UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC74-ii

House of COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE

HOME AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

 

 

The Cocaine Trade

 

 

Tuesday 8 December 2009

MR KEITH HELLAWELL

MR ALAN CAMPBELL MP

Evidence heard in Public Questions 193 - 260

 

 

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

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Oral Evidence

Taken before the Home Affairs Committee

on Tuesday 8 December 2009

Members present

Keith Vaz, in the Chair

Tom Brake

Ms Karen Buck

Mrs Ann Cryer

David T C Davies

Mrs Janet Dean

Patrick Mercer

Gwyn Prosser

Martin Salter

Mr Gary Streeter

Mr David Winnick

________________

Witness: Mr Keith Hellawell, Government Drugs Adviser 1998-2002, gave evidence.

Q193 Chairman: Thank you very much for giving evidence to us, Mr Hellawell. We have had difficulties tracking you down. I am glad that we were able to do so.

Mr Hellawell: I am sorry about that.

Q194 Chairman: Thank you for coming at such short notice. I do not know if you have been following the deliberations of the Committee in our inquiry into the cocaine trade.

Mr Hellawell: I have, yes.

Q195 Chairman: We want to draw on your experience as the Anti-Drugs Co-ordinator or, as Mr Winnick says, the anti-drugs tsar. Looking back at your period as the co-ordinator, do you think that it is a good idea to have a single individual who can bring together the various strands of government policy as far as drugs are concerned? We ourselves in our inquiry have had to take evidence from Ministry of Justice ministers; we have the Minister for Home Affairs coming after you; the police, and other agencies. Did you find that whole experience useful or do you think that it was unnecessary to have such a person?

Mr Hellawell: I thought that independence of the co-ordinator was a very good idea, not because I got the job but because, having been involved in drug policy for more than 20 years, I saw the need both at a local level and a national level to co-ordinate activities. Co-ordination of activities needed to be done by someone with the authority although not the power of the Prime Minister - so my appointment was to the Prime Minister and the Cabinet - in order that that individual could have responsibility and a degree of influence over all the departments. There were 16 departments. The committee I chaired had 16 departments, including Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. It was unusual in that it covered the whole of the United Kingdom, and foreign policy rather than just domestic policy. The difficulties I encountered were largely due to the system. Initially, no political difficulties at all. I was appointed by the Cabinet, so I had the support of the Cabinet. The Civil Service found me a very strange beast. I was neither appointed, elected, nor a civil servant; so constitutionally I had no part to play. Actually, I am a constitutional lawyer, so I recognise that. However, with a great deal of goodwill, we managed to develop a government policy, which became a White Paper, which all the departments of state signed up to. That policy is still in place. I think it is in its second life; but, basically, the bones are still there. The problems began when that authority began to bite. I insisted that I had the independence to speak to all parties, because on appointment I felt that drugs should not be a political issue. In the first two years in office - if I can call it that - I spoke to the principals of all parties; so that anything that was announced by government, any policies, anything, did not have any opposition, because I had already discussed them and it was an all-party support for what we did. That was okay. When Gordon Brown in his second Budget said, "In order to make the departments do what we believe is now our policy, in terms of the strategy and the targets, you must have control of the budgets". Within the Civil Service there was unbelievable resistance to this, because here was an outsider with responsibility direct to the Prime Minister and the Cabinet but not a civil servant and not appointed. Therefore there was resistance on reporting. My responsibilities for the Prime Minister, not my own, were to satisfy myself, and therefore the Government, that whatever each department was doing it was doing it in line with government policy and money was being spent to hit the targets. This was the first time the departments had had someone to question what they were doing.

Q196 Chairman: Dealing with the circumstances of your resignation, it was not to do with the co-ordination of government policy or budgets; it was to do with reclassification. Was that the reason?

Mr Hellawell: It was partly to do with that. My resignation letter, which had been with government four weeks before it was publicly announced - the Government expressed surprise that they had not read it but they had had it four weeks - talked about lack of co-ordination; because as soon as the responsibility for policy went to the Home Office and I was moved aside and given the job of international matters, which I had previously had as part of the role, then I was very concerned that the co-ordination was going. Immediately, all of the budgets went back to the departments. Immediately, the co-ordinated approach and the reporting process, to report their process and their success or otherwise in relation to the strategy, went - and the departments were left to do their own things.

Q197 Chairman: We are talking about how many departments here?

Mr Hellawell: Sixteen.

Q198 Chairman: All sixteen?

Mr Hellawell: All sixteen.

Q199 Chairman: Had an input into drugs policy?

Mr Hellawell: All sixteen, yes, because it covers environment; it is foreign policy; Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales; health; education. Also, I see in one of the questions, was it a bad thing to put it within one particular department? The answer to that question is yes - for two reasons. One because of departmental pride and responsibility, that they are now controlling. Two, the other departments were no longer as willing, even though they were not totally willing ---

Q200 Chairman: We will come on to some of these other points, if we may. What would be helpful would be if your answers were a little briefer, because I know that colleagues will want to come in on the very interesting things that you say. One very quick question - the dismissal of Professor Nutt as Chair of the Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs. Do you think that has damaged the credibility and the future independence of that group?

Mr Hellawell: I think it has damaged the politicians more than the independence of that group. I was a member of that group for six or seven years and, to be fair, our duty was very clear: that we did report to the Home Secretary. There were times when we as a committee felt that there were matters we would like to have occurred - so our advice was different to the advice taken by the Home Secretary - but our remit was very clear: that we were a servant, as it were, and adviser to the Home Secretary. It was clear to us that we did not speak outside. My view was that if I ever felt strongly enough that the Home Secretary had not taken the advice that I was part of, I would have resigned.

