Drugs Policy

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s comment. We were all really concerned when we saw those images of people on this kind of new zombie Spice in Manchester, but I was pleased that the 2016 Act proved itself in the case of Spice, because as soon as we saw those dangers emerging we were able to take action to ban it through that Act. As we did the testing to understand the chemical components and how serious they were, we were then able to shift them into the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, which gave them a proper classification. Just this Friday I was pleased to see that in Manchester the whole community got together with other cities—there were people there from Nottingham and Wrexham. Law enforcement, the mayor, civil society and local authorities all came together to do exactly what we are proposing in the drugs strategy, which is to take a multi-agency approach, so that the issues that brought about those awful scenes we saw, where vulnerable homeless people in Manchester were so wickedly targeted with that type of Spice by drug dealers, are now being properly managed. This allows homeless people to get the support they need so that they do not fall prey to that activity. The more stringent measures and sentencing available under the Misuse of Drugs Act mean that the police in Manchester have the full range of tools they need to take action there.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

The Netherlands has had a pragmatic, intelligent policy of drug decriminalisation for 50 years. It now has a serious prison problem, because there are not enough prisoners to fill its prisons. Is that not a problem we would like to have here?

[Sarah Newton]

I accept that some Members and some people in our country think that we should decriminalise drugs. I do not agree, because we are evidence-based policy makers and all the evidence shows the awful harms caused by the drugs that we ban and restrict. Our primary job is to keep people safe, and the way to do that is to prevent them from taking drugs in the first place.

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[Ms Abbott]

I think that the public health cuts were disastrous. The Treasury, in an extraordinary example of short-term thinking, clawed back the funds that had been promised. The King’s Fund has shown that local authorities in England are being forced to spend more than 5% less on public health initiatives this year than in 2014, and tackling drug misuse in adults will face a 5.5% cut of more than £22 million. Until the Government put their money where their mouth is on the drugs strategy, they will have to accept that some stakeholders remain sceptical.

There was an interesting discussion about alcohol earlier in the debate. Ministers seem to struggle with the notion that alcohol is actually a drug, but the truth is that in absolute terms alcohol causes more harm than any illegal drug. It is shocking that the strategy managed only two paragraphs on alcohol, which is a major killer in Britain today. Professor Ian Gilmore, chair of Alcohol Health Alliance UK, has said that

“we also need a dedicated strategy on alcohol which recognises the breadth of harm done by alcohol. In the UK alcohol is responsible for over 26,000 deaths per year, over 1 million hospital admissions per year, and…alcohol cost the UK economy between £27—£52 billion in 2016.”

In 2015, there were 8,000 casualties caused by drink-driving alone. Professor Ian Gilmore continued:

“The time has come for the Government to take an evidence-based approach to controlling the supply of and reducing the demand for a legal drug which is sold on virtually every street corner, sometimes at pocket money prices.”

[Paul Flynn]

Portugal de-penalised drug use in 2001 and, as a result, halved the number of heroin users in the country, and the number of deaths has fallen from 80 a year to 16 a year. In the 30 years in which my right hon. Friend and I have been in the House, can she think of any initiative by any Government that has reduced drug harm so spectacularly?

[Ms Abbott]

My hon. Friend is a passionate proponent of decriminalisation, and I think that he makes his own case.

The strategy claims that the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 has been hugely successful in stopping the proliferation of legal highs. It is true that in the first six months since the Act came into force nearly 500 people were arrested. However, as various drug charities suspected, despite those measures demand for the substances continues to increase. So-called legal highs have simply been pushed into the black market or on to the internet, which I suspect is why the Government have in the same breath claimed that they will focus on eliminating the vast range of problems that these substances cause. That exposes something that the Opposition made clear during the passage of the Act: legislation is effective only if there is a wider strategy in place.

The strategy has now been produced, but meanwhile legal highs are more dangerous than ever, affecting the poorest and most vulnerable in society. It remains the case that too many people, particularly women, go to prison without a drug habit and leave with a drug habit. I believe that Ministers, working with the Ministry of Justice, could do a great deal more to make our prisons drug-free zones. It is an elementary issue, but one that the Government continue to fail to address.

