UK Drugs Policy
Debate between Stephen Phillips and Crispin Blunt(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Crispin Blunt
I agree with the hon. Lady. There are examples all over the world of much more enlightened policies on drugs. Portugal and the Czech Republic have already been cited, and a number of American states have changed their policies on cannabis.
This is what I find modestly depressing. A bright young new Member of Parliament is elected in 2001, and is appointed to the Home Affairs Committee. He is then party to a report which invites another really good report from the Home Affairs Committee, whose members, as Members of Parliament, sit down and consider the issues properly. He is then party to a recommendation in 2002. He is holding to that position even in 2005, when he is competing for the Conservative party leadership. And here we are now. I found myself becoming one of his Ministers in 2010.
I shall now do what I should not do, and reveal a collective internal political discussion between Ministers who had some responsibility for justice and those from the Home Office. Of course, we did not dare to raise this issue. I pushed as hard as I could for us at least to get to where we are today, and I congratulate the Minister and his predecessor on having pushed so hard to secure the report that has just been published. It is a big step forward for us to persuade the Government even to specify the international comparators. The hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) was right to point out that the conclusions appear to be missing from the report. Joking apart, however, we all need to understand the political difficulty of carrying this debate with us. We have been frightened of the tabloid press, and we have seen what they did to the Liberal Democrat party as a result of some of its policies in this area.
The Home Affairs Select Committee’s recommendation in 2012 for a royal commission was absolutely right. That will get the matter out of the political space, so that the work on international comparators that has been put into the report can be considered. The royal commission will then be able to put forward the kind of difficult and far-reaching conclusions that I believe would be appropriate to take us in the direction of regulation and away from the utterly disastrous policy of prohibition.
Stephen Phillips
My hon. Friend talks about political courage. In the debate earlier this week on the Recall of MPs Bill, he made a brave speech on restoring the reputation of Parliament. One way of doing that would be for us to take the lead on this matter and tell the truth about the fact that the existing drugs policy has not worked. Should we not simply take on the tabloids—and damn the consequences—by putting in place a policy that works and that is best for the people of this country?
Crispin Blunt
I wholly agree with my hon. and learned Friend. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), he has seen at first hand the horrifying consequences of the failure of our policy in the prison system. I visited 70-odd prisons during my time as prisons Minister, and the most depressing part of those visits was seeing the methadone queue. The prisoners queuing up to be prescribed their methadone were sallow, emaciated and plainly ill, and they had almost no prospect of getting better, given the treatment that they were getting.
We worked hard to start to join up the different parts of the criminal justice system in relation to addiction. We wanted to divert addicts from the criminal justice system and into the health system right at the beginning of the process, so that they could get proper treatment. One of the aims of the probation service reforms is to incentivise the service in regard to the successful rehabilitation of offenders. About 46% of acquisitive crime is drug related, as a result of people trying to feed their habit. If we are to rehabilitate such people successfully, we need to address their addiction. We ran eight pilots in the health service to try to identify the best ways of incentivising the health system to address addiction. All those measures are just baby steps, however, given the way in which the drugs industry has been criminalised. According to a Library note, Home Office figures show that the cost of the problem to the criminal justice system is about £13.9 billion.
Legalisation would create a risk of adverse health consequences. We might see an explosion in drug use, just as we have in the use of another drug, called alcohol, which is omnipresent in our society. Linked to that could be the kind of consequences that my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood described, relating to tranquillisers. There could be a significant increase in health problems if we legalised and regulated the supply of drugs that are currently illegal. However, the lessons from Portugal suggest that that would not happen.
Getting the supply of drugs out of the hands of criminals would create the benefits that other hon. Members have mentioned. We would know what was in the drugs, that they were clean and that they had been obtained on the basis of sensible advice about their use. We would then have a society in which people took responsibility for their actions. If someone drove under the influence of drugs, for example, they would have to take the consequences, just as they would today if they drove under the influence of alcohol.
Given the scale of this issue, it is a pity that this debate has had to take place on a Back-Bench motion. The tide of opinion expressed by those who have taken part has so far gone entirely in one direction. I know from my experience as a Minister that, when we first looked at this matter, the Government spent about £900 million on trying to address addiction. The general assessment from Ministers at the time was that that was achieving absolutely nothing. It was felt that the rate at which people were getting better would probably have been exactly the same if that money had not been spent. We were making serious efforts, and the Government are to be commended for their efforts, particularly in the criminal justice system, to join up the management of addicted offenders, but this could all happen much faster and be much more effective if we grasped the root of the problem—namely, the consequences of prohibition.
