| Criminal Justice Bill
|
|
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Hilary Benn): It is not the same. Simon Hughes: There are maximums of more than 14 years—I appreciate that—but the maximum for class C drugs is certainly being brought level with that for class B drugs, which would be 14 years. Class A drugs may have higher maximums, but if grading according to severity is done for all other purposes, it should be done also for the purpose of the clause. I hope that the Minister will accept that straightforward proposition, which is consistent with the Government's argument for changing the law on cannabis possession. Column Number: 1000 The Chairman: Order. We are debating clause 248 and we have strayed into the territory of schedule 20. I shall allow the debate to continue as though we are debating the two together, and I shall put the question on schedule 20 forthwith when we reach it. Mr. Humfrey Malins (Woking): On a point of order, Mr. Illsley, I am grateful for you guidance on that, because several of us wanted to comment on schedule 20 and felt that it would have been appropriate to restrict our remarks to the point in our proceedings when we reached it. Perhaps that is too simple an approach. However, I take it that you are telling members of the Committee that if they want to make any remarks on schedule 20, they should not make them in a debate on schedule 20, but in this debate on clause 248. Is that right? The Chairman: The point that I am making arises from the fact that the debate has strayed into the content of schedule 20. So as not to take up time and so that the Minister will not have to respond twice on issues that are covered by schedule 20, any hon. Member who wants to raise points for debate on schedule 20 should do so now. I shall allow that leeway. Mr. Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield): It is always interesting to listen to the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) in discursive and philosophical vein. It would be something of an achievement to be discursive and philosophical on clause 248 alone, seeing that the explanatory note states quite succinctly:
On its own, it did not seem to present subject matter for a great deal of discussion. It seemed to me also—and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me—that the discursive and philosophical nature of his contribution probably did not go to the heart of the issue. The purpose of schedule 20, as I see it, is to get the Government out of the fix in which they have located themselves by reducing cannabis to the status of a class C drug, and having to work through the consequences of that. If I am wrong in that and there is a wider issue informing the schedule, I shall be happy to hear about it from the Minister. I am not aware of there having been massive pressure, prior to the reclassification of cannabis, for the raising of the maximum sentences for producing or being involved in the sale of class C drugs. If I am wrong about that, or there have been expressions of view by the judiciary that the five-year maximum sentence has proved to be insufficient, I have not heard about it. Practising, as I do, at the Bar, one picks up the flavour of what is being said. Sometimes one hears that it is felt to be ridiculous that a sentence for something is five years. I have not heard that in all my time in practice, and I have done a great deal of drug-related work. I can only assume that the basis for the change is the reclassification of cannabis to a class C drug—the Government have got their knickers in a twist and in order to get them out of it, they have gone through a convoluted process by which, having reduced cannabis to a class C drug, they have had to Column Number: 1001 change it into an arrestable offence and to raise the penalties for involvement in pushing or production up to the levels that apply to much more dangerous drugs.I would be delighted if the Minister would explain the background to the decision. It is an example of what happens when government ceases to be joined up and starts to respond to different pressures from different interest groups and we end up with a complete mess. Mr. James Clappison (Hertsmere): I am listening carefully to the important points made by my hon. Friend. He mentioned that the increase in penalties for class C offences would take them up to the same level as those for class A drugs. Can he give an example? Mr. Grieve: Well, a 14-year penalty for production would, I think, be the same as that for a class B drug. The penalty for a class A drug is more substantial. We considered earlier on the sorts of drugs that are in class C. I remember reciting them to the Minister in the context of the Auntie Vera comment about the circumstances in which people might have class C drugs in their pockets. I pointed out that they included many drugs that are legitimately available on prescription but that a person might have in his possession although they had not been prescribed. It is possible that such drugs might be produced and sold illicitly, although I doubt it, and the imposition of a 14-year sentence needs to be justified by the Government. The law should respond to circumstance. If there is a problem with a particular activity, sentences might have to be increased. However, to increase a maximum sentence from five to 14 years for something that, hitherto, has not been a major problem strikes me as bizarre. Perhaps the Minister can justify it in relation to cannabis. If somebody imports or produces cannabis worth £2 million—making it into an industry—the scale might justify our saying that a five-year sentence is insufficient. However, for the majority, if not the entirety of the drugs that previously made up the category of class C, a 14-year maximum sentence is absurd. If I am wrong, and the Minister can give concrete examples, other than cannabis, in which it has been required or suggested by the judiciary or the Judicial Studies Board, I shall be only too pleased. I believe that the Government have got into a mess and are adopting a foolish means of getting out of it. Mr. Malins: When I am in this Committee Room, I often have the distinct feeling that I am in a world