Asked by: Marquess of Lothian (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking together with international partners, to (1) disrupt and dismantle Afghan drug trafficking organisations, and (2) separate those groups from the Taliban.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The UK works closely with international partners to disrupt serious and organised criminality linked to the Afghan drugs trade, a proportion of which is conducted by the Taliban.
This work involves operational cooperation, joint operations and the provision of capacity building. It has led to significant operational results. For example, as set out in the National Crime Agency’s Annual Report and Accounts (available at http://nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/publications/915-nca-annual-report-account-2017-18/file) 5.1 tonnes of heroin was seized in 2017 / 2018.
Asked by: Lord Jones of Cheltenham (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the increase in trading of heroin in Mozambique and throughout East Africa; and whether they plan to discuss this with the governments of those regions.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
An assessment of the heroin supply route via the Indian Ocean to East and Southern Africa is provided in the 2018 National Strategic Assessment of Serious and Organised Crime published by the National Crime Agency in May 2018.
The UK continues to enjoy close and longstanding cooperation with the governments and law enforcement agencies of both regions in tackling this threat.
Asked by: Andrew Selous (Conservative - South West Bedfordshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether it is an aggravated offence for a pregnant women to use (a) cannabis, (b) ecstasy, (c) heroin and (d) other illegal or street drugs during pregnancy; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Nick Hurd
There is no specific offence for drug use. It is an offence under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 for any person to possess a controlled drug. The penalty will depend on: the class and quantity of drug, where a person and the drugs were found, their personal history and other aggravating or mitigating factors.
The Government is determined to protect vulnerable women from drug misuse. Advice about alcohol and drugs is available to pregnant women as part of their routine antenatal care. Pregnant women who misuse alcohol or drugs will be put in contact with a midwife or doctor who has special expertise in the care of pregnant women with alcohol or drug problems. They will be able to refer them to an alcohol or drug treatment programme and other organisations that can help.
Asked by: Jeff Smith (Labour - Manchester, Withington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the letter from his Department to Glasgow City Council published on 4 June 2018 on drug consumption rooms, what steps his Department is taking to protect heroin users in Glasgow against HIV infection.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Health is a devolved matter, and as such is wholly the responsibility of the Scottish Government.
However, the Government support a range of evidenced-base approaches to reduce the health-related harms associated with drug misuse. For example, availability of injecting equipment through needle and syringe programmes to prevent blood borne infections including HIV.
We have also amended the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001 to permit needle exchange programmes to distribute foil for heroin smoking and we are committed to widening the availability of Naloxone to prevent drug-related deaths.
We also recognise that, for many people who become dependent on heroin, opioid substitution therapy (OST) will be an important part of their pathway to recovery. For those where opioid substitutes have not been effective, Heroin Assisted Treatment (HAT) provides an alternative and effective way of treating individuals.
Asked by: Jeff Smith (Labour - Manchester, Withington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the European Drug Report 2018, published by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction on 7 June 2018, what assessment he has made of the reasons for the rise in cocaine-related deaths in the UK.
Answered by Steve Brine
The European Drug Report 2018 publishes national data from around Europe, and includes drug-related deaths data from the Office for National Statistics. This is available at the following link:
The number of cocaine-related deaths in England and Wales has increased over the last six years. However, this figure includes those deaths involving crack cocaine, and it is unknown which deaths relate to powder cocaine and which relate to crack cocaine. Crack cocaine is often used alongside heroin by the most vulnerable drug users at greatest risk of health harm and death, and heroin deaths are also increasing. Many cocaine deaths are also associated with other drugs.
There has been a recent increase in crack use and Public Health England is working with the Home Office in an England-wide investigation, including an in-depth review in six localities with high crack prevalence, aiming to get a better understanding of the underlying reasons behind the increase, which is expected to lead to improved efforts to reduce crack use and the deaths associated with it.
Asked by: Andrew Selous (Conservative - South West Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the effect of substance abuse by women during pregnancy on a child's health.
Answered by Steve Brine
No specific assessment has been made. However, using illegal or street drugs during pregnancy, including cannabis, ecstasy, cocaine and heroin, can have a potentially serious effect on an unborn baby and the advice is to avoid these substances.
Advice about alcohol and drugs is available to pregnant women as part of their routine antenatal care. Pregnant women who misuse alcohol or drugs will be put in contact with a midwife or doctor who has special expertise in the care of pregnant women with alcohol or drug problems. They will be able to refer them to an alcohol or drug treatment programme and other organisations that can help.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people have died or been admitted to hospital as a result of taking pain-killers in the last 12 months.
Answered by Steve Barclay - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Data on deaths is collected by the Office for National Statistics and is not centrally held by the Department. However, figures for admissions where the primary cause was poisoning with a chemical that may be considered a painkiller are given in the following table and broken down by chemical type.