Q201 Martin Salter: I was interested, Mr Hellawell, in the advice that you gave to the Home Affairs Committee in 2001, when you said that there had been a shift in thinking and philosophy, with less priority given to the criminal justice approach and more new money coming into education and treatment. It has always seemed to me that an effective drugs policy has to be about the enforcement of education and treatment, but I worry that with the prevalence of cocaine, certainly crack cocaine, it is difficult to point to particularly effective treatment regimes and how we deal with that. It is almost as if we have come across a drug that defies our ability to treat the addicts whose life it is ruining.

Mr Hellawell: I agree that cocaine is a difficult one to treat. There are programmes up and down the country that I visited when I was doing the job, where they were dealing with cocaine addicts, but it is not as clear-cut as it is with heroin. I agree.

Q202 Martin Salter: Could you give us a flavour of the programmes that have been successful?

Mr Hellawell: One of the things - if I may come back, Mr Chairman - in relation to what happened after I left was that the money that was pledged by the Government to go into treatment programmes did not go into treatment programmes. They created a Civil Service bureaucracy to spend this money and it never got to where it should have done. The educational programmes that are in the strategy document were not carried through into schools, because of lack of support by the educationalists and the authorities. A number of things that the Government supported, therefore, never happened because the will was lost when there was not somebody who was difficult - and I think I was seen to be difficult -pushing this through. Many of the programmes in relation to treatment and in relation to education were beginning to show success, but some of them were abandoned and fell away.

Q203 Mrs Cryer: From what you have just said, do you feel that we have given up, or that we should give up, on treatments, on education, and just go for the tough line of prosecution? If you do think that, we seem to be failing, do we not?

Mr Hellawell: Not at all. I do not believe that at all. Throughout the world, the hard line on drugs has not borne success. Most countries still deal with drugs as a local issue. What we managed to do here was to take it up to the Joint Intelligence Committee and have it as a strategic issue. When you deal with it as a strategic issue, you can begin to have success at seizures offshore; diplomatic policy in the countries to try to change attitudes - although it is very difficult in South America. However, it is important that you have the round. If you do not treat and educate, you will not stop or deter or influence young people coming into drugs. If you do not treat those who are addicted, it will attract other addicts as part of their group and they will commit crime to continue and to support their habit. It has to be a co-ordinated policy, therefore, dealing with education, treatment and the criminal justice side of it.

Q204 Gwyn Prosser: You have told us that a big part of your remit was to streamline the policies on drugs, to co-ordinate the approaches of different departments, and to look at the proportion of funding. Are you also saying that during your tenure you were close to achieving that: that you were seeing progress and that afterwards it has reverted to form? Is that the way you see it?

Mr Hellawell: I am saying precisely that, yes. If you look at just one, the intelligence co-ordination of all the agencies looking at drugs at an international level rather than at a local level - massive success. If you look at all the agencies involved in developing the educational policy, the treatment policy, if you look at those documents which are still in existence, you will see that they have support of the educationalists and other people - the teachers, the children, the parents. I spoke to and canvassed more than 5,000 people before writing that drugs strategy; clearly that included prisoners, drug addicts, drug barons in prison, politicians - everyone. That policy, if I may say so, was regarded by the international Drugs Forum as the most sophisticated policy in the world. Most of the emerging nations -my last part of the job was to look at the acquis of the nations who wished to join the EU - they have adopted and I helped six of those countries develop policies which were like ours. Which included the independence of a co-ordinator acting under the authority of the prime minister or the leading minister in the country. We said that and that is seen as a gold standard within Europe, and then we abandoned it.

Q205 Gwyn Prosser: Is it inevitable that, for as long as the Home Office takes the lead on these issues, the emphasis will be on law and enforcement rather than education and treatment? Finally, I would guess that your recommendation to the Committee would be that we have to look again at bringing in a single, independent co-ordinator to pull all these threads together. Is that right?

Mr Hellawell: The answer is yes to both of them, in terms of brevity. However, because I wore a hair shirt for the four and half years I was in the job and some of the press leakage about my family was absolutely appalling, if the Committee recommends that, then the constitutional position of the individual - there was a discussion about whether I should be made a Lord, so that I could go into Cabinet, or I should be made a proper, as it were, civil servant - neither of those were agreeable to either myself or the Cabinet at the time - that position needs to be clarified, to give that person some resistance to some of the things that happen.

Q206 Mr Streeter: Your last point, Mr Hellawell, takes me on to the question I wanted to ask. Do you have any observations about the structure of government? You are a constitutional lawyer, so the British constitution. What you are basically telling us is that our current structure is not delivering as well as it might have done and that introducing a new person into the team, into the environment of government, really did not work because the existing structure did not know quite how to deal with it. What is the solution, do you think?

Mr Hellawell: I would just say that it did work, in that we had a policy that is the envy of many countries and we had some success in that policy. It did work, therefore; it could have worked better. My frustration is that we could have done more: not that we did not do anything.

Q207 Mr Streeter: It did work, you say, but it was not sustainable for some reason.

Mr Hellawell: It was not sustainable because I left and the resistance to having an outsider with some influence was disliked intensely, first by the civil servants but, as time went on, I must say by Ministers - one of whom, for example, said, "How is it that you have been on the Today programme five times in the last month and I haven't?" It became that sort of level of ---

Q208 Mr Streeter: Was that Mr Vaz?

Mr Hellawell: No! It is no one in this room.

Q209 Mrs Dean: Mr Hellawell, as an adviser you called for public workers to be randomly tested for drugs. Were any schemes introduced and, if they were, were they successful?