In the end, drugs are drugs. Alcohol is a drug. We have heard about the example of prohibition in the United States, and of its war on drugs. Both those policies have been utter calamities, and they should present a lesson to the world. I sincerely hope that we in this House will be able to force Her Majesty’s Government to have the courage to address this serious issue in a way that could be of immense benefit to many of our citizens.
Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
Finding myself simultaneously in agreement with the hon. Members for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), for Newport West (Paul Flynn) and for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) is a first since I entered this place in 2010. When I came down to the Chamber this morning and I was thinking about the speech I was going to make and the notes I had made, I thought I was going to be committing political suicide. However, it is apparent from the contributions made by Members from across the House today that there is unanimity of view within the House: the current position, enshrined in the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, can no longer prevail. I pay particular tribute to the hon. Member for Newport West, who, as he rightly reminded the House, has been speaking, with one voice, on this issue for the past four decades. I have to tell him that the end is in sight and he is going to win in due course.
I wish to start my observations by setting out three startlingly simple propositions, with which this Minister would agree. The first is that the so-called “war on drugs” has been lost. My right hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt)—
Stephen Phillips
Just honourable—that is a great shame.
My hon. Friend made reference to all the political leaders from across the world who have, in effect, made that point since they have left public office. He is no longer on the Front Bench and feels able, as I do, from the Back Benches to make the point that the war on drugs has been lost. That is a strong indication that we are getting policies completely wrong.
The second proposition is that existing drugs policy, focusing principally on criminalisation, is detrimental to health outcomes for individuals and damages society as a whole. The third proposition can now be made with confidence, given the report published by the Government this morning—I will come back to the issue of whether or not it contains any conclusions—but the report on comparative experience in other jurisdictions makes it clear, especially in relation to Portugal although the evidence from a number of other jurisdictions is the same, that decriminalisation not only leads to better outcomes for individuals but lessens the bill for the criminal justice system and provides greater benefits for society as a whole. One of those benefits, which I mentioned when I intervened on the hon. Member for Cambridge, is that it leads to respect for the criminal law.
One problem we have at the moment is that a large number of young people who are using psychoactive substances do not regard that as a crime. For them to be criminalised by the laws of this country leads to a general disrespect on their part for the criminal law and for this place. The hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) made an important point in her earlier intervention: we are, or we are perceived by many of our constituents, to be behind the curve on this issue. We are perceived not to be in touch and not to be living in 2014. That is because successive Governments, of all colours, have been held back from doing the right thing, and I want to congratulate this Minister on having, for the first time, what my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate describes as an “intelligent debate”. This is the first time I have heard the House discuss this issue in an intelligent debate.
I intend to return to my three propositions, but it may be of assistance if I say that I come at this matter not only as an MP but as someone with experience of the criminal justice system, not really from practice but from having been a Crown court recorder. Any criminal justice professional in this country we speak to, be they a judge, a police officer or someone working in the probation service, will tell us the same thing: not only is our current approach to the use of illegal drugs in this country not the right one, but it is not based on evidence. Furthermore, it is detrimental to individuals and to society as a whole.
Nobody has been speaking for young people on this issue. They regard us in this House as dinosaurs when we consider the use of recreational drugs. They consider us to be living in a different age, one in which they are no longer living. They have no respect either for the criminal law or for this House, as a result. We have to move on. We have to recognise that times have changed. We must recognise the broad array of recreational psychoactive substances that are now available to young people and have an intelligent policy that does not just say, “You are a criminal if you use those substances.” Instead, we should say, “There are very significant risks to your health and very significant costs potentially to society. Although it is a matter for you whether you use those drugs, there will be consequences, but they will be consequences that we will principally deal with through the health system rather than through the criminal justice system.”
Common European Sales Law
Debate between Stephen Phillips and Crispin Blunt(13 years ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)
I beg to move,
That this House considers that the Draft Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council to introduce a Common European Sales Law (European Union Document No. 15429/11 and Addenda 1 and 2) does not comply with the principle of subsidiarity, for the reasons set out in Chapter 5 of the Forty-Seventh Report of the European Scrutiny Committee (HC 428-xlii); and, in accordance with Article 6 of Protocol (No. 2) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union on the application of principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, instructs the Clerk of the House to forward this reasoned opinion to the Presidents of the European Institutions.
I will start by making some general contextual comments. I am pleased that this debate has been called because the proposed common European sales law is important both politically and legally. I know that it is of interest to Parliament and the public.
