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The Chairman: Before we proceed, it may help the Committee if I say that I have always taken the view that it is possible to have a stand part debate at the beginning of proceedings on a clause or at the end, but not both. It often helps hon. Members to have a fairly wide-ranging debate at the start of proceedings on a clause, and having seen the breadth of the amendments tabled to the clause, I think that it is already becoming apparent that a stand part debate is unlikely to be
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necessary. I say that now, because hon. Members may want to make a contribution at this stage, rather than later.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab): I would like to make a few points about the clause, starting with the issue of changing the age from 18 to 16. I think that other Labour Members would raise the same issue. I suggest to the Minister that the issue of defining youth and adulthood goes much wider than the clause and that it will need much wider, cross-departmental attention in the next Parliament if we are to define more precisely the law as it applies to young people—to define their rights, responsibilities and obligations. Such a debate impinges in many ways on much of the legislation that we enact, and it would be helpful to define adulthood more clearly.
There is a consensus in the Committee, and probably in the House of Commons, that aggravated drug supply is a bad thing and should be punished more significantly. However, is there a notion that somehow there is a relationship with schools? In my view, that is a myth. If it were not, I would be the first to demand such action in the strongest possible terms. The questions that I have tabled and received written answers to demonstrate that, if anything, the trend in serious drug problems inside schools is downward.
Some of the anomalies in the clause highlight the problems. For example, if someone were to be convicted of aggravated drug supply for supplying drugs outside school, but not convicted of aggravated drug supply for supplying in the same place in the middle of the night, with certain drugs we could see the problem of syringe disposal in school playing fields. If a primary school were involved, such behaviour would seem to be the height of aggravated drug supply. That is the sort of problem that occasionally occurs in children's playgrounds in particular, which tend to be for young children, because that is precisely where older children and young adults tend to congregate.
If we were to look at where there is aggravated, extremely dangerous discarding of needles—although any discarding of needles is obviously dangerous—it would be in areas where young children might be. Of course, that could happen in a general playing field as well as a specific designated children's playing field. It seems to me that there is a potential inconsistency.
Another point is whether drug dealers wait outside the school gate. When I came into Parliament, I thought that that was the case. Two years ago, I thought that it was a major problem. More than 200 of my constituents wrote to me to tell me that it was a major problem. When I investigated, I found that it was a myth. Plenty of drugs were supplied, but the idea that the drug dealer would wait outside the school gate to pounce on the children coming out of the school was a myth, although it was one that was widely—
Caroline Flint: The clause does not talk about outside the school gates. It talks about in the vicinity of a school. I hope to explain the reasoning behind that. I do not think that the jolly local drug dealer necessarily comes along and stands straight outside the school gate. We are not implying that, although it may
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happen on occasion and those people will be caught by this offence. We are talking about the vicinity of a school, and we will provide guidelines on what exactly we mean by that.
John Mann: I thank my hon. Friend for that clarification. However, my term ''outside the school gates'' was a euphemism in the case of secondary schools in particular, where entrances, exits and routes through schools are widespread, particularly in dinner time periods. When I examined the more than 200 specific allegations, I found that recorded offences were not there at all.
Mrs. Gillan: When we reach amendment No. 1, I hope to go into this issue further, but I agree with the example of the playing field outlined by the hon. Gentleman. A playing field could obviously be within the vicinity of the school, and needles could be present. However, would he agree that even though the drugs may not change hands outside the school gates, that is often where contact is made with children with the intention of supplying drugs at a future time and date at an arranged place? The contact is made in and around the school by the dealer.
John Mann: Again, that was my assumption when I first became a Member and before I first investigated the issue. When I did, I talked to the drug dealers, who, in this context, are not big dealers, but suppliers and, in particular, pushers aiming to get into a new market. Of course, they are not always the most honest people, but if one considers their answers and correlates what they said about where they were arrested, where they bought drugs and where they first bought them when they came into the drug-taking arena, one sees a consistent pattern.