A count of finished admission episodes (FAEs)1, with a primary diagnosis2 of poisoning due to painkillers3 from the provisional data April 2017 to February 20184,5
| ||
Primary Diagnosis and Description | 2017/18 (April 2017 to February 2018) | |
T39.0 | Poisoning: Salicylates | 1,148 |
T39.1 | Poisoning: 4-Aminophenol derivatives | 38,162 |
T39.2 | Poisoning: Pyrazolone derivatives | 11 |
T39.3 | Poisoning: Other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID) | 4,082 |
T39.4 | Poisoning: Antirheumatics, not elsewhere classified | 5 |
T39.8 | Poisoning: Other nonopioid analgesics and antipyretics, not elsewhere classified | 175 |
T39.9 | Poisoning: Nonopioid analgesic, antipyretic and antirheumatic, unspecified | 42 |
T40.0 | Poisoning: Opium | 12 |
T40.1 | Poisoning: Heroin | 1,792 |
T40.2 | Poisoning: Other opioids | 8,004 |
T40.3 | Poisoning: Methadone | 322 |
T40.4 | Poisoning: Other synthetic narcotics | 2,528 |
T40.5 | Poisoning: Cocaine | 1,184 |
T40.6 | Poisoning: Other and unspecified narcotics | 514 |
T40.7 | Poisoning: Cannabis (derivatives) | 321 |
T40.8 | Poisoning: Lysergide (LSD) | 91 |
T40.9 | Poisoning: Other and unspecified psychodysleptics (hallucinogens) | 43 |
T41.0 | Poisoning: Inhaled anaesthetics | 11 |
T41.1 | Poisoning: Intravenous anaesthetics | 2 |
T41.2 | Poisoning: Other and unspecified general anaesthetics | 163 |
T41.3 | Poisoning: Local anaesthetics | 24 |
T41.4 | Poisoning: Anaesthetic, unspecified | 2 |
T41.5 | Poisoning: Therapeutic gases | 1 |
| Total | 58,639 |
Source: Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), NHS Digital
Notes:
1Finished admission episodes
A FAE is the first period of inpatient care under one consultant within one healthcare provider. FAEs are counted against the year or month in which the admission episode finishes. Admissions do not represent the number of inpatients, as a person may have more than one admission within the period.
2Primary diagnosis
The primary diagnosis is the first of up to 20 (14 from 2002-03 to 2006-07 and 7 prior to 2002-03) diagnosis fields in the HES data set and provides the main reason why the patient was admitted to hospital.
3Poisoning due to painkillers
ICD-10 Clinical codes relating to Poisoning due to painkillers:
T39 - Poisoning by nonopioid analgesics, antipyretics and antirheumatics
T40 - Poisoning by narcotics and psychodysleptics (hallucinogens)
T41 - Poisoning by anaesthetics and therapeutic gases
4Assessing growth through time (Inpatients)
HES figures are available from 1989-90 onwards. Changes to the figures over time need to be interpreted in the context of improvements in data quality and coverage (particularly in earlier years), improvements in coverage of independent sector activity (particularly from 2006-07) and changes in National Health Service practice. For example, changes in activity may be due to changes in the provision of care.
5Provisional data
The data is provisional and may be incomplete or contain errors for which no adjustments have yet been made. Counts produced from provisional data are likely to be lower than those generated for the same period in the final dataset. This shortfall will be most pronounced in the final month of the latest period, i.e. November from the (month 9) April to November extract. It is also probable that clinical data are not complete, which may in particular affect the last two months of any given period. There may also be errors due to coding inconsistencies that have not yet been investigated and corrected.
Asked by: Louise Haigh (Labour - Sheffield, Heeley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the press release of 9 April 2018, entitled Home Secretary launches serious violence strategy, which projects are to be allocated the £40 million of her Department's funding referred to; and how much each such project will receive.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Serious Violence Strategy commits £40m of Home Office funding to support delivery over two years (2018-19 and 2019-20). This includes £11m for the Early Intervention Youth Fund; £3.6m for the new National County Lines Co-ordination Centre; £1m each year for the (anti knife crime) Community Fund; and £500,000 to support Heroin and Crack Cocaine Action Areas. Further details on how the remainder of the funding will be used to support the commitments in the Strategy will be the subject of further announcements in due course. This will include further support to Redthread for its youth violence intervention work in hospitals, future knife crime media campaigns, new local and regional reviews, new rounds of the Ending Gang Violence and Exploitation Fund, funding for Young Peoples Advocates, the test purchase prosecution fund, support for interventions with vulnerable groups, work on police testing kits in respect of corrosive substances, a thematic inspection of police forces in respect of county lines, and preventative measures in respect of gang related material on social media.
Asked by: Luciana Berger (Liberal Democrat - Liverpool, Wavertree)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many heroin-related (a) hospital admissions and (b) deaths there have been in the last five years.
Answered by Steve Brine
The table below shows the count of finished admission episodes with a primary diagnosis and primary or secondary diagnosis of poisoning by heroin for the years 2012-13 to 2016-17. The table shows activity in English National Health Service Hospitals and English NHS commissioned activity in the independent sector.
Year | Primary diagnosis | Primary or secondary diagnosis |
2012-13 | 1,243 | 1,781 |
2013-14 | 1,827 | 2,499 |
2014-15 | 2,213 | 2,974 |
2015-16 | 2,342 | 3,179 |
2016-17 | 2,023 | 2,917 |
Source: Hospital Episode Statistics, NHS Digital
The number of deaths registered in England and Wales where heroin and/or morphine were mentioned on the death certificate are in the table below:
Year | Number of deaths due to heroin and/or morphine |
2012 | 579 |
2013 | 765 |
2014 | 952 |
2015 | 1,201 |
2016 | 1,209 |
These figures were published by the Office of National Statistics in the Statistical Bulletin Deaths related to drug poisoning in England and Wales:2016 registrations (published August 2017) and are available at:
Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate she has made of the (a) volume and (b) proportion of illegal drugs that are seized before they reach consumers.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
A total volume seized across all drugs is not available as they are measured in different units, such as kilograms, doses and plants. However data relating to seizures of cocaine, heroin and ecstasy for 2016/17 can be found at:
Data is not collected on the proportion of drugs that are seized.