee. This was my first Bill Committee experience. It was clear that the Minister, shadow Minister and all the other members of the Committee were pointing in one direction and that although we might have slight disagreements about the measures to take along the way, we ultimately want to get to the same point.

I echo the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) in support of her amendments. I also very much wish to echo the comments made by a number of colleagues in Committee; I raised the point about poppers there and the case was again made, “We want a blanket ban. How can we possibly have exemptions?” We already have a schedule of exemptions in the Bill, so there is a precedent. Giving an exemption now and having the study to continue the work being done, rather than banning poppers and having to undo that and unpick a mess that we might create for ourselves, is a far more sensible approach to take. I hope that the number of voices from around this Chamber today to that end will be heard by the Minister and he will tell us that he has now come to that conclusion and that that is the position we are going to take. I am aware of the pressures and the keenness to get on to the second group of amendments, so, with that, I shall conclude.

[Mike Penning]

It has been said several times that perhaps this Bill should have been introduced a lot earlier—many years ago. One reason why it was not is that it was so difficult to do. I say to my Liberal Democrat friend, the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), that when Lynne Featherstone was in my job she was 100% in support of this Bill. I know it has been a difficult time for the Liberal Democrats, but perhaps she was right in many of the things she said and which we brought forward. I am not going to comment any further on that, because the right hon. Gentleman and I disagree profoundly. We will, of course, oppose his amendments; he is not going to be surprised by that.

I, too, want to get on to the second group, so it is important that we make some progress. Many important speeches have been made this afternoon, in completely the right tone and adopting completely the right attitude towards what we are trying to do, which is protect people. Throughout the Committee stage, I was trying to ensure that we kept why we are trying to do this at the forefront of things. We may disagree about specific parts, as we have heard in the Chamber today, and we may slightly disagree on the methodology on certain parts, but I have a responsibility as the Minister, standing at this Dispatch Box with my colleagues from other Departments. They have worked closely with me, and I want some of them to work even more closely with me as we go forward with the Bill and with the review which we have committed to all the way through.

With that in mind, I will try to deal with new clause 1, then take up some of the issues raised in connection with other amendments and then deal with amendment 5, which relates to poppers. That has taken up most of our time in the Chamber today and, as was alluded to by the Chairman of the Select Committee, it is probably one of the areas where we slightly disagree—and then it is only on how we do it, rather than what we are going to do.

As I said early on, this Bill is not a golden bullet; it is not the be-all and end-all. It is about providing a blanket ban; it is a brand new type of legislation. We have not seen it before in this House, and it needs to be worked through with two or three other Departments. Obviously, the Ministry of Justice must be involved because we are creating a criminal offence—fortunately, I also sit in that Department, which is quite helpful. The Department for Health is also important. During the course of the debate, I was very conscious of the implications for public health. I am also talking about the prevention of diseases, but I will come back to that later. Lastly, as new clause 1 indicates, the involvement of the Department for Education is also important.

I met Ministers, scientists and police in the Republic of Ireland to find out how their Bill, which is close but not identical to ours, worked. One of the biggest things they said was that we need to get the message out there. We should target young people, but not exclusively young people, as we discovered today; I mean no disrespect to my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) when I say that. The matter runs across the age profile. I do apologise if I refer to young people too often.