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John Mann: I shall make a couple of quick points on the amendment. First, I ask the hon. Lady and the Minister if they will give a definition of ''vicinity''. I smiled at the term ''arcade'' in the amendment, although I appreciate that it has nothing to do with forthcoming events in May. In the north of England, an arcade is a shopping precinct. According to any reasonable definition, references to being in the vicinity of an arcade would include most of the centre of Leeds and many other big cities in the north.
Mrs. Gillan: I am not a stranger to the north. Shopping arcades are places where children hang around in large numbers.
John Mann: The bowling alley in Bassetlaw is a carpet bowling alley. I have done some research and no children are known to have used it. I would not wish to give an average age, but it would certainly be a pensionable age. That would be an interesting aggravated supply. Perhaps it would involve amphetamines.
My basic point is aimed at the hon. Lady and the Minister. There is no particular reason for anyone to vote against the provision, but it does very little. The Government are underplaying their own success. There has been success in relation to drugs in and around schools and the use of drugs by school-age children. There is not a growing problem with children and drugs. Nobody can provide the evidence. My own research, which is only constituency based, demonstrates that over the past two years the use of cannabis among schoolchildren has declined. I cannot give a reason for that. I would love to say that it is due to changes in Government policy, but I think that there are probably other reasons—although it probably helps the Government's case because it suggests that the situation has not worsened following the change in policy. The decline is difficult to explain, but it has happened. I could give an amateur analysis of the reasons for that, but you will be pleased to hear that I will not do that now, Mr. Gale. In my area, judging by any quantifiable data, there is less use of drugs by school-age children.
I have asked to see the national statistics. The responses that I received show that no one can provide the evidence. I asked the Department for Education and Skills, through a written question, for notification of illegal drug possession by school pupils on school premises, but that information is not acquired and kept nationally. I asked about school exclusions for taking drugs. Those seemed to be the kind of add-ons that there would be if there was a growing problem. I wanted to see what the trend was. Again, those figures are not available. I asked the Home Office how many drug dealers were convicted of dealing outside schools in each of the past 10 years, but the information is not available because it is not collected centrally. I checked with the police in my constituency. We struggled to
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find any examples and yet there are a phenomenal number of drug dealing and supplying offences in Bassetlaw.
The hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham said more than half of what I wanted to say. Her illustration is something that I can relate to. The evidence shows that drug dealing is taking place in stairwells and flats that people are lured to. However, it is not taking place in the vicinity of schools, arcades or bowling alleys. There is the idea that drug dealers hang around schools and whisper, ''Here's a flat where you can come and get some drugs,'' but it does not work like that. It works by word of mouth, through the community. If I wanted to find out today where to get illegal cigarettes and illegal alcohol in my constituency, I am fairly sure that if I made sufficient phone calls, there would be a good chance that I could find somewhere selling them. I am also fairly sure that a few hours before—or after—the police would have been there to shut the place down.
I can also identify where heroin is being supplied. Every single premises or individual that I have identified from information given to me by my constituents has resulted in a conviction and a suitably long prison sentence for those involved. There have been a lot of those in the last year.
The drugs are in people's houses and flats. That is where people go to buy drugs. They ring up from phone boxes—I could say which ones—and the school pupils know which numbers to ring and where to go. We do not have the sort of prostitution problems that London has, but we have an equivalent situation with cards in phone boxes. If people go to a certain phone box at a certain time—the phone boxes are switched because of police monitoring—they will find out where to go. A firework is let off in my area to signify that new drugs have arrived. If a firework goes off at strange times of the year, people know that drugs are available, and they know which flats to go to.
Certain flats have changed from single occupancy flats to family flats because of the problem of people constantly knocking on doors demanding drugs. The throughput of single people leaving prison over a period of years meant that the flats were known as places liable to be selling drugs, which often created hassle for people who were neither selling drugs, nor drug users. That is how drug supply works.
It is a myth that people go in and around schools to build up their network of potential customers. It is a dangerous myth because many parents, including those in my area, believe it is true. They believe that there is a problem in schools, when the problem in schools is small. I shall cite another statistic; the statistics are available from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The number of drug misuse deaths reached its height in 1995. It has gone down since then, and the Government should take some credit for that. It is a problem, but it is a small part of the drugs problem and it is not increasing.
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My fear is that we are building up a notion that there is a big problem with drugs in schools when that is largely mythical. There is a big problem with drug use by young people, and a big problem with drugs in the community, but not a big problem with drugs in schools. It is not sensible for the Government to promote overly the idea that it is a big problem, which is the context within which the clause and amendment should be considered.
Mr. Carmichael: Both the hon. Members for Bassetlaw and for Chesham and Amersham have provided ample support for my earlier contention about the effectiveness of the clause. I would say to the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham that the behaviour of which she speaks would still be caught under section 4(3)(b) of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, as they are concerned with supply, which is a much wider application than most of the supply charges.
I am glad that the hon. Lady is not going to die in a ditch over the extent of the places that are listed in the amendment; there are substantial parts of my constituency where young people would love to have the opportunity to avail themselves of skate parks, arcades and bowling alleys, but we shall not dwell on that.
