Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Temporary Class Drug) Order 2013
The Committee consisted of the following Members:
† Bellingham, Mr Henry (North West Norfolk) (Con)
† Brine, Steve (Winchester) (Con)
† Browne, Mr Jeremy (Minister of State, Home Department)
† Byles, Dan (North Warwickshire) (Con)
† Freer, Mike (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)
† Johnson, Diana (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
Jowell, Dame Tessa (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
McKechin, Ann (Glasgow North) (Lab)
† Parish, Neil (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
† Ruane, Chris (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
† Simpson, David (Upper Bann) (DUP)
† Syms, Mr Robert (Poole) (Con)
† Tredinnick, David (Bosworth) (Con)
Vaz, Valerie (Walsall South) (Lab)
† Wharton, James (Stockton South) (Con)
† Wilson, Phil (Sedgefield) (Lab)
† Wright, Simon (Norwich South) (LD)
John-Paul Flaherty, Committee Clerk
† attended the Committee
Fifth Delegated Legislation Committee
Wednesday 19 June 2013
[Mr Peter Bone in the Chair]
Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Temporary Class Drug) Order 2013
8.55 am
The Minister of State, Home Department (Mr Jeremy Browne): I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Temporary Class Drug) Order 2013 (S.I. 2013, No. 1294).
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone, and to have the opportunity to bring forward these provisions and to debate the thinking behind Government policy. I thank the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs for its continued support in informing the Government’s response to emerging new psychoactive substances, which are sold as so-called legal highs. Its latest advice informed the order that came into force on 10 June. We are aware that since then more than 30 websites marketing N-BOMe and benzofuran drugs as legal highs have withdrawn them from sale.
The order specifies four N-BOMe and six benzofuran substances, as well as their simple derivatives, as drugs subject to temporary control under section 2A(1) of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. On 29 May I received advice from the advisory council that these substances were being misused and that their misuse was having sufficiently harmful effects to warrant temporary control. The Committee will be aware that the Government and the advisory council have been monitoring, through UK and EU drugs early warning systems, emerging substances marketed as legal alternatives to controlled drugs. This work has informed the council’s deliberations and, as appropriate, its advice to update our drug laws.
N-BOMe substances are highly potent hallucinogens that are regarded as alternatives to LSD. It may help members of the Committee to know what effects they can have on the human body. Using these substances can cause increased heart rate, hypertension, agitation, aggression, visual and auditory hallucinations, and seizures. Some users have reported highly negative effects including confusion, shaking, nausea, insomnia, paranoia, and unwanted feelings. The ACMD recommended that urgent action be taken due to the extremely potent nature of these substances, which carry a high risk of overdose in powder and liquid form. To mitigate this risk, some suppliers have used pre-loaded paper doses in the form of blotters or tabs, similar to the way that LSD is sold, and we are concerned that a large number of doses can be made from small amounts of these drugs.
Mr Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con): Can the Minister give the Committee some idea of the number of serious hospitalisation cases or tragic deaths that have resulted from the use of these substances? There have been several incidents in clubs in East Anglia
where they have been used and have caused severe physical harm. I should be grateful if he could elaborate a bit further.Mr Browne: I am grateful to my hon. Friend and former ministerial colleague for that helpful intervention and for the work that he does on behalf of his constituents in East Anglia. He is right to draw the Committee’s attention to the serious consequences that can arise from taking these drugs. Several non-fatal hospitalisations have been caused by N-BOMe, but there have also been four deaths where at least one of the benzofuran drugs was implicated, as well as a large number of hospitalisations. Across the EU there have been 21 deaths and 15 non-fatal hospitalisations. I appreciate that the total number of deaths in terms of the total consumption of the drug is quite small as a proportion of the people who consume it, but it can nevertheless, in extreme circumstances, have very dangerous consequences for the user, including the risk of death. Even when it falls short of the most devastating outcome, it can still have very adverse health outcomes for the user of the drugs and many frightening and deeply uncomfortable symptoms.
Benzofuran substances are related to the family of controlled class A drugs that includes ecstasy. These substances were most commonly sold in samples of the legal high brand name, Benzo Fury, and marketed as legal alternatives to class A drugs such as cocaine and ecstasy. Their harms include insomnia, increased heart rate and anxiety, with some users reporting ecstasy-like symptoms. Several deaths and hospitalisations have been associated with some of these substances in the UK and the EU. The advisory council also found evidence of harms from long-term use, including cardiac toxicity. For all those reasons, I accepted the council’s advice that these substances be subject to the order that is already in force across the UK.
The order enables UK law enforcement to take action against traffickers and suppliers of the new temporary class drugs. Under the order, front-line officers have additional powers to disrupt the sale of so-called legal highs online and in local head shops, as they are known, by targeting retailers they suspect are selling temporary class drugs, if not other controlled drugs, including seizing their stock for analysis. This activity is supported by the Home Office forensic early warning system, which continues to provide added forensic capability to police forces. The order also sends out a clear message to the public, especially to young people, that these drugs and the brand names associated with them carry serious health risks.
It is an irony of sorts that in an era when we are told, probably with good reason, that there is diminished trust in politicians, large numbers of people seem to think that if politicians have not intervened to make a drug illegal, it must be less harmful to them. They trust our paternalistic guidance, up to a point. It is therefore important to stress, whenever we talk about this subject, that just because a drug is known as a legal high, or just because it is legal, does not necessarily mean that it is harmless. As we can see in these two cases, the harms are considerable and potentially very grave, and that is why we are bringing forward this order.
