Charities Bill [ Lords ]

Debate between Rachael Maskell and Jeff Smith

Second reading committee
Tuesday 18th January 2022 General Committees

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Gary, and I am pleased to speak on the Opposition’s behalf. I thank the Minister for his introductory remarks and echo his thanks to everyone involved in the passage of the Bill through the Lords and in cleaning it up into the good state that we see it today.

Like probably all of us in this Committee, I am a member or supporter of several charities. For the record, I refer the Committee to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and note that I am a trustee of Drug Science.

The charity sector’s contribution to society could not have been shown more clearly than during the coronavirus pandemic, with countless organisations and volunteers doing fantastic work to support vulnerable people. Charitable groups and organisations have ensured that rough sleepers have had access to food and shelter, delivered food to those in need and supported the vulnerable and those who had to shield during the darkest days of the pandemic. I pay tribute to all volunteers and staff in the charity sector, which forms such an important part of our civil society. Charities play a vital role in our communities and will continue to be vital to Britain’s covid recovery in the months ahead.

During the Bill’s passage through the Lords, there was agreement on all sides that the new measures represent important progress towards allowing charities to amend how they operate and making it easier for them to achieve their core purpose. The Bill seeks to make a series of changes that will make it easier for charities to navigate the law and to carry out their functions effectively, while retaining important safeguards.

I will not repeat the detail that the Minister outlined, but the Opposition support the Bill, which takes on board the majority of the Law Commission’s recommendations and makes several significant changes for charities, reducing red tape and making it easier for them to amend their governing documents, such as small changes to charitable purposes, to dispose of land efficiently, to use their resources more effectively and to avoid disputes over whether a trustee has been correctly appointed or elected.

The Law Commission’s “Technical Issues in Charity Law” report, which informs the changes in the Bill, was published in September 2017. Labour backs our charity sector and backed the report. We wonder whether these changes could have been brought to the House more swiftly, but we are pleased that the Government have finally brought the Bill forward.

Approximately 169,000 charities are registered with the Charity Commission in England and Wales, with a combined annual income of over £83 billion. The sector employs 3% of the total UK workforce, and more than 944,000 trustees are supported by over 6.2 million volunteers. All those charities and the millions of people who support their work might have benefited if the recommendations has been brought into law more quickly, but the Labour party supported the Bill’s passage in the Lords and will of course be doing the same in the Commons. We do so because the recommendations will fundamentally make running a charity easier and more efficient.

Among other things, the Bill clarifies certain powers of the charity tribunal, expands the Charity Commission’s role to deal with misleading, offensive or duplicate charity names, allows charities to amend their governing documents or royal charters more easily, permits more flexibility in the use of permanent endowments and makes it simpler for charities to combine their operations.

The implementation of the Law Commission’s recommendations is estimated to deliver cost savings for charities of at least £28 million over a 10-year period. The uncertainties in the law and the unnecessary regulation that discourage participation, delay charities’ activities and compel them to spend money on expensive legal advice will be removed, which will make life easier for charities to fulfil their charitable purposes.

However, in supporting the Bill, I ask the Minister to clarify why the Government did not accept all the Law Commission’s recommendations. In particular, recommendation 40, which states that

“it should be possible to obtain authorisation to pursue ‘charity proceedings’ under section 115 of the Charities Act 2011 from either the court or the Charity Commission in circumstances where the Charity Commission would face an actual or apparent conflict of interests”.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. I too wanted to pick up on recommendation 40, because the Government’s response refers to non-legal remedies without setting out what they are. As a result, how to seek proper restitution must be made clear to trustees and charities.

[Jeff Smith]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point, and I hope that the Minister will respond in his summing up. The sector was widely supportive of the suggestion, which would provide reassurance for those seeking authorisation and ensure that the Charity Commission is not compromised when making judgments in such cases.

Will the Minister also expand on the Government’s decision not to adopt recommendation 43, which sought to remove the requirement that the Charity Commission obtain the consent of the Attorney General before making a reference to the charity tribunal on a question concerning charity law or its application to a particular case. Organisations from across the charity sector share the view that the Charity Commission is well placed to highlight potentially challenging issues within charity law and that the current requirement for consent presents an unnecessary barrier to ensuring that issues of charity law can be considered and addressed by the tribunal.

