Drugs Policy

Ruth George Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

Our published drugs strategy definitely recognises the relationship between those who take drugs and those who drink alcohol, and understanding that relationship will be a key part of our recovery programmes. In our modern crime prevention strategy, we have a whole series of actions around alcohol. Public Health England and the NHS do a lot of work in that area as well. We are very understanding of the hon. Gentleman’s point, and it will form part of our joined-up integrated approach. Is there a further question I can take before making some progress?

[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

An enormous part of the harm that is done by drugs is when people, particularly young people, do not know what it is that they are taking. If we are considering a harm prevention strategy, should we not be trying to ensure that we can protect people and help them to know what they are taking? Does that not include making drugs available legally so that we can test them and properly protect people?

[Sarah Newton]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. We need to be really clear here: we do not ban substances without an evidence base that shows that they are harmful to people’s health. The reason why we put in those protections—whether it is through the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016, or the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971—is that the evidence base clearly shows that these substances are harmful. There is no safe way that people can take these products. It would be terrible to confuse young people by saying that they can, somehow, safely take a legal high. I know how difficult it is to have these conversations with young people; I have three children in their 20s. I understand the world in which they live and the temptations with which they are faced, but that is why it is so important that we have very clear messages and effective education tools for teachers, which we are investing in now. We will be legislating to make personal, social, health and economic education statutory in schools so that every young person understands the risks of taking alcohol and drugs, which will make them more resilient and more able to resist the temptations. I have said to my own children, “If you can’t go into Boots or any other reputable pharmacist and buy something, then it will not be good for you.” It is really important that we have very simple and clear messages for young people.

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[Ms Abbott]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. We cannot have a meaningful strategy on drug abuse without looking at the question of resources, but I would be the first to say that it is more complex than simply providing more money.

To give an overview of what local authorities are facing, Barnsley cut its drug and alcohol service by more than a third between 2015-16 and 2016-17. Some services will be unavailable and key drugs practitioners will be made redundant. Staffordshire County Council was forced to make cuts of 45% to its drug and alcohol treatment budget over the past two years, due to its local commissioning group pulling the expected £15 million of NHS funding. Middlesbrough Council, which sadly has one of the highest rates of death from heroin overdoses in the country, cut its budget by £1 million last year.

When the Home Office announced those policies, it correctly said that for every £1 spent on public health, £2.50 is saved. However, instead of helping local authorities to follow that logic, the Government have obliged them to pursue short-term cuts. Some local authorities have tried, and some have been particularly innovative in seeking efficiencies in their public health budgets, but the reality is that too many are looking at significant reductions in services, and some are even privatising services. When it comes to public health, the Government talk a good talk but do not follow through with the resources. I note with dismay that the strategy includes no mention of providing more resources to local authorities, which after all are on the frontline of any strategy against drug use.

[Ruth George]

Bearing in mind the figures that my right hon. Friend has set out—for every £1 spent on public health, £2.50 is saved for the public purse—does she agree that the overall cuts of £85 million to local authorities’ public health budgets are a false economy that are not serving our communities, or even the Exchequer?

[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.”

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[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

This has been a powerful and moving debate, and I am proud to be a part of it. I congratulate all my fellow new Members who have made their maiden speeches today. We are fresh-faced people from the outside coming into this place, bringing our experience as part of our communities, and, I am afraid, that experience will always include drugs.

My initial interest in drugs policy came about from my work over 18 years for the shop workers’ union USDAW. That was not because shop workers are selling drugs, but because they are suffering from them. Our drugs policy is failing, and it is not just drug users and their families who suffer from our failure.

Behind the statistic of £6 billion of losses from crime and antisocial behaviour due to drugs, there are thousands of innocent people working on the frontline who suffer far worse than economic loss. I welcome the fact that we now have a drugs strategy, and the commitment to better drugs education in our schools. I say that as a parent of four children.

I live in the beautiful rural constituency of High Peak: small market towns and villages, lovely houses, picturesque countryside. But even in beautiful High Peak, we have a problem with drugs. We see it when we are out in the evening, in our parks, on street corners, or even in the mornings when our children are on their way to school. I was even approached when out canvassing last month.

It is such a widespread problem that we do not have the police to deal with it, even before the huge cuts to our police numbers, let alone the necessary number of courts or prison places. That way of proceeding is not only impractical, however; it is also expensive and ineffective, and creates criminals out of people who need help, not harm.

The associated antisocial behaviour from drug and alcohol abuse in our towns and cities is affecting the quality of life of all our residents, shoppers and retailers. No one agency is able to tackle this problem alone, so they feel they have nowhere to turn. Derbyshire police and crime commissioner is leading multi-agency working of enforcement agencies, local authorities, businesses and voluntary organisations, so they are working in partnership. There have been positive outcomes already, and all sectors will benefit from the work they do. Drug services have joined up with those delivering alcohol, mental health and homelessness services, and have welcomed the intervention by the PCC, who has helped to set up specialist drugs workers in a local charity, with financial contributions from partner agencies, and soon from local businesses as well.

So many of us are affected, and that means that there is support from all quarters—from communities, parents, young people, shop workers, emergency service workers and businesses—for effectively tackling our drugs problems. Like other Members, I urge the Minister to be bold, and not to be tied to the policies of the past or to think that there is not support for funding drug policies. When there is £2.50 of benefit for every pound of spending on tackling our drug problem, people see the need, as well as the sense and the benefits, of an effective policy. The cuts to drug treatment budgets of up to 50% in some areas are a false economy. Drug policy needs ring-fenced funding and we need policies that work. This is too urgent and widespread a problem for us to tiptoe around it any longer.

I urge the Government to be bold in accepting the well-researched scientific evidence from their own Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. Its evidence shows that many drug users need to be persuaded to accept treatment. Most drug users do not see their using as a problem, and do not see the need for treatment. I am afraid that treatment is not everything, however. Independent research from the University of Manchester shows that those who leave treatment drug-free are just as likely to die of an overdose as those who do not. Risk of fatal overdose is at its highest in the four weeks after leaving opiate substitute treatment—almost four times the risk while in treatment. Treatment does not work for everyone, and it is sometimes more damaging than no treatment. Although there are tragedies, many people manage to get by while using drugs, and they often get by quite well, especially if they are supported. I therefore very much welcome the Government’s support through housing policy in the drug strategy.

There was not much that I supported in the last Conservative manifesto, and I was not alone in that. However, I do support the proposal for national insurance holidays to support small and medium-sized businesses in taking on people in hard-to-reach groups, especially those who are users or ex-users of drugs. People who are in employment are twice as likely to manage their drug use as those who are not. I applaud this forward-thinking policy, which has the support of the Federation of Small Businesses, and I will support the Government in bringing it forward.

Drug taking is a serious problem in every corner of our land, from the picturesque rural villages of High Peak to our city centres, and we need to work together to maximise our effectiveness and the funding available. I hope that there will be a representative of the Treasury on the new drugs council that the Minister mentioned, and that the council can persuade the Treasury of the cost-effectiveness of ring-fenced funding. We can afford to adopt a decent, far-thinking, science-based policy for harm reduction from drugs. We cannot afford not to.

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[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.

[Ruth George]

All the funds that the Minister mentioned are stretched beyond compare, especially the mental health funding. Yes, public health funding is ring-fenced, but it has been cut by £85 million. Drug treatment services are being cut, I am afraid, even though there is increased need.

[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—