Psychoactive Substances

William Cash Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Norman Baker]

So far there has not been great success with regard to the speed of activity from the European Union. The proposals it is putting forward would, in my view, be slower than the present UK proposals, so irrespective of the legal base, that is not a good message to send out to those who wish to deal with what are often quite dangerous substances.

[Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

Would the Minister be kind enough to give way on a point of information, because I wish, through him, to answer the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie)? There have recently been a number of successful challenges in relation to reasoned opinions on subsidiarity, including on a European prosecutor’s office. We will continue in this House and in the European Scrutiny Committee to take the appropriate and necessary advice and get it right.

[Norman Baker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that information. Of course, his knowledge of European matters is second to none in this House—[Interruption.] I did not say whether or not I approved of it.

The proposed regulation has features that might be appropriate if harmonisation of a legitimate internal market was genuinely required, but when applied to the control of these substances by member states, the proposal greatly exceeds any action required at EU level and thus does not comply with the principle of subsidiarity. For those few psychoactive substances that have legitimate uses, which amount to fewer than 2% of the more than 300 substances identified by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction since 2005, our framework is already flexible enough to place controls on those substances to restrict recreational use without hindering genuine use in industry.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

We have had an interesting exchange of views, resulting in the Government and the Opposition agreeing with the European Scrutiny Committee’s assessment that there is a breach of the principle of subsidiarity in these matters. There are two issues: the draft regulation and the draft directive, both of which have already been described, so there is no need for me to go into them in detail.

The draft regulation would fetter the flexibility that member states currently enjoy to determine the level of risk associated with a new psychoactive substance, and to implement appropriate national control measures. The draft directive, on the other hand, would require member states to introduce criminal sanctions for a new psychoactive substance deemed by the Commission to present a severe health, social and safety risk.

The draft reasoned opinion concludes that the proposed legislation breaches the principle of subsidiarity simply because it would fetter member states’ action to an unacceptable degree. It highlighted the following concerns: the absence of reliable market information on the volume of trade in new psychoactive substances for legitimate rather than recreational use; different cultural and societal attitudes towards the regulation of drugs and new psychoactive substances and the need to accommodate different regulatory approaches at national level; the limited scope for unilateral action by a member state when faced with evidence of social or health harms which exceed the level of risk identified by the Commission when implementing market restrictions; and insufficient evidence of disruption to legitimate trade, or displacement of the harmful effects of the new psychoactive substances, to warrant market intervention on the scale envisaged in the proposed measures or the imposition of additional constraints on members states’ freedom of action.

We have had a number of successes in the European Scrutiny Committee’s proposals for reasoned opinions: we debated the proposal for a European prosecutor’s office and last week it was withdrawn by the Commission, and the Monti II provision in relation to small and medium-sized businesses. We are making some progress. The reality, however, is that we still have to get a substantial number of member states to agree to our proposals on the reasoned opinion. We have a decent track record and will continue to argue the case on the basis of analysis, logic and common sense. Having said that, I do not think there is anything I need to do to repeat the remarks that have already been made, because the Government, the Opposition and the ESC all agree.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

From experience, does my hon. Friend agree that it is usually the most dangerous state of affairs when there is a consensus between my hon. Friend, Her Majesty’s Government and Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition?

[Mr Cash]

I would certainly agree that it is extremely dangerous when there is collusion between the two Front-Bench teams, but when the European Scrutiny Committee comes into the equation, I think it is a virtuous circle. I hope that that helps my hon. Friend.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that when the Government, the Opposition and the European Scrutiny Committee agree, there should be no question but that this proposal will go absolutely nowhere in terms of being implemented at any time in this country, and that we can be absolutely assured of that?

[Mr Cash]

We can be sure that our analysis will bear scrutiny and that the European Commission is getting used to the idea that when the UK Parliament is agreed about something, we are not going to give in. I think I will conclude my remarks on that rather important point.