I am sure that most Members were as alarmed as I was last year by CCTV footage of a drone making deliveries to a prison. That is the favoured manner of getting contraband, in the form of mobile phones, weapons and drugs, into our prisons. There are no easy answers, but if there are not enough guards to guard the prisoners, I find it hard to believe that they could devote much time to searching one another or taking down drug-mule drones. My hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State for Justice has repeatedly said that the decimation of prison officer numbers under the Conservatives is a key reason for the Government’s inability to stem the growing influx of drugs into prisons. What specific extra staffing resources will be given to prisons to enable officers and prison authorities to meet the objectives of the new drugs strategy?

The Minister referred to global issues and to the international war on drugs, but she will be aware that it is largely regarded as failing. We would like to hear how Ministers plan to make the international war on drugs more successful than it has been. There are some aspects of the strategy that we welcome. For example, it is excellent that greater efforts will be made to provide young people with effective, evidence-based drug prevention education. As a parent, I think that most parents are unable to keep up with the kinds of drugs that young people are discovering nowadays. As I said earlier, it is very important that prisoners are given more help to get into recovery and that their progress is monitored closely. We need far clearer and more explicit guidelines on the value of opioid maintenance treatment which, if properly implemented, allows many people with opioid dependence to live their life and, crucially, prevents overdoses.

Another important aspect of the strategy is its recognition that people can slip through the cracks of dual diagnosis of mental health problems and problem substance use. I am glad that the strategy, at least in principle, wants those people to be better catered for, rather than shunted between services that are reluctant to take on complex and demanding cases.

There is a tendency to regard drug use and abuse as a personal failure. We in the Opposition would rather regard it as a societal failure. We say that any drug strategy has to look at the broader picture, including what is happening in society and the resources available. Although we welcome the drug strategy in principle, we question whether the resources or the will is there to make its worthy aims real and manifest.

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[Crispin Blunt]

It has not failed. If we adjust one part of the system and move from a categorisation of B to C, as we did with cannabis, then that sends a message about usage and the rest. However, if the supply of cannabis is in the hands of people who are not going to tell people what is in it, or educate them as to the effect it is going to have on their mind, it is hardly surprising that we see a massive increase in schizophrenia caused by the use of these drugs, because people do not know what they are buying and we are not in a position to educate them properly about the consequences of their use. That is why there is a public health issue about getting a regulated supply into place whereby we could educate people at the point of purchase. I will come on to talk about the relationship between the dealer and his interest in how he deals with his client base in a regulated and licensed system.

[Paul Flynn]

Having been in the House at the time of David Blunkett’s change in the category of cannabis, and very much involved with it, I remember that everyone predicted an increase in cannabis use when the classification was changed. That did not happen. In fact, there was a reduction in the use of cannabis when the penalties were less. Contrary to all the expectations, and the great argument we hear in this place, it is not the drugs that are killing people—it is prohibition that is killing people.

[Crispin Blunt]

While I am obviously minded to agree with the hon. Gentleman, the arguments that my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) and the Government are putting forward in trying to send a message should be considered somewhere so that we can go through the evidence. That is very difficult to do in a charged environment where the tabloid press will be seeking to send a message if we are perceived to be weak in this area of public policy. Yet hundreds of thousands of people across the world are dying because this policy is in the wrong place globally. I rather hope that a royal commission here in the United Kingdom could assist us in getting to a place where, based on evidence, we can begin to lead the international debate.

As well as the decriminalisation of personal possession, we ought to consider the merits of a legal, regulated market taken out of the control of organised crime. A recent report by the drugs policy think-tank Volteface makes the case for a legal, regulated cannabis market in the UK to improve support, guidance and access to treatment for people experiencing problematic cannabis use. It found that the current illegal and unregulated market means that cannabis users are hidden from health practitioners, leaving them

“fumbling around in the dark trying to find them”.

Among people showing signs of cannabis dependence, only 14.6% have ever received treatment, help or support specifically because of their drug use, and 5.5% had received it in the previous six months. The report says a regulated market would provide

“opportunities for more public guidance, packaging controls, products which vary in potency, research into cannabis culture and consumption to improve interventions, and reduced stigma to enable access to services.”

