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Mr. Carmichael: It is not really. I am not going to make a fuss about the matter, but I do not see how such a requirement would cut across the work of the Sentencing Guidelines Council. It would have the benefit of concentrating the mind of the sentencing judge on the extent to which the offence has been aggravated. The work of the Sentencing Guidelines Council would be to give better guidance and perhaps to achieve better uniformity in what was applied. However, if we had that degree of transparency, it would show whether the work of the Sentencing Guidelines Council was unnecessary or very necessary.
Mrs. Gillan: Is it not disappointing that we have no indication as to the strength of addition to the sentence that would come from the aggravated offence, so it will not act as the deterrent that we hoped that it would? I think that the hon. Gentleman and I both support the original clause, and are looking for a deterrent effect on dealers.
Mr. Carmichael: That is true. If a court is required to say that an offence is aggravated in this manner, and that must be done in open court, my amendment is simply the next logical step.
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Caroline Flint: It is difficult, at this stage, to predict the length of the additional part of the sentence. Under current guidelines, the court has to take into account a number of factors such as the nature of the offence and the impact on the victims. That is why what I said earlier about the consultation that the Sentencing Guidelines Council intends to have on issues related to aggravating factors is important to the debate and to other areas in which aggravating factors apply. No doubt part of that consultation will be about weighting in relation to the totality of the final sentence.
Mr. Carmichael: I do not think that we will resolve this matter. If the Government say that offences are aggravated in the sense that that makes an offence more serious, and that that affects sentencing, the public are entitled to expect that more serious offences receive more serious sentences, and to know the extent to which a sentence has been lengthened. I am disappointed that the Minister does not see the logic in that, and that she seems to be distracted by other considerations that are not particularly relevant. However, this is not the most important of the amendments and, in order to speed proceedings up, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Mrs. Gillan: I beg to move amendment No. 1, in clause 1, page 1, line 18, after 'school', insert
'youth club, skate park, arcade or bowling alley'.
I am going to make a generous offer to the Minister. This is her big opportunity to try to give the clause a few teeth, because so far she has resisted the valiant attempts of Opposition Members to strengthen the clause.
We now come on to a debate in which I expect that there will be several participants—I see that the hon. Member for Bassetlaw is lighting up already for his contribution. We seek, through the amendment, to add the words
''youth club, skate park, arcade or bowling alley''
to the clause. That is not an extensive list of places, but more indicative of the direction that we are taking. I took the wording directly from the debate on Second Reading, when my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) indicated that although we agreed with the basic principle of applying an aggravated factor to dealing in and around schools, we wanted to press the Minister on dealing to children in general and challenge her decision to stop at schools.
The school is a good place to start, but even on Second Reading the evidence base on which the Minister was presumed to be relying was challenged from her own Benches by the hon. Member for Bassetlaw. He has done a tremendous amount of research in his constituency, and I would be one of the first people to praise the depth in which he has examined the problem. I understand that he found a diminishing amount of evidence through his inquiries of physical dealing right outside the front door of schools. I hope that he will enlighten us further on his research during this debate. However, I agree with the
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Minister that dealing around schools is a problem. This is an interesting dilemma: I agree with a Labour Minister, whose own Back Bencher says that this is not based on reliable evidence.
I was approached last year by a teacher who told me that the dealers were literally at the front gate of his school. Word had got around that, at certain times, the dealer would be in and around the school. I got the distinct impression, from what I freely admit was anecdotal information, that dealers made contact with children in and around the school and set up meetings in other locations. That is often the first point of call outside the school to get in with the crowd, get known as a nice chap or girl, perhaps even hand out free sample drugs, sell them or just move dealing to another location. I want to know whether that scenario is covered by the clause. As I read it, it would not cover a dealer on a pre-sales trawl around a school because it is too narrowly drawn and too easily circumvented.