On the topic of the Charity Commission, Members will have seen the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s hearing last Tuesday regarding the rather shambolic appointment—and now resignation —of Martin Thomas as chair of the Charity Commission. It is remarkable that the appointments system did not pick up the allegations of inappropriate behaviour, despite the charity in question formally reporting the incident to the very regulator that Martin Thomas was appointed to head up, so perhaps the Minister will set out how the Government plan to tighten the system to avoid a similar situation.

As I said earlier, the changes set out in the Bill mean that charities can spend less time jumping through excessively bureaucratic hoops and more time focusing on their core mission. They will also help to protect the public by, for example, stopping them being misled by a charity that deliberately adopts a name similar to that of another charity. We accept that phased implementation will allow charities to put processes in place to manage the new regime.

Like the Law Commission and the Charity Commission, Labour supports the sensible measures in and principles of the Bill and recommend that it be read a Second time.

Misuse of Drugs Act

Debate between Rachael Maskell and Jeff Smith

Thursday 17th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.

I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for granting us the time for this debate, to the cross-party Members who supported the application, and particularly to the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) for co-sponsoring it.

This May marks 50 years since the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 received Royal Assent. Back in 1971 there were three television channels; smoking indoors was normal everywhere from schools to doctors’ waiting rooms; and women could legally be sacked for being pregnant. Our culture and society now are completely different from that time, but our drugs regime remains the same, focusing on prohibition, criminalisation and punishment rather than looking at the evidence on what reduces harm to individuals and to society.

The 1971 Act was intended to prevent the use of controlled drugs, eliminate illegal drug markets and reduce the harms of drug use; it is not working. The data suggests that in 1971 there were fewer than 100 drug-related deaths in England and Wales; in 2019, drug-related deaths in England and Wales rose for the eighth year in a row to 4,393. There has been a 52% increase in drug-related deaths over the past 10 years, and 2,883 deaths resulted directly from drug misuse. These people mattered and many of their deaths were preventable. If there were better laws and properly funded treatment services, many could still be with us today.

In the late 60s, around 1% of adults had used drugs at some point in their life; the proportion is now 34%. While the drug market remains in the hands of criminal gangs, drugs are getting stronger and more adulterated. People are dying because they do not know what is in the drugs they are using. Even the Government acknowledge the failings. A 2014 Home Office report reviewed the evidence and said that

“there is no relationship between tougher/punitive sanctions on drug possession and the level of drug use in a country.”

Last year, Carol Black’s review of drugs for the Government said that the evidence suggests that

“enforcement crackdowns have little…impact on the overall drug supply…and can often have the unintended consequence of increasing violence, for example by creating a gap in the market for dealers to compete over, or increasing distrust in the drugs market.”

The police force in County Durham published evidence in which drug users were interviewed about a large-scale undercover police operation, which lasted six months, cost more than half a million pounds, and resulted in the arrest of over 30 people involved in the supply of class A drugs. When users were asked how long they thought the operation had strangled the supply of heroin for, one estimated four hours, and another just two hours. If people want more evidence than that, I recommend the books by former undercover cop, Neil Woods, who gives a graphic illustration of how the market is there and how, even if that market is interrupted, people come in and fill the gap. We cannot arrest our way out of this problem.

Through county lines, dealing and exploitation, more and more young people have been pulled into drug supply and a life of crime. In 2017 alone, 38,000 people were criminalised for possession of drugs in England and Wales, almost 3,000 of them under the age of 18—people unnecessarily criminalised, limiting their future life chances and their educational and employment opportunities.

A third of the prison population are there because of drug offences or offences relating to drug use. Putting people in custodial settings as a result of their substance use punishes those who need help, does not address the root cause of their issues, and is, more often than not, counterproductive All those things add up to part of the human cost of our drugs policy, but what about the financial cost?

According to the Home Office, in England alone, policing and enforcing current drug policy costs £1.4 billion annually. Half of acquisitive crime is related to illegal drug use. A different Home Office-commissioned report said that the failure of drug policies costs the taxpayer £10.7 billion a year in policing, healthcare and crime. The total societal costs of harms relating to illegal drug use is now £19.3 billion.

