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283WH<br />
Drugs<br />
6 JUNE 2013<br />
Drugs<br />
284WH<br />
[Diana Johnson]<br />
I have highlighted a few of the key issues in the<br />
report, but t<strong>here</strong> are many others. I again congratulate<br />
the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee—<br />
Dr Huppert: The hon. Lady has highlighted some<br />
issues and talked about a failing system. Will she clarify<br />
her position on the suggestion of a royal commission to<br />
examine the matter and to try to fix the whole system,<br />
and on the concept of decriminalisation? W<strong>here</strong> does<br />
she stand on those two issues?<br />
Diana Johnson: Perhaps I may correct the record.<br />
When I talked about a failing system, I meant the legal<br />
highs and the temporary banning orders that have been<br />
put in place. I am not sure that they are delivering what<br />
the Government intended them to do swiftly and efficiently.<br />
On the other point raised by the hon. Gentleman, it is<br />
certainly important to look at what happened in Portugal,<br />
which I am pleased the Minister visited. I am particularly<br />
interested in what is happening in New Zealand with<br />
legal highs, and I hope the Government will look at the<br />
New Zealand Government’s experience. I think that<br />
President Santos is doing important work in Colombia.<br />
But today I wanted to concentrate on the issues in the<br />
report which the Government have an opportunity to<br />
respond to and to do something about. I am particularly<br />
concerned about the lack of action on education, and<br />
that has been my main focus.<br />
I congratulate the Chair of the Select Committee on<br />
a well-reasoned and thoughtful report. I am pleased<br />
that we have had the opportunity to discuss it this<br />
afternoon, albeit with a small number of Members. The<br />
quality of debate has been high.<br />
2.44 pm<br />
The Minister of State, Home Department (Mr Jeremy<br />
Browne): I hope to continue the high level of debate on<br />
which the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North<br />
(Diana Johnson) commented. I am grateful, Mr Bayley,<br />
for this opportunity to serve under your distinguished<br />
chairmanship and to debate this important subject with<br />
hon. Members who take a particularly close interest in<br />
the topic.<br />
Like others, I congratulate the Chairman of the<br />
Home Affairs Committee and its members, including<br />
my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert),<br />
on their interest in the matter and their attention to<br />
detail in compiling a lengthy and insightful report which,<br />
as the Committee’s Chairman reminded us, the Government<br />
have accepted in part but not in full. He and other<br />
members of the Committee were pleased that the<br />
Government were willing to accept some recommendations,<br />
and I will touch on some of them during my deliberations.<br />
Instead of giving a completely off-the-peg Home Office<br />
Minister’s speech—I may do that in part—I want to<br />
engage with some of the themes that have emerged<br />
during the debate.<br />
Some extreme libertarians may not accept the harm<br />
premise, or they may believe that people should be<br />
entirely free to inflict harm on themselves, but the<br />
mainstream debate, by and large, starts with acceptance<br />
of that premise. I think that everyone who has participated<br />
today accepts that drugs are often harmful and may be<br />
extremely harmful, and that it is in the interests of the<br />
Government and <strong>Parliament</strong> to try to reduce the harm<br />
caused by drugs that may sometimes lead to death, or to<br />
severe injury and disability that may last for the rest of<br />
someone’s life.<br />
Quite a few people reach for the view that t<strong>here</strong> is a<br />
right answer and a wrong answer to the problem of<br />
drugs and the harm they cause, and that a royal commission<br />
or some other august body of dispassionate people<br />
could tell us what it is, or that we could go to another<br />
country that has done the work before us and it could<br />
tell us the right answer, which we could adopt and solve<br />
all our problems. My experience of this difficult area of<br />
policy making is, sadly, that it is far more difficult and<br />
complicated. Many well-meaning, expert and informed<br />
people can come to different conclusions about how<br />
best to address the problem.<br />
T<strong>here</strong> are reasons for cautious optimism about<br />
Government policy and its impact on society, and about<br />
how society is evolving in comparable countries, particularly<br />
in our part of the world. T<strong>here</strong> are signs of progress.<br />
Some may be a direct result of Government intervention<br />
and some may arise from the evolution of society,<br />
which is less easy to attribute directly to Government<br />
action. However, t<strong>here</strong> are reasons to be cautiously<br />
optimistic, and I will come to them shortly.<br />
If t<strong>here</strong> was a straightforward answer—for example,<br />
to decriminalise drugs—it would be a persuasive path<br />
for many people, but we have just heard from the<br />
Chairman of the Select Committee that when it went to<br />
Miami it saw the chronic problem of people addicted to<br />
decriminalised legal drugs. One issue in this debate is<br />
the growing problem of legal highs. In this country,<br />
consumption of illegal drugs has reduced, but consumption<br />
of legal drugs has increased. That presents all sorts of<br />
thorny and interesting public policy issues, but does not<br />
automatically lead to the conclusion that the more<br />
drugs we legalise, or at least decriminalise, the better the<br />
effect on public health. The effect may be better—I am<br />
not ruling that out altogether—but I caution everybody<br />
in this debate not to leap to immediate conclusions<br />
about public policy outcomes, because in my experience,<br />
the more carefully one looks at the issue, the less obvious<br />
the conclusions become.<br />
Keith Vaz: I welcome the way in which the Minister is<br />
dealing with the issues raised in the debate. On legal<br />
highs, does he agree with the Committee that those who<br />
sell them need to be responsible for what they do?<br />
Would he look at the New Zealand model and try and<br />
adopt it, because it means that the responsibility is on<br />
the manufacturer? They should not be manufacturing<br />
drugs that end up killing people.<br />
Mr Browne: I am very attracted by the right hon.<br />
Gentleman’s suggestion. My intention at the moment is<br />
not to go to New Zealand, in part because I am mindful<br />
of the cost of doing so and I think we should spend<br />
public money cautiously. However, I will be speaking by<br />
video conference call to New Zealand officials next<br />
month—it is quite hard to get a suitable time to speak<br />
by conference call to New Zealand, because the time<br />
difference is so big, but I will do that. When suitable<br />
New Zealand officials or Ministers are <strong>here</strong> in London—<br />
they tend to pass through on a fairly routine basis—I<br />
also hope to take the opportunity to draw on their<br />
expertise.