That pattern was confirmed when I spoke to pupils in all the secondary schools in my area. I spoke to them over a prolonged period and in some detail, and I asked them, with no other adults present and without any names being exchanged, what access they had to drugs and what drugs they had. What they said was very interesting. In essence, they were saying, ''Why would we not know where to buy drugs? They're widespread in society. Why would we buy drugs inside or outside school? That is the most stupid place to buy them. If we want drugs, we know where to go.'' I asked them where they bought drugs, and they said that they bought them in the evening and at the weekend from people they knew, and particularly in social settings. I am talking about what are now known as class C drugs being bought at what one could call parties—social settings where young people, but not older people, are present.
Therefore, young people not only do not buy or sell drugs in and around schools—they would not even consider doing so. They think that anyone who does is particularly to be avoided, even if they themselves want to purchase drugs. As a result, while the spirit of the clause is very welcome, the provisions will have a negligible effect. In discussing aggravation, we need to look at the sorts of drug use that exist. Neither the amendment nor the clause focus on the potential
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public health risks from discarded needles, and that risk sometimes correlates directly to the basis of the sale.
I will stop there, however, because I want to save the Committee time. I could go into greater detail, but I hope that hon. Members will take it on trust that I have other examples from my constituency. They relate not to defined spaces allocated to young people, but to spaces that young people use all the time in their everyday lives. There is a significant risk in that respect, not only to those who use drugs, but to those walking in the streets or, more likely, the fields in that area.
Angela Watkinson (Upminster) (Con): Everybody in the Room has good intentions as regards doing whatever we can to protect young children from being exposed to drugs and tempted to try them, and all the proposals in the Bill have that aim in mind.
I am sure that all hon. Members have, like me, received lobby material from all sorts of interested groups. I was disappointed, however, by the briefing that I received from the Transform drug policy foundation, which claims that it would like the Bill to be scrapped and not to get on to the statute book. It claims:
''There has been an unacceptable lack of consultation with key stakeholders in the drugs field''.
I would submit that the key stakeholders are those children who have thus far managed to avoid being tempted into taking drugs. It is our duty to protect them from adding themselves to the ever-growing list of young people who are in need of treatment and who are heading towards a lifelong habit that will endanger their health, education and employment prospects.
9.45 pm
Amendment No. 28 proposes that we leave out '18' and insert '16' and insert ''criminal responsibility''. The age of criminal responsibility is 10. This is where we need to focus our efforts on protecting the youngest children. Drug dealers are turning their attention to primary schools and ever-younger children, looking for new customers to fuel their never-ending income from those who need a constant supply of drugs, and making the drugs cheaper, at pocket-money prices. Therefore, 10 is a more appropriate age of responsibility. We will afford more protection to more children if the age limit is as low as possible.
The Minister said that she would go into greater detail about the words
''in the vicinity of a school''.
The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) said that he believes that dealing outside school gates is not prevalent. I confess that I have not hung around school gates to find out. Dealing may indeed not be very prevalent in those areas, but any dealing in the vicinity of schools must be taken extremely seriously, because it deliberately tries to entrap children into taking drugs, experimenting with them, acquiring the habit and becoming regular customers. It is our duty, however infrequently it might happen, to treat such dealing as an aggravated offence.
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The hon. Gentleman is right: we must define vicinity. Is it just near the school gates, 100 yd down the road, at the back of the school playing field or in the shops near the school? The Minister has said that she will deal with that point in detail.
I want to see a distinction made between primary and secondary schools, because it is far more serious to deal drugs to very young children for the reasons that I have given. Serious as it is to offer drugs to secondary-age children, it is even more serious to offer them to primary-age children, who are more naive, have no experience in resisting pressure and are even more vulnerable.
One of the secondary schools in my constituency, of which I am a governor, is a community school whose buildings are in almost constant use. There are breakfast clubs, so the pupils arrive very early in the morning. At the end of the school day there are homework facilities and all sorts of extra-curricular activities. Then there are adult education classes in the evening and sports events going on inside and outside the buildings. Therefore, young people are on the premises for many hours in the day. In addition, the community church uses the school hall on Sunday mornings. The length of time that the school building is in use far outweighs the time when it is not. There is justification for deleting at the end of subsection (3) the words ''a relevant time''. The relevant time is so wide that the words become almost irrelevant; we could say ''At any time.''
Subsection (7) contains the word ''requests''. The Minister is looking puzzled.
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