Psychoactive Substances Bill [Lords] (Third sitting)

Owen Thompson Excerpts

Thursday 29th October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)]

I shall be relatively brief and speak largely about the principles of the provisions—particularly amendment 57. I will not pass any comment on new clause 4, which relates to education in England, given that such matters are entirely devolved to the Scottish Parliament.

My one question on amendment 57 would be about how best to accommodate the devolved Administrations of the four nations—how to make sure that the input happens. On Second Reading, I commented on the importance of education. Prevention is far better than any cure that can be come up with—in this context as in many others. We need education processes to ensure that people who consider taking the substances in question have all the information available to them. Whether or not head shops exist, we need such a knowledge base in society.

On 26 September Paul Wheelhouse, the Scottish Minister for Community Safety and Legal Affairs, held an event with the Scottish Youth Parliament, with a discussion about the best way to establish a suitable education programme. The Youth Parliament is now preparing a report to Ministers. It is useful, given that we want to target information to young people, to gather younger people’s views about the best way they can equip themselves with that knowledge.

I am confident that the Scottish Government and Education Scotland are already considering how best to equip young people with the knowledge that they need to defend themselves and prevent themselves from coming to harm. The Bill takes account more widely of head shops and illegality of purchase, but we cannot hide from the need to emphasise education, so I support the principles behind amendment 57.

I cannot let the occasion pass without mentioning the welcome fact that only this week the City of Edinburgh Council was the first in Scotland to secure a forfeiture order. Already eight outlets in the city have voluntarily given up supplies of psychoactive substances. We can see that when the processes in question are carried out, head shops are quick to react. I hope that is a marker for the effect that the Bill will have on head shops.

We need to ensure that knowledge is available to young people and more widely in society, so that whether or not there are head shops we can be equipped as well as possible to tackle head-on the supply and use of psychoactive substances.

[Mike Penning]

One thing that I can say about the hon. Member for West Ham is that when she is passionate, she is passionate—and she is, like all of us, passionate about the subject that we are dealing with. I will discuss the amendment and new clause from the point of view of England, and I pay tribute to the work that has been done in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

I am particularly pleased about events in Edinburgh. That process has not yet gone all the way, but progress is being made. What has happened proves that action could have been taken before, even before there was legislation, as it was in Belfast and Lincoln, both of which I have visited.

As we have said since day one, legislation is only part of what we need. It is not a silver bullet. We need to educate young people, but also others, including, perhaps, much older people who have used illegal drugs such as cocaine and moved on to synthetic cocaine. We need to give those people help.

Addiction to NPS is a difficult area, where much of the third sector and health service have been trying desperately to catch up, not least because the drugs change so fast. We may ban one, and another will arrive that is almost exactly the same but with its own problems.

The shadow Minister alluded to the £180,000 and how many people that money might employ, but it was a specifically targeted communications campaign that was part of £341 million that was spent overall on drugs prevention, including early intervention, family support and schools work. I am not saying that that is enough, or that it is not enough, but at the end of the day we are in a difficult financial situation.

Since I have had the responsibility, I have been pulling together the other Departments and working with the devolved Administrations to ensure that we have the best possible picture out there as we bring the legislation forward. That includes working bilaterally next week with the Schools Minister on this specific subject and my chairing of the inter-ministerial group yesterday, where Health, the Cabinet Office and Justice were all represented and saying, “We’re doing this,” and I now need to pull that together.

There are a lot of campaigns, and probably the best thing for me to do is to write to members of the Committee with the full list of work that we are doing as we develop it. There is a resource pack for front-line professionals. We had a campaign over the summer where Ministers wrote to the 50 largest music festivals. Public Health England has launched its online campaign for building resilience. Mentor is still massively part of things, and I pay tribute to it and the Angelus Foundation. Among many others, Angelus is clearly one of the leading charities.

I put my hands up: “Talk to Frank” is not perfect. We will work with everybody to try to ensure that “Talk to Frank” improves. The hon. Lady is right that the way in which it is feeding information is perhaps not as open or as direct as possible. Let us sort that now. That is not about money; it is just bad communication and we need to ensure that that is put right. That is vital as we develop the communications strategy with other Ministers.

The Department for Education is already committed to reporting to the Education Committee, and it must do so by the end of this year. That commitment is already sitting there. On amendment 57, we deliberately put in the review and made it as open as possible. That will ensure that when the review takes place, we will gather as much information as possible, because we need to get things right. If we are getting things wrong at review time, we can sort that. If we need to tweak things in the run-up, that is fine. The legislation specifically allows those powers to move things around.