Mr Hellawell: There was a resistance, even from my own organisation, the Police Service, to do this. Some police forces, I understand, do this now but it is not widespread and it is not a common feature. The military do it. All soldiers are tested over a period of time. However, I do think that public servants need to be tested. May I say, when there were some remnants of cocaine found in the gents' toilets in this building, The Times asked all of the MPs and Ministers whether they took drugs or not. The majority chose not to answer that question. The Prime Minister at the time - I said that it would be a good thing if Ministers chose to be tested, and I would be tested. It never happened. It was thought to be a good idea but did not happen. I believe that leadership in this area is important. It also safeguards other people. When you look at some industries - the people who drive our children to school - there is no legal imposition on the companies to ensure that those drivers are not under the influence of drugs. I think that, if the Committee has an influence to look at that more broadly, it would be very positive.

Q210 Tom Brake: Mr Hellawell, you were involved in the establishment of a specialist drugs court in Wakefield just over ten years ago now. Was that effective, and in fact is it still running? What did it achieve?

Mr Hellawell: I am not sure whether it is still running, but the reason I pushed for that was because I saw people going into court with drugs problems who were committing crimes, being sentenced by the court, going to prison or being fined, and coming back through the system. I felt - and this is more than 15 years ago - that we had to stop that cycle. I therefore worked with the educationalists in Wakefield, with the Magistrates' Association, with the local authorities and with the social services. They said, "We would like to provide treatment but we don't have any money"; so as Chief Constable - I was the first Chief Constable - I put a quarter of a million pounds of the police budget into those programmes. I got some criticism at the time but I felt that, by doing that, we would reduce crime. We reduced recidivism through those courts by about 50% over an 18-month period. When I became the drugs tsar, drugs treatment officers in police stations - and West Yorkshire were the first to have them all - we introduced that in every police force in this country. Whether they still do that - as part of the Home Office project, £6 million went in to support these drugs treatment programmes. I must confess that I am now chairman of a public company, so I am not in this business any more; so I am afraid I cannot give you up-to-date information.

Q211 Tom Brake: Do you think that one of the major obstacles in the way of that sort of programme is the fact that government departments cannot look at this holistically and confirm that savings are going to arise in different areas such as health or justice? Is that one of the major blockages?

Mr Hellawell: That is what they would say but, if you look at the strategy and the reporting process I put in place when I was in office, the consequence of input from one department into the success of another department was all laid out. It was a co-ordinated approach to see that education, treatment, employment - we changed the employment process in prisons and we changed the employment conditions in local authorities to re-employ; we changed the housing rules in many local authorities - so you can perhaps see how all of this comes together to improve the situation. As far as departments of state are concerned, because I was classed as a Grade I civil servant I went to one of these weekends with the Cabinet as a senior civil servant and I said, "Coming from a local authority background the big emphasis is on co-ordination of authorities and co-ordination of departments", could we not do that in government, and the gentleman said, "What a charming idea" - and that was the end of it.

Q212 Chairman: One question that has perplexed the Committee, or an answer, is that nobody is saying publicly how much the estimate of the amount of cocaine is that is coming into the United Kingdom. We know that previously the figure of 35 to 45 tonnes was being suggested as an estimate of the amount of cocaine coming in. We know how much is seized but we do not know how much is coming in. When you were there as the tsar, did you have an estimate, a ballpark figure, as to how much people estimated was coming in? Of course, it is some years ago.

Mr Hellawell: It is. I cannot remember the figure, but what I was certain we should do was to seize that long before it got to these shores. My view was that once it got to these shores it was too late. We actually changed activity. This is the strategic side, using the intelligence services to get involved at a later level.

Q213 Chairman: I understand that.

Mr Hellawell: The answer to your question is sorry, no, I cannot remember.

Q214 Chairman: When you were around, however, such a figure existed.

Mr Hellawell: Yes, it did, but I cannot remember what it was.

Q215 Chairman: That is fine. I am not asking you what it was. Obviously, if you are dealing with an important strategy like drugs, you need to know the level of drugs coming into the country, do you not - or at least estimate the number of drugs coming into the country?

Mr Hellawell: Yes, but I genuinely take the problem further back than that. What we were doing was working directly with President Pastrana, then of Colombia; but the complications there with the FARC meant that production.... With heroin we had a better chance. As you may know, in 2000 we virtually stopped production of heroin in Helmand Province by agreement with the Taliban. It was politically sensitive then, but that is what we did - with an initiative through the Iranians, I brokered it, and the Americans.

Chairman: Thank you very much for your evidence, Mr Hellawell. We are most grateful.

 

Memorandum submitted by the Home Office

Examination of Witness

Witness: Mr Alan Campbell MP, Minister of State, Home Office, gave evidence.

Q216 Chairman: Minister, we are grateful to you for coming. Could I start with a question on the amount of cocaine that is entering the United Kingdom? When we had the Chief Executive of SOCA last week, we put to him the figure cited in the 2008-09 UK Threat Assessment - so it is not that long ago - where the figure was put at 35 to 45 tonnes of cocaine entering the UK each year; but the current Threat Assessment for 2009-10 says that "...the actual volumes currently being imported remain uncertain". The Committee is a bit perplexed about this because the whole of the government strategy must be based on some kind of assessable threat. Do we have an estimate, a ballpark figure? Was this figure put in the previous assessment completely wrong? Why is everyone running away from this figure?

Mr Campbell: No, I do not think the previous assessment was completely wrong; it was based on what we knew about consumption at the time. I think that the whole process is fraught with some difficulty. It seems a straightforward thing to ask and to require, but actually it is more difficult; not least because cocaine is illicit from its growth as a coca plant, all the way through to possession and use, and therefore it is fraught with difficulty. However, the reality is that the trade has changed over the last few months and couple of years, which I think puts a question mark against the continued reliability of that figure. For example, the purity of cocaine in the UK has undoubtedly fallen. Therefore it is a question of, if you are measuring the amount of cocaine, what are you actually measuring? Are you measuring the cocaine which people think that they are buying or are you measuring what is actually cocaine? The supply chain is a very long one; the adulteration of what people think is cocaine takes place throughout that process, and therefore it is difficult to put a figure on it.