This debate makes use of article 6 of protocol 2 to the Lisbon treaty, the subsidiarity protocol, which enables national Parliaments to put forward a reasoned opinion challenging a proposal by the European Commission on the grounds that they do not consider that it complies with the principle of subsidiarity. I believe that this is the fourth time that this House has considered such a motion. The first three related to financial services and this is the first in the area of justice. I note with interest that a debate on the same proposal was held in the German Bundestag last week, where it was accepted unanimously that the proposal for the common European sales law was contrary to the principle of subsidiarity. I am sure that fellow member states and their Parliaments will listen with interest to what is discussed and concluded here today.
I should make it clear at the outset that the drafting of a reasoned opinion is a matter for Parliament, not for the Government. The European Union treaties have given the role of the supervision of subsidiarity to national Parliaments. It is therefore Parliament’s task to decide whether to present such an opinion to the European Union institutions. I should also say that the Government are considering a report by the Procedure Committee relating to the handling of reasoned opinions such as this. I hope that the House will understand if I do not speculate on what the outcome of those considerations will be.
Subsidiarity is a word that we hear much about when dealing with European legislative proposals. It may assist the House if I say a few words about it. The concept is defined in article 5 of the treaty on European Union:
“in areas which do not fall within its exclusive competence, the Union shall act only if and in so far as the objectives of the proposed action cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States, either at central level or at regional and local level, but can rather, by reason of the scale or effects of the proposed action, be better achieved at Union level.”
It follows that subsidiarity is a specific legal and political concept. In simple terms, it means that decisions should be taken as closely as possible to the citizens whom they affect, and that the European Union should act only when outcomes can be better achieved at European Union level. Subsidiarity is different from the principle of proportionality, under which any action taken by the European Union should not exceed what is necessary to achieve the stated objectives.
Successive Governments have supported the principle of subsidiarity. I am told that the United Kingdom pushed for it to be strengthened in the Lisbon treaty. The treaty includes a requirement that all legislative proposals should include a statement making it possible to appraise their compliance with the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality. It also introduced the power for national Parliaments to transmit reasoned opinions relating to subsidiarity, such as that which we are debating today. The European institutions—the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament—are obliged to take account of all such opinions.
Moreover, if one third of the national parliamentary chambers throughout the European Union submit such opinions, the Commission must review its proposal. I do not think that any proposal has yet been objected to by a third of the national parliamentary chambers. If that did happen, it would represent a powerful political signal, which the Commission would do well to heed. It cannot be denied that one third is a high threshold. To achieve it will require a great deal of co-ordination between national Parliaments. As I have said, this is a matter for Parliament and not for the Government. I can only encourage the European Scrutiny Committee and other interested parties in Parliament, both in this House and the other place, to make the best use of their contacts with other national Parliaments in this regard.
Stephen Phillips
I am extremely grateful to the Minister for giving way. Will he indicate for the House how many Parliaments, apart from the Westminster Parliament, have asked for a reasoned opinion to date?
Mr Blunt
My hon. and learned Friend was unhappily absent at the beginning of my remarks, when I reported to the House that the Bundestag gave a unanimous opinion last week that this proposal was contrary to the principle of subsidiarity. I am not aware of any other parliamentary chambers that have undertaken to do so. To illustrate the difficulty of achieving the level of one third of chambers taking a view and reporting a reasoned opinion, the Bundesrat has not taken a view. Therefore, of the two German Chambers, only one, the Bundestag, has taken a view. Only half of the German Chambers have taken a view, whereas the hurdle that has to be achieved is a third of national parliamentary chambers. My hon. and learned Friend will understand that it is quite a hurdle in those circumstances. Of course, it is a matter for the other place whether it takes a view on this matter.
You will be aware, Mr Speaker, from reading the Government’s explanatory memorandum on this proposal that, provided that it is demonstrated that the difference in national contract laws is a genuine obstacle to cross-border trade, the Government’s view is that the subsidiarity test is likely to be met. The Government do, however, share the European Scrutiny Committee’s concerns about the necessity for this proposal in the first place. We question whether an optional common European sales law or one with such a wide scope is the right way to address this issue. These matters will form part of the consultation that the Government plan to hold. I shall therefore listen to Members’ views with great interest.
I will now turn to the substance of the proposed regulation. This proposal has a long history. The European Commission and the European Council have been engaged in the general issue of contract law for a decade or so. I believe that the European Parliament’s involvement stretches back even further. The European Union contract law project lay dormant for some time, but gained momentum again in July 2010 with the publication of a Commission green paper on options for progress towards an EU contract law for business and consumers.