The hon. Lady does the Committee a service by drawing our attention to the narrow compass of the Bill, as it only applies to schools. She also does us a further service in highlighting the fact that there is no definition given of the term ''vicinity''. The question of what is in the vicinity of the school would lead to a fairly substantial body of case law. It would have been helpful, and I hope that she will consider this before Report, to insert into the clause a subsection to define exactly what the Government have in mind by the use of the term:
''in the vicinity of a school''.
Caroline Flint: As I said in an earlier debate, the aggravating factor of selling drugs to vulnerable persons already exists, which includes those under 18. Therefore, in some of the circumstances that Members have given as examples, I would suggest that factor is already covered. For example, if someone was dealing on a school bus they would be dealing directly to young people and therefore the aggravated factor would be covered by that area. Similarly in other examples where there is direct dealing to young people they would be covered by that aggravated factor.
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Mrs. Gillan: Would they be covered if it was a regular public service bus and not specifically a school bus?
Caroline Flint: I suppose that then we would come to the vicinity argument, which is broader. That is why we are trying to add to the factors to be taken into consideration to protect the young people we want to capture in the provision. Let us be clear; the aggravating factor has to be attached to an offence.
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Someone will be arrested for drug dealing or intent to supply drugs. Therefore the aggravating factor will be applied in that context.
I understand the point that the hon. Lady is making with her amendment; that young people may be vulnerable in a number of areas. Young people gather in a host of other areas: skate parks; youth clubs; the cinema. We have tried in particular to address safer zones around schools because schools are a place where young people and children are by law obliged to attend. That is why we have a focus on schools.
I take the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw about the way in which drugs are supplied. As I said, there may be examples of people being bold enough to sell drugs at the school gate, which is why our clause talks about the vicinity rather than just the school gate. I hope he understands that. My hon. Friend made a point about the success of the work that has been carried out; it has led to statistics that clearly indicate a decline in use in some areas. His remarks about cannabis use are interesting because some of the national figures show a decline and we have also seen a decline in the use of ecstasy, which is due to a number of factors.
More schools are attending in a serious way not just to illegal drugs but also alcohol and cigarettes. Beyond the schools other people have an involvement, so that wherever young people are, there are people to whom they feel they can speak. Having information that is self-accessible, such as ''Frank''—either the website or the phoneline—is also important. I do not think that information and education, if it is the right sort, is a green light to encourage the use of drugs by young people. In that context we need to remember that the majority of young people never use illegal drugs, which is to be welcomed.
However, we still have to be mindful of those children and young people who are involved in drugs for one reason or another and their vulnerability to becoming involved in drugs. My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw will know—this issue was explored in the Second Reading debate and my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham) made the point appropriately—that for all sorts of reasons, factors such as deprivation and children not thriving at school and instability in home and family life can create a situation so that disproportionately there is more drug dealing and drug-associated activities in some communities than in others.
We have to acknowledge that factor if we are to tackle and target our attempts to reach those families and help them so that their children do not end up being vulnerable to pressures, whether they are to take drugs or for girls to become involved in early sexual activity and so on. We know from our research on young people who become involved in offending behaviour that often a number of risk factors are present that contribute to the likelihood of their becoming involved in offending behaviour. That is linked to their neighbourhood, their life chances and whether they are able to take life chances and opportunities in the future.
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I acknowledge to the Committee that defining the word ''vicinity'' is difficult, because it may vary from one neighbourhood to another. We may be talking about premises that are in the vicinity of a school and that the police have under surveillance for certain activities. Cafes are an example of premises that might be used in this regard. It might be a house that is near a school and that has become known to young people as a place where they can hang out and take advantage of whatever the person there is trying to provide them with. That could be alcohol or other, illegal, drugs. We are mindful of that, which is one reason why we shall want to consult widely on the issue.
Ultimately, it will be a matter for the courts to determine, in the light of all the circumstances. The size of the school may be relevant. Unlike in urban, city areas—but probably like in the areas of my hon. Friends the Members for Barnsley, West and Penistone and for Bassetlaw—a number of schools in my constituency have huge expanses of grounds surrounding them. Indeed, the road and pavement route to one school in my constituency is the longest route for young people to walk, so they often take a particular footpath to get to school. People who want to sell drugs or at least to make contact with young people might think, ''Kids use this footpath as a route to school.'' People who are seen there may be placed under surveillance. Let us remember that they might then be arrested for an offence to which the aggravating factor could be applied. We shall issue guidance in the form of a Home Office circular and we shall consult widely on that. The Crown Prosecution Service will develop its own guidance as well.
I understand the desire behind the amendment and the point about other areas, but there are probably real practical difficulties in arriving at a comprehensive list of places where young people might congregate and to which the offence might apply. I remind the Committee that there is currently an aggravating factor of dealing to vulnerable young people. If they were at a cinema, a burger bar, a skate park or an arcade—the definition of an arcade was clearly outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw—they would, we think, be covered by that factor. We have singled out schools because it is vital that young people can go to a place where they are expected to go by law without being exposed to the risks of drug dealing.
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