Q217 Chairman: This worries the Committee, I think. You cannot tell us whether it is higher or lower than between 34 or 35 tonnes?

Mr Campbell: One could extrapolate and say, if it was between 35 and 45 some two years ago and consumption appears to go up, one could do the maths and arrive at a figure. What I am suggesting is I do not think that figure would be a particularly reliable one, not least because of the fall in purity. Can I reassure the Committee, however, that SOCA have agreed to bring together all of the evidence and all of the intelligence around purity, around seizures, about what they know about countries where it is being grown, and are trying to produce a better and more reliable figure.

Q218 Chairman: That is very helpful, and indeed the Chief Executive did provide us with further information, which will be the subject of questioning. We can therefore assume that the figure of 35 to 45 tonnes is now higher, as a result of what you have just said about the issue of purity and other issues. It is a higher figure. I am not asking you to put a figure on it - which you will have to dissociate yourself from, and about which your officials will tell you off when you leave because you have given us incorrect figures - but can we assume on the basis of what you have said that it is actually a higher figure than 35 to 45 tonnes? You understand the difficulty for this Committee. If we are conducting an inquiry into the cocaine trade and go to the Government for figures, we go to SOCA, which receives £435 million of taxpayers' money, and no one will tell us how much. We just want to know, broadly speaking, is it higher than that figure or lower?

Mr Campbell: Unfortunately, that is a question which is incredibly difficult to answer, because what might have been 35 to 45 tonnes some two years ago - the substance which is being sold and which is being intercepted, which is being seized, which is arriving in the UK, is not as pure as the substance previously. Therefore, we may be in danger of comparing, if I may say, apples and pears.

Q219 Chairman: Leaving the fact that it is not as pure, at the moment you cannot tell us but you have told SOCA to go away and get their figures in order, to come back and give this Committee and Parliament, and therefore the public, an accurate figure.

Mr Campbell: We hope that there will be a figure which can be included in next year's Threat Assessment.

Q220 Chairman: We are concluding our inquiry this year. Would it be possible to get them to speed up?

Mr Campbell: I will look at that, but it is an extraordinarily complex thing to do. If they can, then I will ask them to do so.

Q221 Chairman: Is this not one of the very first questions a Minister would ask senior officials? "By the way, how much cocaine is coming into the country?" If they say, "We have seized 2,000 kg when it arrives here" or whatever it is, is not the next question "How much is actually coming in?"?

Mr Campbell: Yes, it is one of the questions that one would naturally ask. However it goes back to the fundamental point about exactly what is it which is being brought in.

Q222 Martin Salter: It seems to me, Minister, that this is one of these questions a bit like "How many illegal immigrants are there?" We do not actually know, because they are illegal. What we do know is the seizure figures. Can you confirm for us that the Home Office data for 2008-09 shows that 2,900 kg of cocaine were seized in the UK? Then, for the sake of clarity, do we have to add to that the 587 kg that were seized by SOCA, to give us a total figure across all agencies of 3,487 kg?

Mr Campbell: Yes, 2.9 tonnes is from the police in UKBA in England and Wales. We are confident in that figure. You can add to that the amount which SOCA has said that it has seized.

Q223 Martin Salter: That is not double-counting?

Mr Campbell: However, it is not impossible that there could be a degree of double-counting, but I am confident that those two figures are robust in their own right. If there is any double-counting, I am confident that it is a minimal amount.

Q224 Martin Salter: In terms of trying to extrapolate what that might mean in terms of the total number - and I do not want to get particularly hung up about this - what is being imported compared to what is effectively going up their noses or smoked as crack cocaine, or in whatever way, by cocaine users? What is the level of other products or cutting agents that is then added to what is imported, to give us a kind of overall figure of what we are talking about here?

Mr Campbell: We know there is a substantial amount which is added when it comes to the UK.

Q225 Martin Salter: Double? Triple?

Mr Campbell: It is already cut and altered in its transit, and probably about a third in transit. The answer to your question is that it rather depends on what you are buying and where you are buying it. There is some evidence of a two-tiered market in cocaine, where if you can afford to buy it then the purity increases; but there is also evidence in some streets of cocaine with a purity level certainly of less than 5% and, in some cases, what people think they are buying as cocaine does not have any cocaine in it at all.

Q226 Mrs Dean: Could you confirm that the total that has been seized, both by the police and SOCA, is the 3,487 kg, allowing that, as you said, there might be some duplication, and would that be pure cocaine or would it be cut cocaine?

Mr Campbell: The figure is between 2.9 and 3.5, to take into account what I think is a relatively small amount of double-counting, if it existed. It would rather depend upon where it was seized. Of course, a lot of SOCA's work is done upstream, where the cocaine is probably of a higher purity. By the time it gets down to street level - where it may be that that has been seized by the police for example - it is of a much lower purity. I am sorry, I am not answering your question directly, but it rather depends upon where it is seized and at what part of the process - but it is cut at every stage.

Q227 Mrs Dean: Going back to the estimate of 35 to 45 tonnes, we know, with all you have said about that, we are not sure whether it is greater than that or the purity element comes into it as well. Last year, therefore, if we just take that 35 to 45 tonnes, then the UK seized only about 8% to 10% of all the cocaine entering the UK. Do you think that is enough?

Mr Campbell: It is never enough, but it rather depends. I am more interested in the level of seizures. I am always keen to see that seizures take place wherever they can and that the numbers are going up. The reality is that it does vary from year to year; but, in general, last year's was higher than the previous year. There is some variation, therefore, but I think that there is also some progress in direction of travel.