I am sorry to say that the drug dealers reading the strategy and watching this debate will simply laugh at us. We are doing nothing to undermine their basic business model. By ensuring that supply is criminal, we have created a highly lucrative, criminal black market for the distribution and sale of drugs, worth an estimated £4.6 billion per year in the United Kingdom—and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and Europol estimate that the global market is worth $435 billion a year. That is an astonishing amount of money, and it is hardly surprising that people arm themselves, and fight and kill, to try to maintain their share of that market.

Drugs are believed to account for some 20% of all crime proceeds, with about 50% of all organised crime groups believed to be involved in drugs, and about half of transnational organised crime proceeds derive from the drugs trade. Profit margins are enormous, with 100-fold increases in price from production to retail. Exploited customers, trapped in addiction—indeed, having been encouraged and incentivised there by the criminal dealer—turn to crime to pay the inflated prices. Those using heroin, cocaine or crack cocaine are estimated to commit between a third and a half of all acquisitive crime. Drug dealers vie with one another to gain market exclusivity in their domains, leading to further appalling gang violence.

Yet that is only part of the story, as the uncomfortable truth is that respect for our laws is diminished when large swathes of the population can see no difference between their recreational drugs of choice and their recreational use of alcohol and tobacco. Alcohol prohibition was an acknowledged public policy disaster when it was tried in the United States in the 1920s. If the state or its licensed agents became a benign, regulated monopoly supplier instead, that would smash the drug dealer’s business model. Proceeds from sales or taxation of sales would pay for treatment and public health education. We would protect people because they would know what they were buying.

Instead of more of the same, we should be brave enough to be at the forefront of international thinking. Legalisation, licensing and regulation may be radical ideas for the United Kingdom, but forms of decriminalisation are already being widely put into practice in Europe and in North America and Latin America. The merits of other countries’ approaches, and the extensive work of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, warrant proper consideration in British public debate and policy making. A royal commission would be able to do that. It would be the most appropriate way to consider fully and carefully the complex issues involved and all the policy options, exploring best practice abroad and responding to increasing calls here and internationally for a truly new strategy.

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[Victoria Atkins]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point, because the subject of counterfeit cigarettes was next on my list. Again, I speak from personal experience. I prosecuted a criminal gang who, at the time, controlled the counterfeit cigarette market in the north of England. When the customs knocked out that gang—they did fantastically well: they got the guy at the very top as well as the distributors at the bottom—that knocked out the counterfeit cigarette market in the north of England for six months. After that, however, another gang came in and filled the vacuum. I do not have to hand the figures on usage of counterfeit cigarettes, but it is a fact that many people seek them out, not least because cigarettes are generally priced very highly—and rightly so, because we want people to stop smoking. Although I do not have the figures now, I remember reading them when I was dealing with that case. It is compelling to see many people use counterfeit cigarettes.

We know that there is also a growing market in counterfeit alcohol. In the last six months, corner shops have been warned that they need to be aware of very good reproductions of certain brands of vodka. The vodka that people may be buying in good faith from their local shop is, in fact, far more alcoholic than they would expect. I hope that, if nothing else, I am explaining my worries about how complex the position is, and demonstrating that we cannot just rely on the idea of regulation and decriminalisation.

[Paul Flynn]

Is the hon. Lady not impressed by the simple fact that, as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound), in 1971 fewer than 1,000 people in this country were addicted to heroin and cocaine, and there were virtually no deaths because those people were receiving their heroin from the health service? After 46 years of the harshest prohibition in Europe, we now have 320,000 addicts. Is it not true that prohibition creates the drug trade, creates the gangsters, and creates the deaths?

[Victoria Atkins]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He has a long history of campaigning on this subject, which I respect. However, I am afraid that I must disagree with him. A very great deal has changed since 1971. Criminal gangs come to the United Kingdom from all over the world because the UK is much more densely populated than other countries, and they come here to sell drugs. I am sure that some Members sometimes want to turn the clock back to 1971, but I do not think we can do that. We now have to deal with the international movement of criminals and so on as it happens.

The hon. Gentleman has referred to other countries that have decriminalised drugs, and the impact that that has had on addiction rates. I know that in various American states that have decriminalised cannabis—which, obviously, is a different substance from heroin—there is evidence of a growing backlash against that decriminalisation. People may like the idea in principle, but when it comes to practicalities such as where the shop that sells the cannabis will be located in their towns—will it be the post office?—and whether advertising will be allowed near a school, they feel uncomfortable.