I am not going to make the hon. Lady’s day today by supporting her new clause and amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lyn Brown]

On a point of order, Sir David. I want thank a number of people for the conduct of our proceedings during the Bill’s scrutiny. This has been a massive learning curve for me, not only because of the Bill’s subject, but as this is the first time that I have served on a Committee in such a role for the Opposition. I thank all concerned for the support, generosity of spirit and kindness shown to me.

My learning started in a surprising way when, at a team meeting with my shadow colleagues, I was briefed by a Member of the other place on exactly what the Bill entails. He talked about poppers—I had never heard of them. The shadow team, including the noble Lord, laughed and suggested that I go home and watch several series of “Breaking Bad” in order to educate myself. They also thought that I should talk to the little boy on a bike who apparently cycles between my house and Plaistow station offering substances to people, including members of my staff team, although he has never stopped to offer me anything. It was not like that at all in my student days but, with a modicum of help from a number of agencies and others, I was able to get up to speed—[Interruption.] Yes, that was around when I was young.

I want to thank the Minister for his welcome and commend him for encouraging and facilitating the sense of consensus that has been a real feature of our deliberations. I thank him for his positive responses on the issues that Opposition Members have flagged up as needing review. I hope he agrees that this has been a really good Bill Committee and that our deliberations have made the Bill better and stronger.

I thank the people who have supported me. My wonderful Whip, my hon. Friend the Member for Easington, is normally a garrulous fellow, but he has been amazingly quiet and a strong man who has guided me through the terrors of the Committee with great skill. I thank you, Sir David, and your fellow Chair, Mr Howarth, for your excellent and effective oversight of our proceedings and ensuring that I have not gone astray. I am particularly grateful for the advice and support of the Clerk, Mr Williams, who has been very generous with his time and sensitive to the fact that this was my first time in such a role. We have not over-troubled the Doorkeepers by requiring them to go into the corridors and shout loudly, but it is always a comfort to know they are there, passing me notes and fizzy water. I thank Hansard for its reporting. I, for one, will be grateful to have some time off from having regularly to articulate the words “psychoactive substances”, which is quite a mouthful when we are going at full tilt.

I thank my Opposition colleagues, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East, who has given her insights into what is going on in Wales, and my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish, who could not be present today because of a funeral, but has spoken elegantly on the public health aspects of the Bill. I also valued the contributions of our Scottish National party colleagues, who made this a genuinely consensual matter. I thank all Committee members for their laughter, for picking up on my little jokes and for their pursuit of consensus as we consider matters of such fundamental concern for public health. I look forward to our consideration on Report.

[Owen Thompson]

On a point of order, Sir David. I very much associate myself and my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk with the comments made by the shadow Minister. This has certainly been an experience for us as well, as it has been our first Bill Committee. The approach that the Committee has taken highlights the importance of the Bill and its potential to help to deliver safer communities. Our resounding agreement on the destination we are trying to reach, if not the specifics of any amendments that we have debated, has been encouraging and shows that the direction of travel is certainly right. Although we might have minor disagreements along the way, what is ultimately delivered will be particularly useful.

I thank you, Sir David, and Mr Howarth for being so gentle with us newer Members. I look forward to the Bill’s next stage in the Chamber.

[Mike Penning]

On a point of order, Sir David. I congratulate you on your lung capacity today and your ability to expedite amendments, most of which were technical and consequential.

It is a shame that the public and the rest of the House cannot see how the Committee has conducted itself and the way in which we have come together, even though at times we have disagreed. I enjoyed a lot of the conversations that took place outside the Committee to make our proceedings work better. I cannot promise the shadow Minister that that will be on every Minister’s agenda; my particular way of working is not shared by everyone, which I fully understand. I remember making some mistakes, to say the least, when I was an Opposition Front Bencher, when I was absolutely crucified by the Minister and the Whip. The shadow Minister said that she was subtle when she was a Whip, which is probably why she no longer holds that post. Subtlety in Whips is a dangerous thing.

I congratulate all Members who have taken part in debating this important Bill. I understand that some Members had to be in other places today. Sadly, I, too, am going to a funeral on Monday. I know how important they are to our constituents and others. In my case, I will be in Merseyside at the funeral of the police officer who was murdered on duty in early October.

I thank my not-so-subtle Whip, my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock, and the hon. Member for Easington, the Opposition Whip. This has been a fantastic Committee—probably the best that I have sat on as Minister, a shadow Minister or a Back Bencher. We have reached where we need to be, which is protecting people—not just young people, although we are talking about predominantly young people—from the perception that if something is legal, that means it is safe. These substances are killing people and destroying people’s lives. If we have done nothing else today, we have had that success. We have been successful because I have such a fantastic Bill team and brilliant Parliamentary Private Secretary.