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12.56 pm
Mr. Edward Leigh (Gainsborough and Horncastle): I am pleased that the hon. Member for Newport, West(Mr. Flynn) spoke today. Much of his speech was interesting and provided useful grit and argument for our debate, as there is sometimes a danger in these debates that we all agree with each other. The hon. Member for Knowsley, North (Mr. Howarth), who spoke for the Opposition, said that he wanted to be consensual. There is a danger that we will drown in a warm bath of schemes, treacle, White Papers and so on and that we will congratulate ourselves, saying that we are doing terribly well. But outside, apparently, we are losing the battle. Last year the police seized a record amount of drugs--55.5 tonnes, including 1 tonne of heroin and 0.5 tonne of Ecstasy. I did not agree with everything that the hon. Gentleman said, but he was right to say what he did.
It is a pity that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms Short) could not be here--I am not making a political speech, as I rather admire her--as she courageously holds a point of view that many people share, in all political parties: the way to solve the problem is to legalise so-called "soft" drugs. Some of the arguments adduced by the hon. Member for Newport, West have been quite interesting in that regard, but I do
not agree with him. I listened carefully to what he said, and have read carefully what has been written in favour of legalising soft drugs, but I just do not think that the case for legalising soft drugs has been made. The Holland experience is extremely worrying. We have heard about the tendency towards more dangerous forms of cannabis. The effect that it has on other countries, particularly our own, is highly regrettable. Indeed, it underlines the need for strong border controls, and the danger of a single market, where we surrender our ability to keep out drugs from a country that has such a liberal and dangerous policy.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds(Mr. Spring) made the point that a major attraction of so-called soft drugs is their illegal nature. If one legalises them, one simply passes that attraction on to harder drugs and so it goes on.
Mr. Leigh:
The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but that point must at least be arguable. I am not sure that we can take the risk. I do not think that we should do so.
The analogy with alcohol and cigarettes is not entirely accurate. Alcohol abuse does kill, but one cannot equate spirits with the strongest drugs. The path into hard drug abuse is much more dangerous and, therefore, the hon. Members for Newport, West and for Ladywood and those like them, have not made a case for legalising soft drugs.
Mr. Flynn:
I shall give another statistic that I did not give in my speech. In the most recent year for which we have figures, more people were killed by alcohol poisoning--drinking more than three quarters of a pint of whisky--than from taking heroin. The figures were 158 compared with 100. So, alcohol can be equated with such drugs as a poison.
Mr. Leigh:
Of course. We all know that people abuse alcohol and kill themselves but virtually everyone in this country drinks alcohol and most people do not kill themselves by doing so. Indeed, the Government tell us that a small amount of alcohol is good for us--21 units a week. That is quite a large amount and I find it incredible, but that is the scientific advice.
I do not accept the arguments that the United States tried to prohibit alcohol in the 1920s and look what it did, that because we prohibit drugs we create a criminal culture, and that the way to solve the problem is to decriminalise drugs. That is an interesting point of view, but the case is not proven and it is too dangerous a path.
Despite all that, we are losing the battle. I represent Lincolnshire, which is not a particularly urban area. The Lincolnshire police tell me that 70 per cent. of children will have been offered drugs by the time that they leave school. I do not know about my hon. Friends and Opposition Members, but I was never offered drugs while I was at school and I do not remember my friends being offered them. I see my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) and the hon. Member for Knowsley, North shaking their heads--I do not think that they were offered drugs at school.
When my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House introduced the debate, he said that it was a matter for congratulation that 50 per cent. of children turned down
the opportunity. If 50 per cent. turn it down, 50 per cent. are taking it and that should be deeply disturbing to us. We should be asking ourselves what on earth we are going to do. Indeed, is there anything that we can do? In Lincolnshire--a rural area--there were 425 arrests in 1991, but that had risen to nearly 1,200 last year. There was a matching rise for drug seizures--from 350 in 1991, to 1,400 last year. The problem is reaching out from the major towns to all the smaller towns and villages. What are we going to do about it?
I congratulate the Government on doing all that they can. I have no magic solution. The White Paper, "Tackling Drugs Together", is excellent. I see no alternative but to continue to make all drugs illegal, to apprehend dealers and convict them and to remind people that dealing in hard drugs can attract a maximum life sentence. We must continually increase that level of deterrence, which is what we are doing and what the Government announced in the White Paper, "Protecting the Public". There is now a minimum sentence of seven years for dealing in hard drugs.
Perhaps we should go further and make it clear that anyone convicted of dealing in hard drugs will automatically go to prison. I suspect that the courts ensure that most of them do, but deterrence has an effect. We have heard about the Drug Trafficking Act 1994, which ensures that dealers do not gain from their trade and that is all to the good, but how far are we prepared to go? Can deterrence solve the problem? Clearly it cannot.
Are we prepared to go as far as the Prime Minister of Singapore? It is a pity that he is not in on this debate. He could add a different perspective from that of the hon. Member for Ladywood. He believes that the way to solve the problem is to hang all dealers. Clearly, we are not prepared to do that--there is no way that we will go that far. Has hanging solved the problem in Singapore? I suspect that it may have gone some way to solving it, but it clearly has not dealt with it entirely; nor has it dealt with it in Malaysia or Thailand. I welcome what the Government are trying to do by way of deterrence. I have no better solution, but it will not work on its own.
We have heard a lot about education. We are doing a lot of it in Lincolnshire. There is grant for education support and training funding, which allows training to be given to teachers with responsibility for drug education projects. There is something called DIPSE, drug import primary school education. In Lincolnshire we are taking education into primary schools, so great is the problem. We are teaching children of nine and 10 about it. My children have had police come to their school to tell them about it. We are doing our best on education. None of it seem to make any difference.
Is there a solution? The hon. Member for Newport, West asked the unanswerable question. We are losing the battle. There have always been drugs in society, but why is our society so prone to them? Is our society breaking down? In 19th century China, drugs such as opium were prevalent. Society there was breaking down because of famine, war and invasion, but we do not suffer from those.
I want to take a different approach from that of other hon. Members. I do not think that we can congratulate ourselves and say that by producing a White Paper, increasing sentences or legalising drugs we will solve the problem. We need to ask what is wrong with society. Perhaps we live in a society where too much is available.
We live in a supermarket society where all the best food, drink and travel are available to everyone. Every pleasure is available to everyone, especially to young people. They continually ask for more. We live in a me-only society. Writers such as Solzhenitsyn have correctly identified that as a modern disease of the west. He thinks that the west is decadent and, ultimately, self-destructive.
My message is obvious and simple but no one has mentioned it in this debate. No Government, whether Conservative or Labour, can ever solve the problem. Only society can regenerate itself. There is no point in middle-aged politicians lecturing young people about taking drugs. If we attempt to do so, we have the opposite effect to what we intend. They are not interested in us telling them that Ecstasy is dangerous. Part of the fun of it is to fight against us. I do not mean Conservative Members but all hon. Members, who represent the establishment to young people.
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