We need look no further than my own county. The city of Lincoln celebrated the Government’s introduction of the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 because it was fed up to the back teeth with having headshops all over the city. I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman and I will never see eye to eye on this, but I do not think we can turn the clock back to 1971.

The hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) cited Portugal and the number of drug deaths there. I assume that he took his figures from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, which I think contains the latest statistics. It turns out that Romania has the lowest rate of deaths through drug use, followed by Portugal, and that Bulgaria and Turkey have the third and fourth lowest rates. I do not know, but I suspect that Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey do not have liberal policies on such matters as drug use decriminalisation. I urge Members to exercise a bit of caution when looking at those statistics, because decriminalisation may not be the whole answer.

We know that the potency of the psychoactive substance in cannabis has increased from an average of about 1% in the 1960s to about 11% in 2011. What on earth does that mean? According to my research, it is equivalent to an increase from one low-alcohol beer a day to a dozen shots of vodka a day. That is quite a jump in potency. Sadly, as we know, skunk can be even stronger, with up to 30% of tetrahydrocannabinol potency. As I mentioned earlier, we see the real impact in the criminal courts: we see young offenders with mental health issues who have also used skunk on a regular basis. Those are the people I want to protect. If we can persuade fewer young people to smoke dope or take drugs, that has a benefit for them and their families, and it has a huge benefit for the local community. We all know of the role that drugs play in onward crimes, committed to fund the next drugs purchase.

I am conscious that I have taken a long time and we have a very exciting maiden speech on its way. Although the international debate on how to deal with drugs continues, it is essential that the Government set out a strategy for what we do at home. I am really impressed by this drug strategy. I welcome in particular the introduction of a national recovery champion. It is a good idea to have someone looking over good and not so good practice. We may not agree on decriminalisation, but I am sure we all agree that healthcare must form part of the drug strategy. We have to be able to look after addicts to help them to get rid of their addiction. None the less, I am still a firm believer that law enforcement plays a vital role here and internationally in stopping the drug barons profiting from this terrible industry. I will support the Government in their efforts to stop it.

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[Ian C. Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

I congratulate the new hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) on his excellent maiden speech. He told of the multitude travelling to Stoke. The last multitude to travel to Stoke from Wrexham was for the FA cup match a few years ago. Wrexham led for a glorious five minutes, but unfortunately it did not end well. His was a wonderful speech that did end well, and I wish him the best for his future in the House.

This debate is about the Government’s new drugs policy. I have considered in detail the drugs strategy that was published last week. I found it rather disappointing. I was pleased that it was produced and I am glad the Government are looking at the issue seriously, but we face a real crisis in our drugs strategy. Interestingly, we heard from the hon. Gentleman about new psychoactive substances, which are a major issue in my constituency. The shadow Home Secretary made an apposite point earlier, because it is clear that the decline in resources available for both our police service and our local authorities has had a major impact on the problem of drugs in our communities. In 2010, I saw a police service working with local authorities to provide an excellent law and order policy—one that the Labour party had built up in the 13 years from 1997 to create true community policing. It created a safety valve so that when issues arose they were identified early and we began to address them. In the past seven years, there has been a real decline in the quality of our criminal justice system and in drugs policy on the streets.

I do not have the certainties on decriminalisation of many speakers in this debate, and in many respects I envy them. Before I was a Member of Parliament, I was a solicitor and in the 1980s I worked in Birkenhead. As a defence solicitor, I represented many young heroin addicts. That convinced me profoundly of the danger of drugs and the horrific impact they can have on not only the individuals concerned, but their families. I tread very warily indeed if any sort of message is presented that it is okay to take drugs, because I have seen the very negative impact.

I understand what the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) said in his very eloquent speech. I also listened carefully to the many interventions that have been made and to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith), but I am struggling to know the right way ahead. I would not be resistant to a royal commission because NPS is out of control in my community. It affects not just Wrexham, but Manchester and many towns up and down the country. The legislation is not working properly.

In discussions with police officers, I have been told: that it is not possible effectively to arrest people for taking NPS because it is not clear what substance they have taken; that it is too expensive to have the substances tested; and that people are receiving penalties for possession of a class B drug that have no effective outcome and no impact on preventing reoffending. That is creating a major public order problem in our constituencies. It is currently not being addressed, and I cannot see how this document and this strategy will either solve the problem or stop it getting worse.