The green paper set out various options for reform, including to continue with the development of a legislators’ toolbox. That would provide a common frame of reference, drawing together the most common concepts and terms used in contract law, which would be the commonly agreed basis to be used by the authors of future European Union laws relating to contract law. The aim of that would be to reduce or remove the current differences and the difficulties that they cause. The green paper invited views on seven options, from a specific directive or a regulation providing an optional European Union-level regime, right through to a mandatory black letter European code of contract law. The conclusion of the Commission green paper’s analysis, and of views received on a feasibility study published by the expert group in May, have culminated in the proposed regulation for a common European sales law.
More recently, the Commission’s proposal was published on 11 October. It contains a set of uniform contract law rules that parties to a contract could choose to govern their contract. The use of such rules would be optional, but that optional law would form part of the national law of each member state and could be used as an alternative to what is currently offered under national law. That alternative regime would be available for cross-border business-to-consumer and business-to-business contracts when at least one party was a small or medium-sized enterprise.
Although the Government intend to consult widely on the detailed policy implications of the proposed regulation, our initial assessment indicates that it would be neither simple nor easy to use. Although it is designed to be free-standing, it remains unclear what relationship it would have with other Union laws such as the Rome I regulation. It also seems that a range of matters that could affect the legal relationship between the parties have not been addressed in the proposed regulation. That has the potential to undermine the aim of removing the need for businesses to incur transaction costs on legal advice on another country’s law.
The scope of the proposal could prove difficult, with its wide application to business-to-business and business-to-consumer contracts whether they are concluded at a distance, away from business premises or on the premises. The Government are not sure whether such an all- encompassing regulation is the correct way to address the different problems that traders and consumers may experience. In addition, current arrangements already provide that any state’s law can be chosen as the law of contract. In that sense, a trader could already choose which law to apply to his or her contract, and in most cases that is likely to be their own. The anticipated net value of the regulation remains to be tested and quantified against the costs of introducing a new law.
The Government are also concerned about the treaty base used in bringing the regulation forward. The proposed legal basis is article 114 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union. That basis is normally used for harmonising laws in order to further the establishment of the internal market. The Government have doubts about the appropriateness of that, particularly as most other optional instruments that operate in parallel to domestic law are brought forward on other legal bases.
The Government have been working closely with interested parties through the process leading to the proposed regulation. Indications so far are that opinion is divided. Some interested parties see an optional contract law for cross-border sales as a potentially useful tool for aiding the internal market, but others see such a new law as risky, over-complex and unnecessary.
The Government intend shortly to consult United Kingdom interests on the proposed regulation. The views received will be used to develop and inform the Government’s position on the likely impacts of such a regulation, as well as on any benefits or disadvantages that are likely to occur for the various sectors that it could affect. We will not form a concluded view on our approach to the proposal until after the consultation has been concluded and there has been proper time to analyse the results. For today, I am of course grateful for the chance offered by the debate to hear the specific concerns that Members may have.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Stephen Phillips and Crispin Blunt(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Blunt
Because we need to restrict the availability of custodial sentences on remand when there is no real prospect of the defendant being sentenced to imprisonment if convicted—[Interruption.] Thousands of people who are remanded in custody and then convicted do not receive a custodial sentence—and in the case of those whom magistrates remand, the numbers are very significant indeed.
Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
15. What recent representations he has received on the breach of court orders by those entitled to assert parliamentary privilege.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Stephen Phillips and Crispin Blunt(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Blunt
As I said, we have identified funding to sustain those projects that have demonstrated effective performance, but, as the hon. Gentleman will be well aware, the Department is not in a position to sustain funding on the current level. A total of £10 million was put aside to set these schemes up, whereupon they were then meant to move to local commissioning. There will be continuing support for the schemes from the Ministry of Justice, but we will be looking to them to win the support of local commissioners. They also have access to the Government’s £100 million transition fund, which is precisely designed to bridge that gap, as well as potential access to the big society bank.
Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
7. What steps he is taking to increase the standard of appointments to the Bench in England and Wales.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Stephen Phillips and Crispin Blunt(14 years, 2 months ago)
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Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
T8. My right hon. and learned Friend the Justice Secretary will be aware of the considerable disquiet felt about the Judicial Appointments Commission both by those within the ranks of the judiciary and by those seeking preferment to it. According to the Library, the cost of the JAC to his Department is in the order of £10 million annually. That is for the discharge of functions formerly performed by the Lord Chancellor’s Department for an amount that I have little doubt was one twentieth of that. We saw the axe taken to a number of quangos this week; when can the House expect the JAC to join them?