here - United Kingdom Parliament
here - United Kingdom Parliament
here - United Kingdom Parliament
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
265WH<br />
6 JUNE 2013 Drugs<br />
266WH<br />
Westminster Hall<br />
Thursday 6 June 2013<br />
[HUGH BAYLEY in the Chair]<br />
Drugs<br />
[Relevant documents: Drugs: Breaking the Cycle, Ninth<br />
Report of the Home Affairs Committee, Session 2012-13,<br />
HC 184, and the Government response, Cm 8567.]<br />
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting<br />
be now adjourned.—(Mr Jeremy Browne.)<br />
1.30 pm<br />
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab): It is a pleasure to<br />
serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bayley, in this<br />
important debate. I am pleased to see the Minister <strong>here</strong>,<br />
as well as the colleagues from the Select Committee on<br />
Home Affairs who said that they would come. I pay<br />
tribute to those Committee members who participated<br />
in drafting and agreeing the report: the hon. Members<br />
for Northampton North (Michael Ellis), for Oxford<br />
West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood), for Hertsmere<br />
(Mr Clappison) and for South Ribble (Lorraine Fullbrook),<br />
my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Selly<br />
Oak (Steve McCabe) and for Walsall North (Mr Winnick)<br />
and the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark<br />
Reckless). In particular, I commend the hon. Member<br />
for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) and our colleague the<br />
hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon, who first<br />
pressed for the inquiry. The hon. Member for Cambridge<br />
is in his place. Like me, he is torn between two debates<br />
in the House on Home Affairs. We are occupying the<br />
time of Home Office Ministers in both Westminster<br />
Hall and the main Chamber: gladly, not the same<br />
Minister. I am also grateful to Committee staff, particularly<br />
the specialist Ellie Scarnell, for all their hard work.<br />
The Committee’s report, published on 3 December<br />
2012, is entitled “Breaking the Cycle”. It is our first<br />
report on drugs for more than a decade; the last time we<br />
considered the issue, in 2002, a young Member of the<br />
House, the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr Cameron),<br />
was on the Committee, which should give other Committee<br />
members heart that they have a great political future<br />
ahead of them. We spent a year looking in depth at<br />
drug education, prevention and treatment for drug<br />
addiction, at reducing the supply of drugs in both the<br />
<strong>United</strong> <strong>Kingdom</strong> and abroad and at the evidence on<br />
which drugs policy was based. We visited two countries:<br />
Colombia, w<strong>here</strong> we travelled into the jungle to see<br />
w<strong>here</strong> cocaine is produced, and Portugal, to examine<br />
the drug laws t<strong>here</strong>. We had nearly 200 evidence submissions<br />
and 48 conclusions and recommendations. We heard<br />
views from people as diverse as Sir Richard Branson,<br />
Russell Brand and Peter Oborne. The ex-president of<br />
Switzerland, Ruth Dreifuss, also gave evidence to the<br />
Committee.<br />
This debate, for which we canvassed so many people’s<br />
support, is current. Just today, t<strong>here</strong> was a letter in The<br />
Times calling for an independent review of the Misuse<br />
of Drugs Act 1971, signed by the hon. Member for<br />
Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) as the former leader<br />
of the Green party, Professor David Nutt, Sting and<br />
many others, including the hon. Member for Cambridge<br />
and myself. Public response to the report has been<br />
overwhelming. Society cares deeply about the issue,<br />
because it affects us all and the costs are borne by each<br />
and every one of us. In the <strong>United</strong> <strong>Kingdom</strong> alone,<br />
drug addicts commit between one third and one half of<br />
all acquisitive crime, and drugs cost our health and<br />
justice system £15.3 billion a year.<br />
The debate following the report’s publication caused<br />
great excitement in the press. The Mail on Sunday front<br />
page read:<br />
“MPs pave way to legalise drugs”.<br />
The front page of the more sober Guardian said that<br />
MPs were calling for<br />
“a royal commission on failing drugs laws”.<br />
It has become a feature of reports by the Home<br />
Affairs Committee and other Committees that we do<br />
not just make recommendations; we also monitor them<br />
to see whether they have been implemented. I call it our<br />
traffic light report. Each recommendation is awarded a<br />
colour: red when the Government have done nothing<br />
about it, yellow when they are moving in the right<br />
direction and green if the recommendation has been<br />
accepted. After all—you will know this, Mr Bayley,<br />
from your distinguished service on Select Committees<br />
—t<strong>here</strong> is no point in having a Select Committee<br />
inquiry, going into a subject in depth and providing<br />
recommendations if nobody wants to implement them.<br />
I am pleased to say that the Government have accepted<br />
or partially accepted just under 50% of the conclusions<br />
and recommendations in our drugs report. That is not<br />
as much as in other reports, but they are moving in the<br />
right direction. It was, however, disappointing that they<br />
rejected our main recommendation calling for a royal<br />
commission, although I warmly welcome the Deputy<br />
Prime Minister’s support for it.<br />
I am delighted that the Minister of State, Home<br />
Department, the hon. Member for Taunton Deane<br />
(Mr Browne), who is <strong>here</strong> today, is following our<br />
recommendations and considering drugs policies abroad,<br />
visiting countries such as Denmark and Sweden. In<br />
particular, I am glad that he is considering visiting<br />
Portugal, or may have done so already; we will hear his<br />
travel plans and w<strong>here</strong> he has been in his speech. We<br />
visited Portugal, as I have said, and saw at first hand<br />
what the Portuguese are doing. I hope that when he<br />
went to Portugal he met, or that if he goes to Portugal<br />
he will meet, Dr Fernando Leal da Costa, the Portuguese<br />
Health Minister, who was kind enough to attend our<br />
drugs conference in September and give the 200-plus<br />
attendees a fascinating insight into the impact of their<br />
policies.<br />
We decided to call our report “Breaking the Cycle”<br />
because we identified a number of critical intervention<br />
points w<strong>here</strong>, if the right action is taken, the devastating<br />
cycle of drug addiction can be broken. The first critical<br />
intervention point is during childhood. Prevention is<br />
better than cure, and the education system has a vital<br />
role to play in ensuring that children and young people<br />
resist peer pressure and understand the risks involved in<br />
taking drugs. We found that drugs education provision<br />
was patchy. The Department for Education noted that<br />
most primary and secondary schools provide it once a<br />
year at most. A number of our witnesses were highly<br />
critical of the quality of awareness provided in the