Q228 Chairman: Because, on Mrs Dean's figures, and which you have said is not enough, 90% does enter the country if we only seize 10%.

Mr Campbell: Ninety per cent of what is seized? I am sorry?

Q229 Chairman: She put some figures to you and she said between 8% and 10% of all cocaine entering the United Kingdom was seized, "...is that enough?" - and you said, "It is never enough", which is the right ministerial thing to say. That means 90% gets in. So what do you say to the people who come to you, the Chief Executive of SOCA and others, when they are admitting that 90% actually gets into the country?

Mr Campbell: What we say is that we need to make the UK more hostile to people who would traffic in drugs and people who would sell drugs, and we need to do more to bear down on the demand for drugs too. It is work in progress. I think that we have to put it in the context, however, of overall drug use in the country falling, but I am acknowledging that we have a particular challenge with cocaine.

Chairman: Indeed, and crack.

Q230 Mrs Cryer: Can I follow what you have just said about making the environment hostile to the drug dealers? Do you feel that in creating a hostile environment for the drug dealers we are going in the right direction? We are told that a threefold increase in the use of cocaine powder since 1995 has taken place. Are we doing the right things? Should we have a different policy than that we are pursuing at the moment, to make a hostile environment?

Mr Campbell: I think that we are doing the right thing. I think that we are heading in the right direction and part of the evidence of that is looking at what constitutes the cocaine market in the UK today. I go back to the point - because I think it is fundamental to this - that, in terms of the purity level of what people think is cocaine, it is no longer cocaine in all but name. Therefore, enforcement activity, seizures, do have an effect on the price of cocaine. It has an effect on the availability. It also has a dramatic effect on purity. There is also an issue about people choosing one drug rather than another. I hesitate to use the word "fashion", but I am told anecdotally that there may be some evidence of cocaine being, if you like, the drug of fashion.

Q231 Chairman: We will be coming to that.

Mr Campbell: All of these factors may well impact on the increase, but what I cannot say to you is that any one of them is the driving force in that. You cannot isolate one and say that factor was changing in an area and we have seen an increase in the amount of cocaine. It is very difficult to model how increase in cocaine actually takes place. We are doing some research to try to bear down on that, but again it is a difficult issue to identify exactly what is the key driver of this.

Q232 Mr Winnick: Minister, we have, about every eight or so years, major inquiries into various aspects of drugs. This one, as you obviously know, is about cocaine. Are we winning the war?

Mr Campbell: I try not to use the word "war" and I certainly try not to use the word "winning", because I think to some extent, if we are not careful, that undervalues the effects that drugs can have both on individuals and their families; so I am not going to use those terms, if I may. What I would say is that, overall, drug use is falling but cocaine is problematic for us. Sometimes we see a slight fall, sometimes we see a rise; and if you look over the last few years we have seen a rise, which means that we have to do more. However, do not underestimate the progress that we are making, both in terms of treatment in this country - I know that we will probably get on to that - also, the work that we do to educate people about the health risks of cocaine but, crucially in my view, around not just enforcement in the UK but enforcement upstream. When you look at the work that is being done in Colombia and the work that we are doing in transit countries in West Africa, for example, I think there is some evidence that we are certainly having an effect. I would hesitate about using the term "winning the war", though.

Q233 Mr Winnick: Is it not the case that, as long as there is demand, then the drug dealers, the criminals, arch-criminals undoubtedly - those who exploit human suffering to the utmost - always find some outlet, as they are doing now in Britain as well as in other countries? What can the Government do effectively to substantially reduce demand?

Mr Campbell: First of all, let me say something which I hope is not misinterpreted. The people who traffic drugs and sell drugs - drugs are only one commodity that they do. This is a cash-based exercise. Drugs cartels are set up like businesses. The difference is that they operate outside the law. Therefore, we have to treat them as such. I do not accept the argument that if we took a less strong enforcement approach it would be any better. I think that we would run a great risk of not only sending out the wrong message but also, practically, having harmful effects. For example, there are things across society that we have different attitudes towards and the law tolerates, but it does not mean that there is not seepage at the edges and a great health risk, particularly to children. What we need to do is to, yes, accept that it is people who trade in cocaine that should be a priority for us, but it is not the commodity that we should necessarily be focusing on; it is the people. We need to look at the criminality; we need to look at the people who trade this as a commodity and do everything that we can to break their networks, preferably in the countries where they are established and where they are operating, and certainly try to break their networks through which they transit cocaine, but also other things, into the UK.

Q234 Mr Winnick: We are hardly likely to disagree on that, Minister. One last question. It is said that cocaine powder is commonly used in conjunction with alcohol, which makes it a very dangerous combination, leading to violent behaviour. Is there any particular extra law enforcement response to that?

Mr Campbell: There is a concern about the use of powder cocaine and alcohol. I think it is more than anecdotal evidence; it is coming back in significant numbers from police forces. I am told by people who have a great deal of experience in working with drug users that at one time, if you went into a pub, the drug users were at one end and the alcoholics were at the other, and both looked down on each other. The reality is that they tend to be the same people. If there is a link with violence, what is driving the violence is an interesting question. Is it the drug? Is it the alcohol, or is it the fact that they have both been mixed together? What we are doing in the intensive Drug Intervention Programme areas that operate is that, when people are brought into custody suites, more of them are now being tested - for example, where they have been involved in violence and might, under other circumstances, not have been tested for drugs. We are piloting that in a number of areas and I will look at that very carefully to see whether or not we need to roll that out. There is also, as the Committee has already seen in Maidstone, increased activity in some town and city centres, on the back of this concern about drugs and alcohol. There is increased activity around the night-time economy, with sniffer dogs and with equipment, to try to stop people - but also, of course, reassure the public.