[Paul Flynn]

Does my hon. Friend recall the passage of the Psychoactive Substances Bill last year? It was said to be modelled on similar Bills that had been passed in Ireland and in Poland? In both countries, prohibition of psychoactive substances increased use— in Ireland from 16% to 22%—and increased harm. Is it not true that, in this country, it is very easy to close the headshops, but that we increase the problem, increase the number of users and increase the number of deaths?

[Ian C. Lucas]

Yes, it is a continuing and increasing problem, but it was a problem before the Act was passed. This is a difficult issue with no easy solution. The Act has already had to be amended to reclassify the drug, and to make possession an offence. Initially, that was not the case, and there were problems with effective enforcement. People who had clearly taken these substances and were in a poor condition as a result could not be arrested because they had not committed an offence; they were simply in possession of the drug in question. The law has already had to be amended. I believe a review is due under the Act at the beginning of 2018, but it should be done immediately. I raised this with the Minister at questions a couple of weeks ago, and she said that the measure was working well, when clearly it is not. I was really worried by that response.

On Sunday, I was contacted by a constituent who had been terrified in the centre of the town because of the conduct of some people affected by the drug. It is an urgent issue that must be addressed now. As it stands, the drugs strategy is not addressing the matter properly. Part of the reason is that local authorities and the police do not have the capacity and understanding to deal with it. I am not sure that they are really clear about the correct approach. We need an intelligent conversation about the nature of the problem.

We also need to find out about the individuals who are taking these substances, because each one has their own story and their own life. It is clear that they have chosen to take these substances, but that choice is having a massive impact on other people and other communities because of the way that they behave. I would like to know how they pay for these items, and to understand the role of the Department for Work and Pensions, because some people are using their benefits to buy these substances. I see a lot of people in my constituency office who are having their benefits taken away from them, but who cannot walk into the surgery. A sanction seems to be applied to them, but not to people who choose to take substances in the centre of my community. The Department for Work and Pensions—the largest-spending Department—has not been mentioned so far, but it needs to be involved, so that we can find out what role it plays when individuals to whom it pays benefits take these substances.

I wanted to restrict my observations to new psychoactive substances, but before I stop I should like to mention the maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), which I found deeply moving. The first Sikh I remember as a child was Bishan Bedi, who had even better turbans than my hon. Friend, but my hon. Friend can try harder. I was touched by his reference to his parents; I do not know whether they are still with us, but they will be very proud of his achievements. In my maiden speech, I talked about a boy of 14 who was in court with 24 burglaries against his name because he was a heroin addict. I represented him in 1988.

My speech has a lot more questions than answers, but I do not think that we have made much progress on drugs policy since I came to the House in 2001. We have had an interesting debate today. We very much needed to look at the issue again, but there is a real, immediate problem with NPS that the Government need to address urgently, and I implore them to take it more seriously.

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[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

It has been a splendid afternoon. May I offer my congratulations to all those who have made maiden speeches? How refreshing it is and how grateful we all are to the Prime Minister for organising this fresh injection of new Members into the House—and so many of them are women. Goodness, there has been a great change in this place since I came in with my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), who is on the Front Bench. It was thought remarkable then that there were four Members from ethnic minorities here. It was a place that was crude and macho because it was dominated by males. We have seen it civilised and become more sensible and more representative of society.

We heard the passion and sincerity of my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy), who is depriving education but enriching us. I am sure she will go far. What a joy it is to see a member of the Sikh community here, with their great history and their marvellous contribution to this country. Are we not coming to a stage where Parliament represents the nation more fully than it ever has before? Many congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi).

I also congratulate the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb). The Liberal Democrats have done so much to introduce sanity into the drugs debate. I will not say too much about the Minister, who has the misfortune of presenting the nonsense that civil servants have been writing, in my experience, for the past 30 years on this subject. I remember two people who have had that job with great affection. Mo Mowlam would send me letters with a little handwritten note on the bottom saying, “See you in the Strangers tonight to tell you what I really think.” When we got together after she stood down, she intended to write a book urging the end of drug prohibition. She could not do it in office and, sadly, she died before the time came. Bob Ainsworth was another person who had the hideous job of trying to defend the failing policy that is the prohibition of drugs. As soon as he stood down, he was campaigning on the other side.