detached from reality. Most people in the real world outside who studied our debate would probably say that toughening up the law is no substitute for effective policing and proper law enforcement. We could couple that belief with a rhetorical question: how many times in the past five years has a court in the United Kingdom imposed a maximum sentence for any drug offence? In my judgment, the answer is zero. So there we are. However, let us return for a moment from the real world to our little artificial world. I want to press on a Column Number: 1002 little longer and I have a few specific queries for the Minister. First, as regards categorising drugs, does he accept that heroin and crack cocaine are the two critical ones in the system that cause the most damage? Secondly, does he believe that cocaine, as opposed to crack cocaine, is less of a problem? Thirdly, does he think that ecstasy should be in the same class as crack and heroin? I ask that because the Select Committee on Home Affairs carefully considered classification. Although no one would gainsay the fact that ecstasy is often dangerous, several members of the Select Committee believed—I put the position neutrally—that it was in a different category from heroin and crack cocaine, which are the absolute killers.The next question is, did the Minister read the Home Affairs Committee report, and if so, did he note the proposition that the courts should distinguish between the separate offences of supply of a drug and supply for gain? Members of that Committee were quite vexed by the proposition that a perfectly reasonable youngster who bought half a dozen ecstasy tablets and supplied them to his chums at cost—that is, at no commercial gain—would face the same charge and penalties as those whom we naturally recognise as dealers and who the Committee thought were much more serious criminals. My point is not to remove the criminality from either practice, but to illustrate that the Home Affairs Committee had difficulty with what might be described as social supply. Eventually, we drew a distinction between supply for gain and simply supply. May I—because I never stray from the matter before us, Mr. Illsley—make a point about people who permit drug activities on premises that they are in charge of or manage? My mind immediately turns to prison governors for the simple reason that—the Minister knows this as well as I do—many of us think that there is far too much drug activity in some prisons and a lack of will by some in authority to stamp it out. There are those who tell me anecdotally that some people are far less trouble when they get hold of drugs—I put the point as neutrally as that. If the Minister cannot give me the information today, perhaps he can write to me setting out the steps that the Government have taken in the past 12 months, and those that they propose to take in the next 12 months, to ensure, as we must, that prisons are absolutely drug-free once more.
9.45 amMr. David Cameron (Witney): I believe that the Government are hopelessly muddled over clause 248 and schedule 20, and I agree with the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) and the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey. I sat on the Home Affairs Committee, and it might be useful if I explain why we thought that it was necessary to reclassify various drugs. The Select Committee listened to expert and medical evidence and spoke to the parents of children who had died from drug abuse. We heard many hours of evidence and went into a huge amount of detail. We decided that class A should cover the most serious drugs, particularly heroin and crack Column Number: 1003 cocaine. We decided that ecstasy should be moved from class A to class B. That was a difficult decision, because there have been some high-profile deaths from ecstasy, but all the medical and other evidence that we received suggested that that was the correct classification.Then we decided that cannabis should be moved from class B to class C. There were two reasons for our decision. First, under the Misuse Of Drugs Acts, drugs should be classified according to the danger that they pose, and in order to ascertain that, one must listen carefully to scientific and medical opinion. That is exactly what we did. The second reason is perhaps more controversial. The argument against reclassification is that it may send the wrong signal to young people—that if we move cannabis from class B to class C or move ecstasy from class A to class B, it will send a signal that, somehow, those drugs are okay. The Committee took completely the opposite view that, at the moment, the wrong signal is being sent, because young people are being told that ecstasy is the same class of drug as heroin and cocaine, and cannabis is the same class of drug as other, more dangerous, drugs. Not only is the reclassification scientifically right, but it sends the right signal to young people. I sat in a drugs education class in a school in Wood Green in my constituency. If other hon. Members have not done that, I would recommend it, because it is interesting to see how drugs education programmes work. A policeman came to the class and explained the laws on drugs. He wrote on the blackboard which drugs are in classes A, B and C and what the penalties are. We should not pretend that the way in which drugs are classified does not send out a message, because it does, and we must get that message right. In the second part of the drugs education programme, a former addict explained how he got into drug abuse, how he started on cannabis, then took some pills and ended up on heroin. He described how his life had collapsed, his friends had left him, his family had given up on him and he nearly died. In a very unpreachy, straightforward way, he described his descent into a drugs lifestyle. I have never seen a class of young people being so attentive. They were absolutely fascinated by what they were being told. The Government's policy is terribly muddled, because they are moving cannabis from class B to class C and then massively increasing all the penalties for possession and supply in schedule 20.
|
| |
| ©Parliamentary copyright 2003 | Prepared 13 February 2003 |