The wording of our amendment may not be sophisticated, but I would be willing to support a correctly drafted Government amendment either widening the scope of the area in which dealing takes place, or targeting any dealing of drugs to children anywhere at any time. I am asking the Minister to take the clause away and come up with a solution. She has at her behest parliamentary draftsmen and a whole raft of officials in the Home Office who have nothing better to do than examine the clause and ensure that it has teeth and bite in our society.
The truth is that deals are concluded all over the place: in car parks, on playing fields, in the staircases of blocks of flats or out on the streets where youngsters congregate, particularly after dark. An ideal example of this comes from Camden. A report in Camden New Journal illustrates the problem precisely. It is a fairly horrendous article and I shall quote selectively from it, but the headline is ''Welcome to the House of Horror.'' The article begins:
''Drug dealers are luring children to the top floor of a Camden tower block to sell them rocks of crack while neighbours live under a self-imposed curfew of fear. Residents say drug deals take place just 200 yards from a police station which is closed at night. Vandalism and violence has led to the . . . block . . . becoming known as the 'House of Horrors'.''
One resident, who has lived on the estate since the '60s is quoted as saying:
''We're so frightened. The dealers are the kind of people who, if they get a grudge against you, will burn you out''.
The article continues:
''Around five or six dealers, all about 30, use the stairwell that leads to the roof on the 18th floor to sell drugs to as many as 20 children at a time. Some of the children come from . . . nearly a mile away. Residents regularly find burnt tin foil and yellowed smoking pipes made from soft drink bottles—the detritus from smoking crack cocaine. Children as young as 13 have been seen with the older dealers. They come to the block because it has no security and has a 'great view'.''
It is not outwith the realms of possibility that contact with those children in Camden was made in and around the streets surrounding their school premises. But the clause will not catch the dealers because even if they make contact there, the dealing will be done away from the school.
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The Minister alluded to routes to school. Will she define what she means by ''in the vicinity of a school''. Will it include school transport? What if dealing takes place on the bus taking the child to school? The term ''school'' is defined later in the clause, but is the term defined merely by the buildings? Is it restricted to them? If a group of schoolchildren are taken out to another place—on a school trip to another country, for example—would dealing among that group of children still constitute dealing taking place in the school?
What about playing fields, especially those that are far away from the school? There are schools in Chesham and Amersham that are in a cul de sac at the end of a long road. In such cases does ''in the vicinity of a school'' mean on the main road, or in the road leading to the cul de sac where the school is situated? Those are geographical matters that need to be made more transparent.
It is interesting to note that the briefings I have received on the subject do not all agree. For example, DrugScope pointed out one drawback in narrowing the provision. That organisation, like all of us, is becoming increasingly concerned about young people's use of drugs and therefore it does not oppose making it an aggravated offence to be found dealing near a school or using young people to run drugs. However, Drugscope thought the provision was symbolic, because some senior police officers have questioned whether there is a problem with dealers targeting schools, which is the argument of the hon. Member for Bassetlaw. They believe that only very small-time dealers operate around schools, and young people come into contact with the dealers through older siblings and friends.That is another challenge to the Minister's logic which, although I do not agree with it, I would like her to answer.
Transform Drug Policy Foundation believes the benefits of the clause to be entirely political,
''pandering to popular fears, stoked by tabloid media coverage''.
It stated:
''The regulatory impact assessment notes the 'concern expressed' about this problem''—
the language that the Minister used—
''and the 'anecdotal evidence' to support it.''
Transform believes that the provision springs
''entirely from newspapers, notably . . . the News of the World (to whom Tony Blair gave an exclusive interview announcing random drug testing in schools (22.02.04))''.
It backs up its views with quotations from the 1998 report of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.
I disagree with the views expressed by Transform, but it is important that the Minister responds to them. She must set out her case for limiting the provision to schools and consider either widening it to include any building that may be accessed by young people, or to include the provision of dealing drugs to children.
I offer the Minister a golden opportunity to strengthen the clause and to deal with some of the issues raised by the hon. Member for Bassetlaw by not
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restricting it to schools. I shall listen to the Minister with an open heart and with optimism in the hope that she may provide a solution for all of us.
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