The House has been marred by culpable cowardice for the last 46 years on this subject and countless people have died or suffered as a result. I had an email last night to tell me about a drama documentary to be based on the life of Elizabeth Brice. I gave a little whoop of joy at the news. Elizabeth campaigned under the name of Clare Hodges. She was a wonderful, vibrant woman, a television producer who translated the “Noddy” tales into Latin, among her many achievements. She suffered severely from multiple sclerosis, and she came to the House and collaborated with me in a terrible crime on the Terrace. I supplied her with a cup of hot water, with which she made and drank cannabis tea. According to the rules of the House, and the policy approved by the Government—and, sadly, the Opposition too—she would have been liable to go to prison for seven years, and I would probably have been accompanying her.

We have to call on those who put up with the barbaric stupidity and cruelty of a Government policy that denies seriously ill people their medicine of choice to perform acts of civil disobedience. Elizabeth Brice spoke to the Parliament in Belgium and within months it changed its policy. Most other countries allow the use of this most ancient of medicines—it has been used for 5,000 years on every continent—for medicinal purposes. I know that Members are not supposed to do this, but I call on people to break the law, to come here and use cannabis and see what happens—to challenge the authorities to arrest them. That is the only way to get through to the Government’s mind, which is set in concrete. The law is evidence free and prejudice rich.

In another example of the fact that the Government are in denial, I tabled a simple question to ask how many prisons were free of drug use last year. The answer came back that 83 were free of drug use for one month. That was not the question. I asked again how many were free for a whole year, and the answer came back, “One”. Which one? It was Blantyre House. How many prisoners were in that prison? None—it was closed. The Government have cracked the problem—the answer to drug use in prison is to get rid of the prisoners, not the drugs!

If anything mocks the stupidity and futility of our drugs policy, it is the fact that there are more drugs in prison than outside. There is not a drug-free prison in the whole of the United Kingdom. We also fool ourselves about how the drugs get in—it is not through the visitors or drones. If we look at discipline in prisons and the poor wages paid to many staff, we can quickly work out how drugs get in. There is conspiracy and corruption there.

We need to learn the mountainous lessons of prohibition, which only happened in 1971, with Jim Callaghan following what the United Nations had done under the influence of President Nixon. The world said it would get rid of all illegal use of drugs, but they were not a problem here. There was virtually no use of marijuana/cannabis in this country. Some people had become addicted through morphine to heroin, but there were no deaths. We had fewer than 1,000 users. Every year since then, under harsh prohibition, we have created an empire of crime and ended up with 320,000 addicts in this country. That is an enormous burden.

We cannot ignore what has happened in the rest of the world. I despair of any change in Government policy, because the Government are stuck in the foolish idea that prohibition works, as was clear when we debated what is now the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016. The thinking is that psychoactive substances are a hideous problem, and anyone is very foolish to put anything in their body that has never been ingested by a human being before. The nearest to an intelligent policy came from New Zealand, which said that it would license psychoactive substances if the producers could establish that they were safe. Otherwise, it is just a jungle out there.

Last year, when we debated the Psychoactive Substances Bill, the Government fell into the old trap of saying that “something must be done”, which is the greatest error in politics. Governments cannot think of anything that is going to work, but they have to seem to do something. That was the argument then, and that is where we have ended up with this damaging Act. It was said that Poland and Ireland had virtually the same Bill. Those countries closed the headshops, and the result was not a decrease but an increase in drug use. When the drug trade is on the streets, people have a vested interest and can get more money out of it. In Ireland the use of what were then called legal highs among young people rose from 16% to 22%, and the same thing is happening here. Why on earth do the Government not recognise that prohibition does not work? In America, 13 years of alcohol prohibition did not work for the same reasons.

I have never taken an illegal drug in my life, but I consider the medical use of cannabis to be of immense benefit, and that should be our first step. I believe that the rest of the world will leave us behind; they are laughing at us now. Canada is leading the way, but there is no doubt that the system works in Portugal. The people in Portugal to whom I have spoken did not have the support of any great number of Members of their Parliament, and they did not have the support of the press, but they charged ahead, in a very courageous way, and said, “This is going to work.” That was 16 years ago, and there is every indication, given the number of deaths and the incidence of disease since then, that it has been successful in every respect.