Chairman: The Committee has been to Maidstone and we will be going to London tomorrow night to have a look and see what the force is doing. You are welcome to come with us, Minister, if you are not doing anything at midnight tomorrow night.

Q235 Gwyn Prosser: Mr Campbell, in an earlier answer you touched on the possibility of people displacing from cocaine to other drugs like ketamine. Has the department done any research on this? In other words, the transfer: that if we are successful in disrupting the trade and reducing the input of cocaine, people will change to other drugs, and what would they be?

Mr Campbell: Yes, we are looking very carefully at that. At the moment it appears that there are probably two effects. One, as I keep going back to, is the purity; so, if you do have some effect, what is actually being sold nearby next time is less pure. There are also some examples of geographic displacement. In other words, if you have an operation in one area and you are successful, then it pops up somewhere else. We are not absolutely convinced of the direct linkage between activities to prevent cocaine and the movement to other drugs. I think that, as DrugScope identified, there may be something which suggests that is happening but it could be something quite separate, which is that people are being less discerning about what they are putting into their bodies and they are mixing a series of drugs. I do not think the causal link between what we are doing on cocaine and the fact that they are taking other drugs as well is necessarily proven yet.

Q236 Gwyn Prosser: We have been told that two of the successful operations have been Operation Airbridge in Jamaica and Operation Westbridge in Ghana. Does the department have the resources and the political will to continue with those operations?

Mr Campbell: We certainly have the political will and we are certainly investing resources. In fact, I have seen the effects of these and they can be very dramatic indeed. If you look at Airbridge, the number of drug couriers in 2002 was 1,000 coming into the UK; in the last financial year it was just three. I therefore think this is a programme that we should certainly be seeking to continue, and I take your point about rolling it out. The difficulty with that may again be displacement. It is clear what you can do in major airports - I saw an operation in Lagos, for example, which had caught two couriers coming in in different directions - but the reality is that, once the drug traffickers get wind of that, they will divert them somewhere else. What we need to do, in my view, is to have a flexible approach; and we need to make sure we have the frameworks that we can put in place wherever it is needed. To be quite honest, Mr Prosser, that is a huge task if it were just to the UK alone - which is why we are working with our European partners, because they have closer links with some of the other countries than we do, to try to get a more joined-up approach. As a point of principle, however, I think that Airbridge and Westbridge are very good examples.

Q237 Chairman: It is part of the strategy to stop the drugs coming in in the first place.

Mr Campbell: Yes, it is.

Q238 Chairman: Once they are in, you do not know where they are going. The more we can do abroad the better.

Mr Campbell: Absolutely.

Q239 Tom Brake: Can we move on to the issue of Colombia? We had evidence from the Colombian Ambassador, who said that Colombia is working very well with the UK Government, although he said that there was perhaps more that could be done in relation to financial resources and increasing the fight against eradication. How do you see that relationship developing? What more can the UK Government do, bearing in the mind the constraints particularly around human rights concerns, about what the Colombian army may be doing at times?

Mr Campbell: I think we have got a very strong relationship and I think the frequency of UK Ministers going to Colombia to maintain that relationship attests to that. I was there earlier this year, Gillian Merron was there, in her previous job in the Foreign Office; and Chris Bryant was there at the beginning of October. We work very closely with the Colombian authorities on a number of levels. I am a big fan of the Shared Responsibility Campaign and, in particular, the environmental message which Vice President Santos has been a key to driving there. I think that whatever way we can tag these issues to make young people aware of the damage, the harm, however that might be, the better. We also have a strong presence in terms of helping the Colombians in their enforcement campaign. We have SOCA officers, who I have seen at first hand, who work very closely with the Colombian authorities. Of course, you would expect - and I do not blame you for doing that - the new Ambassador to say there is a resource issue. They raise it with us every time. However, we spend something like £1 million with the Colombians - and that is not the cost of the SOCA officers and other things. For obvious reasons, I do not want to go into exactly what those costs are. However, I think that we have a very good relationship and that on a number of levels it operates very well. I think that that is part of the reason why the Colombians have the confidence and are having some success in reducing cultivation and breaking the drugs cartels.

Q240 Tom Brake: Can I ask you to comment on the concerns I expressed in relation to Colombia and human rights? Are you happy that that money is being spent on enforcement, where all appropriate human rights are being observed by the Colombians?

Mr Campbell: Human rights are very important to us, and I can assure you that every time we speak to the Colombians we reassure them of how important it is and we get reassurance too about how important they regard it. There have been some entirely unacceptable examples in the past where, for example, the army has gone into a village thinking it was chasing terrorists, killed them, and then tried to cover that up. The difference this time with President Uribe is that these people are held to account. The actions that he has taken, particularly with regard to the army but indeed corruption elsewhere in Colombia, I think is cause for praise, while accepting, as he accepts - and he acknowledged publicly when Chris Bryant visited - there is more progress to be made. There is a difficulty in Colombia where sometimes people get confused, which is that they have a terrorist problem, and sometimes there is a linkage between terrorism, financing terrorism and drugs. It raises a fundamental question. Do you go after that person because he is a drug dealer who also might be a member of a terrorist organisation or do we somehow take into account that he is working for a terrorist organisation, that some people might have a more respectable view of? It is a real issue.

Q241 Tom Brake: Can we come on to the relationship with other countries? From other witnesses we have heard that there is a good relationship with Colombia and a good relationship with Venezuela. What about other countries, whether it is West Africa, the Caribbean or other South American countries? Are there any particular countries where you think there is a real issue that we have to address in terms of their willingness to work with the UK Government to tackle the drugs issue in their country?