Another consequence of the 1971 Act is how it has held back scientific and medical developments. Drugs in schedule 1 such as Psilocybin, MDMA, LSD and DMT are showing real promise as potentially life-changing treatment options for conditions such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and addictions. While it is technically possible, it is slow, difficult and expensive to do medical research into schedule 1 substances. Under this policy regime, we are wasting money, wasting the resources of the criminal justice system, wasting the chance to do better research and to find evidence to inform our drug policy and our medical interventions, and wasting lives.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for setting out the scope of the impact of the drugs scene today and the implication that it has on residents, including in my constituency of York Central where there is an incredibly high level of drug deaths. This is how I got involved in the issue. I have been on a journey and learned how a public health approach can be transformative in diverting people away from crime, in ensuring that there is no exploitation, in providing good treatment, including engagement with drug consumption spaces, and in taking that full public health approach. Does he agree that we need a sea change now to see harm reduction, as has been tried and tested elsewhere, which has incredible outcomes that he, too, has seen.

[Jeff Smith]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This anniversary is surely the time to take stock, to change our approach to one that is rooted in evidence, and to do what is best for public health.

In 2019, the Health and Social Care Committee recommended such an approach. It called for

“a radical change in UK drugs policy”

moving

“from a criminal justice to a health approach.

It said:

“Responsibility for drugs policy should move from the Home Office to the Department of Health and Social Care.”

It supported a consultation on decriminalisation of drugs for personal use. By the way, decriminalisation is supported by the World Health Organisation, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal Society for Public Health.

The Government published their response earlier this year, saying that they had “no intention” of decriminalising drugs. They said:

“Drugs are illegal because scientific and medical analysis has shown they are harmful to human health”—

apart, of course, from alcohol, a drug that is more harmful to the user than most drugs aside from heroin, crack and methamphetamine. It is certainly not less harmful to the user compared with cannabis or ecstasy, for example, and it is legal.

Let us think for a minute, following the Government’s logic, what would happen if we made alcohol illegal because it is harmful to human health. People would not stop using it. They would get it from the black market, as they did during prohibition in the USA. People would die from badly produced moonshine, as they did in the USA, and the profits would go into the pockets of criminal gangs. Instead of that, we mitigate the harm from alcohol use by legalising it, regulating it, making sure that it is not poisonous and making it safe, and we can invest the tax raised from its sale in the NHS and public messaging. No one has ever given me a convincing argument as to why we do not take the same approach to cannabis, as many US states and increasing numbers of countries around the world are now doing. There is simply no logic to the Government’s approach.

There would be different approaches to different drugs, but what is common is that the current regime is not working. Over the last half a century, there have been calls for reform from a wide range of parliamentary Committees and public bodies. We have an increasing body of evidence to look at on how things could change for the better. The evidence from countries that have liberalised their approach to drugs does not suggest an associated increase in use.

The example of Portugal is worth highlighting again. In the early noughties, Portugal was in the grip of Europe’s worst heroin and drug death crisis. In 2001, it ended the criminalisation of people who use drugs and established a health-led approach instead. Since then, drug-related deaths have fallen and have remained below the EU average. The proportion of the prison population sentenced for drug offences fell from over 40% to 15%. The number of annual drug overdose deaths reduced from 318 in 2000 to 40 in 2015. There was an 18% reduction in the social costs of drug use in the first 10 years of decriminalisation. Problematic use and school-age use both fell, and rates of drug use in Portugal remain consistently below the EU average.

Even within the current regime, the Government could stop blocking some proven harm reduction measures, such as overdose prevention centres and drug safety testing, and they could ramp up and even out the provision of naloxone and heroin-assisted treatment. They could have encouraged more diversion schemes and more deferred prosecution schemes and could properly reinvest in the treatment budgets that have been cut in recent years.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachael Maskell]

On the issue of diversion, I was told a powerful story about how young people, instead of getting a criminal record, were given the opportunity in life for someone to invest in them. As a result, they got apprenticeships and then got a job instead of a criminal record. Surely that is a better way forward for these young people’s lives.

[Jeff Smith]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have the evidence in the UK. There have been some very good diversion schemes in Durham and the west midlands, and there are others. We do not need to look at the evidence abroad; we can look at the evidence in the UK.