I think that we will follow—as, indeed, we must—the example of half the states in America, and of Uruguay and other countries in South America, and legalise drugs, because that is the only way in which to reduce harm and reduce the number of deaths.

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[Sarah Newton]

I thoroughly agree that we must approach this matter from a global point of view. That is the fourth strand of the policy—the global strand. It is about working thoroughly and consistently with colleagues at the United Nations and globally, and looking at the evidence base. Actually, some other countries look to us as leaders in this area, especially on psychoactive substances. We are global Britain. We are always out looking and working in partnership with other countries and we will look at the evidence base from them.

[Paul Flynn]

Will the Minister give way?

[Sarah Newton]

I am going to make a little more progress if the hon. Gentleman does not mind.

The hon. Member for High Peak (Ruth George) touched on the issue of resources. Having a good, well implemented strategy requires resources, of course. There was a lot of misunderstanding about funding this afternoon. The Public Health England budget is ring-fenced. Yes, it is given to local authorities, which need to make decisions, based on consultation with and the health needs of their communities, about the allocation of resources. If some local authorities are disinvesting, that is sad to hear, because we put the evidence out there and the benefits of investment in good recovery services are clear—not just to the individuals concerned, but to the whole community.

I expect local authorities to use their ring-fenced budgets for public health for those services. But there is not just that budget. The Government have made record sums available for mental health services, and the national health budget is growing. The homelessness prevention funding has been ring-fenced and there is investment in innovative ways of working on homelessness prevention. There has also been the troubled families funding. The issue is about joining up those funds so that we can use the money in a smart way and tailor it to the needs of each family and person—they are all different—so that we can be really effective.

[Sarah Newton]

What I see when I go around the country is a great deal of innovation where people are learning to use their resources more effectively.

One of the very important jobs of the champion is to look at what is happening well in parts of the country where people are not disinvesting in services and have excellent examples of partnership working. I praise the work that the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) is doing in really getting into the weeds in her community and understanding this issue. In doing so, she knows that it is only by joining up all the services in the community and involving employers that we are going to make the step change that we need to see. I am very clear—

[Paul Flynn]

Will the Minister give way?

[Sarah Newton]

I only have a few minutes left.

I am very clear that this is a very ambitious policy. It has been based on evidence. It has been some time in the coming because we have looked at reports and research that has been done, particularly by the ACMD, to inform what we are doing. I absolutely want to put it beyond doubt that we see this strategy as joining up health, social and crime areas. It is a completely joined-up approach to government. We are trying to help people into recovery. The health interventions that people have so rightly spoken about are absolutely critical to the success of this strategy.

The strategy board will meet when we get back in the autumn. I am sure that Members will see that we have many opportunities to debate the outcomes framework that we will be putting forward, and we will hear about the really good work that the recovery champion is going to do. I hope that Members in all parts of the House will engage with the recovery champion, share the good work that is going on in their constituencies, and share their concern where things are not working, because let us be in no doubt—this is a complex issue that is going to require a huge amount of effort in every community in every part of our country. Despite our views on whether we should criminalise or not criminalise, we are all united in wanting to end the pain and suffering that is caused to too many people and too many communities by the use of drugs.

[Paul Flynn]

I would like to make a brief contribution, Madam Deputy Speaker, because there are four minutes to go.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

No—the Minister has summed up the debate.

[Paul Flynn]

There are four minutes to go.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Mr Flynn—are you making a point of order, because you cannot argue with the Chair across the Chamber?

[Paul Flynn]

I am not arguing with the Chair—I am arguing that the Minister has finished and I want to make a small contribution. Those are the normal rules of debate.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Mr Flynn, you have already made a contribution and the Minister has chosen not to take an intervention. She has concluded and the debate is thus concluded.

[Paul Flynn]

May I make a point of order, then, Madam Deputy Speaker, because the excuse that the Minister gave—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Mr Flynn—I am about to put the Question. You may make a point of order after I have put the Question.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered drugs policy.

[Paul Flynn]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. You will have heard the Minister say that she could not take a brief intervention from me because of lack of time. Could I just make the point that the Government’s policy is not evidence-based, because otherwise they would be taking clear cognisance of the evidence from Portugal and from Uruguay—