Mr Campbell: In terms of South America, I think it is about getting people to work with them who they feel most comfortable with, and we are able to work with the Colombians without too much difficulty. We are also improving our relations with Venezuela and working with them too. Brazil are acknowledging their potential role in this; for example, they signed up to MAOC, the maritime organisation, as observers at the end of last year. I visited West Africa at the time that Chris Bryant was in Colombia, the second week in October. I have to say that I am very concerned about what is happening in West Africa. Yesterday I met Dr Chambas, who is President of ECOWAS - the Economic Community of West African States. I was not able to meet him during my visit in October. I am concerned because some of the things that we have discussed with the Colombians are in danger of coming true. That is, Colombians arriving in West African airports, looking to get into businesses, looking to make contacts, and disappearing from the radar. What gives me confidence is that, particularly through ECOWAS, there is now a greater focus on this. Kate Verde is a leading player in this and the prior declaration made it clear that there is the political will to do something about it. As recently as last week, the EU - which is again becoming more focused on West Africa - backed it up with resources and committed €15 million shortly, with a further €5 million in the future, to give the ECOWAS action plan on tackling drugs higher priority. Is an area of concern, however.

Q242 Chairman: On Colombia, the Government presumably supports the signing of the free trade agreement between the EU and Colombia.

Mr Campbell: You would probably need to ask a different Minister to me; but, in broad terms, that development is a key part of tackling drugs. If you look at some of the work which is being done in Colombia, in getting their quarter of a million farmers who are involved in drug production away from that, it has actually been giving them something substantial to do and something which pays. If you have development in a country, you have a much greater opportunity to do that. When you look around other parts of the world, it is a much greater challenge; so, in broad terms, I would agree.

Q243 David Davies: Minister, I think it would be fair to say that your policy has been to tackle supply rather than demand for drugs. Is that a fair comment? Do you think that is where the emphasis has been?

Mr Campbell: I think that sometimes the profile which is given to this emphasises the enforcement activity around tackling supply, but do not underestimate the work that we are doing on demand. For example, look at the communications campaigns, the FRANK campaign that we have, to give people more information about drugs, to stop them from taking them in the first place; and also, of course, the treatment programme, which I think I can say has been broadly successful, which is again getting people off drugs.

Q244 David Davies: I think the evidence that you have given us points to a reduction in the amount of drugs, or certainly a reduction of purity of drugs - we are all agreed on that - and an increase in the price. One could assume from that that there has been some success in dealing with the supply. If there is less supply then the price will go up and the purity will go down; so we seem to be tackling that. Also, the increase in price suggests that the demand is still there. It is possible to suggest, therefore, that perhaps you are having some success with the supply part of this but not with the demand - if you follow my thinking. Do you think that is a fair assumption to make?

Mr Campbell: I can see where you are heading to. I am not sure that I would altogether agree, partly because, as I have said, of the increasing success we are having with treatment and also the people that we are perhaps deflecting or deterring from taking drugs. It is very difficult to measure, but I do not think that it should be underestimated. I think what I am saying is that it could be a bigger problem.

Q245 David Davies: My personal observation based on my own experiences, though not something I can scientifically back up, is that a lot of people who come in with a serious drug habit are put in front of the courts; they are fined £50 to £100; they very often will not pay; they are rather pathetic creatures actually, who you end up feeling quite sorry for - but they are not given or are certainly not forced to go off and take drug treatment. I do not think there is any point in throwing them into prison and chucking away the key either. However, the people I do not think we are going after are the drug dealers, who may be quite small-time in their own way, but who could merit much stricter sentences and punishments. I think that the pathetic drug addict who I have just referred to could benefit from a compulsory treatment programme, if necessary saying, "You will go to something like a hospital, with walls and bars around it, because otherwise you are going to be out on the streets trying to fund a £100-a-day habit".

Mr Campbell: I think that with people coming into contact with the criminal justice system there are various points where you can intervene in order to focus on their drug problem, which probably in many cases got them into that situation in the first place. For example, in drug referrals in custody suites there is an opportunity to go down a different route to court and sentencing, and to get them to engage in the kind of treatment that we are talking about. There is also more intensive work on the Drug Intervention Programme, which again goes into the sort of treatments that you are talking about. We are doing much more about getting drugs and alcohol abuse into place to try to prevent reoffending; so that by bringing in people who deal with offenders into local crime partnership work, you can do some important work about stopping offenders. I do not agree with you that we are not chasing the dealers. The dealers and the importers are crucially important to us.

Q246 David Davies: I mean at street level.

Mr Campbell: If you are talking about Class A drugs and you are talking about the police having any intelligence and an opportunity to do something about it, I would certainly expect them to do that - certainly with Class A drugs.

Q247 David Davies: One last question. My colleague has raised this and I think it is an excellent point. A lot of the people taking cocaine should know better, quite frankly. They are in the media; they work in law and in all sorts of fields. My colleague Gary Streeter has said why do we not emphasise this point about an acre of rainforest having to be cut down for every gramme of coke that is sniffed? All these people who are lecturing us about not flying or using our cars ought to be reminded that their coke habits are probably doing more to damage the planet than anything you or I get up to.

Mr Campbell: As I said in the context of the Shared Responsibility Campaign, any tool that we can use in our armoury to raise this matter, I think we should do that. By picking up on the environment issue, I think Shared Responsibility plays an important part in that. However, do not forget that most people who take cocaine do not drive round in big flash cars, do not go to nightclubs and whatever. The celebs are the ones that tend to get the headlines, but look at the numbers. Yes, of course, there is an issue around the affordability of cocaine and people in higher income brackets taking it, but most people today who are taking cocaine will be in the more deprived parts of communities. We have to be focused on them as much as anybody else.

