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24 May 2006 : Column 527WH—continued
Education and health make important contributions to the comprehensive approach required to tackle this issue. Those areas are also devolved, but we work closely with the devolved Administrations, sharing experience and good practice, and where appropriate, achieving economies of scale with joint work. My hon. Friend will be aware that his work to secure the piloting and introduction of test purchasing in Scotland, which is a technique used successfully in England by trading standards officers to control the supply of volatile substances to under-18s, alongside other age-restricted products, has been quite successful. The Lord Advocate has announced that test purchasing can now be used in Scotland following a successful pilot involving under-age sales of tobacco. Alongside other action, the Scottish Executive are funding a training programme for trading standards officers on test
purchasing. I hope that that training will make that action much more effective.
I shall outline the action that we have taken in England under the wider drugs strategy, as well as specific action on VSA in both parts of the UK. Helping young people avoid the harms and risks associated with drugs and other substances requires a comprehensive approach. I know from my work before I came to the House that that approach is important: I was a teacher with specific responsibilities for drug education, which involved trying to encourage young people to avoid the lure of substance abuse. A comprehensive approach was needed not only in what the school was doing, but more widely across all the agencies and including the family from which the young person whom one felt was at risk came.
We need tough action to crack down on dealers, particularly where young people are at risk. We need to provide effective substance misuse education and credible information to young people and their parents. We also need to ensure that those most at risk are identified and targeted early, and that specialist support and treatment are available for those already using drugs and other substances. Sometimes the joined-upness of the system could be improved.
We have made good progress in England through our young people and drugs programme, in which the Home Office is working hard with the Department for Education and Skills and the Department of Healthto deliver evidence-based interventions designed toreduce the impact of drug and substance misuse on individuals and the community.
The use of class A drugs by young people is stable, with encouraging reductions in the use of some other drugs. For example, as compared with 1988, the proportion of 16 to 24-year-olds reporting the use of cannabis in the past year has fallen by 16 per cent. Acquisitive crime, to which drug related crime makes a significant contribution, fell by 12 per cent. in the year to April 2005. Therefore, within our overall approach to drugs, we are taking specific action on volatile substance misuse.
We introduced the Cigarette Lighter Refill (Safety) Regulations 1999, which banned the supply or sale of butane cigarette lighter refills to people under the age of 18. It is incumbent on us to ensure that people are aware of those laws and, as my hon. Friend pointed out, that the law is enforced and action is taken against offenders. Where we have training for trading standards officers, it is to be hoped that they will use the law to full effect.
Although VSA is not an offence in itself, the supply or sale of any product to a person under the age of 18 with the knowledge that they are going to inhale it for the purposes of abuse is an offence. We need to ensure that people are aware of the law as it stands and that that law is enforced.
We have also introduced a system of voluntary warning labels for aerosols and other abusable products. We published the first ever national framework for VSA in July 2005, which sets out an action plan aimed specifically at reducing deaths and harms associated with VSA. The action plan identifies new interventions and drives forward those for whose effectiveness we already have good evidence. There is
not much point in having a strategy, for all its fine words, unless we think that it is going to work. That is the point. My stay in the Home Office will be related to trying to ensure that what we have written down in paper translates into action in communities.
The key priority areas identified in the framework include providing better information about VSA. The Frank campaign has become a credible source of information and advice for young people and their parents. More than 1.3 million calls have been made to the Frank helpline, and there have been 11.3 million visits to the talktofrank.com website and more than 82,000 e-mails sent to and replied to by Frank.
In 2005-06, about 4 per cent. of calls to the Frank helpline were about solvents. In response, the Frank website has increased the information that it provides on VSA. Frank leaflets are in the process of being revamped, with a greater emphasis on VSA. In addition, Frank helpline operators have received extra training on VSA better to equip themselves with calls from young people, parents and people working with those at risk.
The Scottish Executive also have a comprehensive programme of action under way. That includes providing advice on solvents through the “Know the score” information line, the distribution of materials to retailers in 2005 to raise awareness of the law governing sales of the items in question and the provision of drug education, including about solvents, in nearly all schools. The Scottish Executive have also supported the development of the Young Scot card, accredited under the British Retail Consortium’s proof-of-age standards scheme. To date, 160,000 PASS-accredited cards have been issued. My hon. Friend will be interested to know that there will be a full roll-out of the scheme to all 32 Scottish local authorities in the next few months. As part of the package, the Scottish Executive have funded the production by the Scottish Retail Consortium of a leaflet that reminds retailers of the age restrictions applicable to the purchase of various goods, which covers the point we made earlier about people knowing about the law. The Scottish Executive have also provided Re-Solv with a three-year training grant with effect from 2005-06.
Schools have a key role to play. More young people need drug education in schools, including on VSA. Nearly 10,000 schools have achieved the national healthy schools standard, which includes substance misuse education. We need to ensure that drugs education is fully effective. The Home Office is funding the blueprint programme, which is the UK’s biggest drug education research project. A key element of the blueprint programme is a health policy component designed to reduce the availability of age-restricted products, including volatile substances, where the programme was delivered. That included proof-of-age schemes, training for retailers and, where necessary, test purchasing activity. Final results from the research will be available by the end of 2007, and they will help to inform the future development of effective drug education.
We are ensuring that those whose work brings them into contact with VSA in the health, education, social
care, community and youth justice sectors have the confidence and skills to identify and respond to VSA. We are also ensuring that those who need help with drugs and other substances can receive specialist support.
More young people are accessing targeted interventions through children’s services and the youth justice system. More than 110,000 young people have engaged in “Positive Futures”, a social inclusion programme that uses sport and leisure activities to engage with disadvantaged and socially marginalised young people. There are 116 “Positive Futures” projects running in high-crime and deprived areas. “Positive Futures” provides training for project staff on substance misuse, including VSA. It is important for us not only to have the enforcement, but to work to tackle some of the deprivation and other causes that may lead disaffected young people to abuse substances.
In England, 80 per cent. of local authorities have identified tackling substance misuse as a key priority in their plans for children and young people as part of the local delivery of “Every Child Matters”. The VSA framework has identified butane as a priority. It is imperative that we make butane cigarette lighter refills as far as possible impracticable for abuse by inhaling, especially by children and young people, as that is still the biggest cause of VSA deaths among under-18s. Action in that area could have a dramatic effect, and I am pleased that the VSA framework has targeted it as a key priority.
It is important that all those working with vulnerable children and young people play their part in addressing the VSA needs of those in their care, and that all children and young people receive effective education about VSA. As my hon. Friend has pointed out, statistics from the St. George’s hospital medical school show that deaths from VSA are at an all-time low.
However—this is the important point—51 deaths in 2003 are still far too many. That means that in our country, approximately one young person every week dies from VSA. Six of those deaths were in Scotland, which is the lowest number for several years—but it is still far too many. As my hon. Friend pointed out, VSA is responsible for more deaths in young people under 15 than illegal drugs.
To conclude, the Government take very seriously the points that my hon. Friend made. We will consider reducing the capacity of the fuel cans, as he mentioned. We are reviewing that. It is about enforcing the law and ensuring that we make our young people aware, and the message that has to go out from here today is that one death a week among our young people from VSA shows that this is an important debate. My hon. Friend was right to raise this subject and the Government are trying to give it the priority that it needs. Far too often, other illegal drugs are mentioned and VSA gets forgotten. That is something that we must ensure does not happen, and my hon. Friend’s debate has given us the opportunity to put forward what we are doing. Working together, we can ensure that we reduce the number of deaths still further.
Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Five o’clock.
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