Q248 Mrs Dean: Following on from that, we have also heard that it tends to be the casual user, if you like, where there has been growth in recent times, rather than the addictive user of cocaine. I am wondering whether we should not emphasise the fact that the mules who carry the cocaine to Britain and other countries are the ones who are risking their lives to feed the habits of those who are taking these so-called recreational drugs. That is perhaps another point to emphasise. May I ask you what the current status of the Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs is?

Mr Campbell: Can I mention briefly on the first point that the focus on FRANK and cocaine was Pablo, the mule dog. We focused on the mules and the effect that it has, and I think that we can point to some success with that. As far as the Drugs Advisory Council is concerned, we acknowledge that there have been some recent difficulties and we hope that that has now settled down and the ACMD can go back to what it does best, which is to give us advice - which in many cases we take. I was struck, reading Professor Nutt's evidence on cocaine, how much I agreed with him. That does not mean that we have always agreed in the past. The ACMD does an important job; it will continue to do an important job. We ask it to provide evidence upon which we base policy. We do not always agree but in many cases we do agree, and I hope that we can get back to a situation of a more even keel.

Q249 Mrs Dean: Do you expect all the existing members of the Council to remain, and when do you expect to appoint a new Chair?

Mr Campbell: We are looking at appointing a new Chair quickly. We are looking at that now. There will always be some churn in the ACMD and one should not read into the reasons why they might choose to leave. However, professional lives change; tenures change has been part of the Advisory Council, and has always been so. We have to make sure that those who are left to continue the important work are supported in that work; but also, as has always been the case, if they are conducting an inquiry on a particular subject and they want to bring in expert evidence in that, they can do so. I am therefore confident that, as I say, we can get back to a more even situation with them.

Q250 Mrs Dean: Do you think the ability of the council to advise government has been tarnished by the sacking of Professor Nutt?

Mr Campbell: I hope not, because the Home Secretary took what was a very difficult decision and it was not in any way related to the advice that we had got on cocaine. To some extent it was historic disagreements that we had had about cannabis and ecstasy; in the main we actually agree. I do hope not. The Home Secretary had a very frank and forthright discussion with them, which I think cleared the air. I think people know where we are, and I just want to emphasise the importance that we attach to the evidence which comes forward. They are doing work for us on all sorts of things - legal highs, CAT and all sorts of things. We look at the results that come out and we will make our policy decisions accordingly.

Q251 Mrs Dean: Is there a need for an independent drugs co-ordinator, one step removed from the Government, such as the role Keith Hellawell carried out until 2002?

Mr Campbell: The Government does not think so, partly because Keith Hellawell was able to put in place the building blocks at the time he was in office for the policy which has then been rolled out. Of course, the Home Office takes the lead on these issues. What is important is that we get all of the departments of government to sign up to it and that we make sure that there is political will across government. There will always be a disagreement about whether or not a tsar would be better at driving that, but the Government believes that the current situation is giving us a sufficiently robust response.

Q252 Mrs Cryer: From evidence that we have taken it does appear that residential treatment centres do work very well. However, there is a long waiting list. I am wondering whether you have information on that. What work is being done interdepartmentally between yourselves and the Department of Health to improve the situation and increase the number of treatment centres available?

Mr Campbell: Yes, some centres do very important work. When we look at the number of beds in centres that are available, there are those that seek to be part of, if you like, the official system but others that provide very great work too. Residential treatment is important, but not for everyone. There is some evidence with some cocaine users that it may not be the most appropriate way of getting them to change their behaviour and their habits. I think we therefore have to have a balance between residential treatment and community treatment, and we need to keep a close eye on that. Waiting times were far too high in previous years; they are coming down fairly rapidly. I think I am right in saying that the maximum waiting time now is about three weeks; most people will be seen within a week and, in some cases, it is about five days. I think that it is an area in which there is some success. We have just invested an extra £11.8 million in the National Treatment Agency. Again, that is a balance between the beds and the other work that needs to be done outside of that.

Q253 Mrs Cryer: Looking into the future, you are looking to work more with the Department of Health to provide more spaces?

Mr Campbell: We work very closely with the Department of Health. Yes, absolutely. They are crucial partners in this, which helps to give that balance in the overall drugs message that we want to give out.

Q254 Chairman: Finally, Minister, the police tell us that the Treasury get 50% of the assets seized in terms of value, under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. It is a fairly easy question, this one. Do you think that the Home Office and the police should retain this money, so that they can invest in trying to tackle the incoming drugs problem?

Mr Campbell: When I read that I was bemused, because I thought the Home Office got the 50%. I do not know where the Treasury came from. I do not know whether there is the technical way of paying it.

Q255 Chairman: The Treasury get 50% and you get 50%.

Mr Campbell: No. We get 50% and the rest is shared between the various agencies. We have just adjusted that percentage and I am sure this debate will continue. The 50% that goes to the Home Office does go into frontline work, which includes drugs.

Q256 Chairman: Would you break down the percentages for us? Fifty per cent goes to the Home Office?

Mr Campbell: Fifty per cent to the Home Office. Can I send you a note on this, because the rest is shared between the other agencies?

Q257 Chairman: But you get 50%?

Mr Campbell: We get 50%.

Q258 Chairman: And 50% is then shared between other the agencies?

Mr Campbell: Yes, the other 50% is then shared between the other agencies.

Q259 Chairman: Do you think you should have a bigger share?

Mr Campbell: The pressure is for us to forego part of that share. I will tell you what I do think, however - and I am looking at this now - it is that we should find some way of incentivising this, because it is not just about sharing what we get; it is about sharing what we could get. Therefore, if we could increase the amount that is coming in from asset recovery, it might be that we could have more incentive at the frontline. At that point, you might see the percentages change.

Q260 Chairman: A kind of bonus? If they stop more coming in, they will get more of a percentage.

Mr Campbell: The better job they do, the more they get in return, yes.

Chairman: Minister, thank you very much. You have been very generous with your time.