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con): It is good that the Minister is bringing forward the order, but surely he concedes, first, that the producers of these substances
are always one step ahead and that a slight change in the mix and a slight change in the name is a way around the law. Secondly, where does his paternalistic instinct stretch on to this? Although I am sure that many young people are following the proceedings of this Committee—[ Interruption. ] This is a serious point. How does the Home Office plan to communicate this message and through what media channels?Mr Browne: My hon. Friend makes two good points. First, it is worth pointing out, because not everyone realises this, that when we move to ban these drugs we ban so-called families or categories of drugs. We have specifically taken the power to try to prevent what my hon. Friend describes—that is, a producer of a drug tweaking the formula and then selling it as a completely different drug from the one that it essentially represents, which is illegal. The order bans two categories of drugs. I believe that the net is cast wide enough to avoid that problem. I take his point that this is public health threat that is mutating and evolving the whole time. How we respond to it in terms of law enforcement and the laws that we pass in Parliament is the subject of a perfectly reasonable and ongoing debate.
My hon. Friend’s second point about how people are informed about the law is also reasonable. I suppose it is reasonable in relation to every single Committee that we serve on in this House. We pass laws the whole time, and one assumes that the public are not paying close attention to the deliberations taking place in all the other Committee rooms along this corridor either. There is good reason to believe that one of the attractions of legal highs, both to people selling the drugs and to consumers is that they are not breaking the law in doing so.
Since the order came into effect on 10 June, just over a week ago, at least 30 websites that were selling this drug, because it was legal and they could therefore do so with impunity, have stopped selling it as they do not wish to go into an arena where they are trading illegal drugs. As a result, the availability of the drug for those who might wish to buy it, even if they are not minded to obey the law, is diminished. There are quite a few people for whom the attraction of taking drugs that replicate the effect of illegal drugs, but which are not in themselves illegal, is that they do not risk incurring the wrath of the police or any other authorities when they buy, consume and distribute those drugs.
A number of people assume that as the Government have not moved to ban legal highs they must be relatively harmless. The logic of their position is that if they were harmful, the Government would have moved to ban them. We are able to offer guidance to the public through our legislation and to send a strong signal about the health risks. We know that the law change cannot on its own deter all those inclined to use or experiment with these drugs, but we expect the order to have a notable impact on their availability. That has been the case in the past, as we saw when we introduced orders to ban other categories of drugs last year. Of course, until we receive a full report on these drugs, we will continue to update our public health messages to inform the public of their harms using the latest evidence gathered from early warning systems.
Parliament’s approval of the order will ensure that it remains in force to reduce for up to 12 months the threat to the public posed by these temporary class drugs.
For those unfamiliar with the procedure, this is a temporary 12-month measure with a view to a permanent ban, assuming that the scientific evidence points in that direction, while the ACMD prepares full advice on harms in relation to permanent control. I hope the Committee will endorse the order so that the public protection that we put into force last week can have the stamp of approval of this Parliament.9.8 am
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab): It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Bone.
I thank the Minister for setting out the Government’s reasons for imposing this temporary banning order. I also put on record our thanks to Professor Les Iversen and the other members of the ACMD for the work that they undertake on a voluntary and part-time basis. We are all grateful for their expertise in this area. Given the ACMD’s clear advice about these drugs, the Opposition are satisfied that a temporary ban is appropriate, and we will support the order. I am pleased to hear that 30 websites have already stopped selling these substances; that is good news. However, I should like to ask the Minister a few questions about the Government’s position on legal highs.
First, how many substances have the Government banned or reclassified? As the Minister said, this is the second time that a temporary banning order has been introduced in the past two years. In addition, a handful of drugs—perhaps half a dozen—have been reclassified under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. Last week, the Minister stated:
“We actively monitor new substances and already control hundreds. We act rapidly to respond to new threats and continue to keep our response under review.”—[Official Report, 10 June 2013; Vol. 564, c. 14.]
What did he mean when he said that the Government “already control hundreds” of substances? As far as I am aware, only a few have been controlled in the recent past. The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction has identified more than 200 legal highs, and it stated that more than 70 arrived on the UK market last year alone. If we are talking about so many substances, merely banning one or two for two years is not good enough.
Why has it taken so long to get temporary banning orders? As I understand it, Benzo Fury was first referred to the National Poisons Information Service in 2009 after it was associated with a hospital admission. Why has it taken four years from the first hospital admission for the temporary ban to be introduced? Does the Minister think that parents will be satisfied with the fact that it takes four years for such a drug to be banned from sale in hundreds of high street head shops and on the internet? It is taking so long to introduce temporary bans that such drugs are becoming very well established among young people. The chair of the ACMD recently said that it had the resources to assess only two or three new substances a year. Given that more than 70 new substances are emerging in the UK market, does the Minister agree with their analysis? When did Benzo Fury, or the compounds connected to that generic name, first appear on the Government’s forensic early warning system? How do the Government use such information?
What connection exists between the National Poisons Information Service, the TICTAC database on chemical compounds, and the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction’s register of new substances? What processes are in place to investigate the effects of a substance once its existence has been recorded? European co-operation would be invaluable in this area. It is a shame that people get very excited whenever we mention the EU, because European countries could work together on this matter. I suggest that there should be only one EU lab, which should be in Britain because we have the expertise and, it seems, we are the leading marketplace for legal highs.
The hon. Member for North West Norfolk asked about the statistics and data available on hospital admissions and accessing the NHS as a result of problems with legal highs. He made an important point about getting better information about the usage and harms of such drugs. I hear from teachers, antisocial behaviour officers and nurses in A and E about the prevalence of such substances and the harm that they are causing to young people. Suicides and accidental deaths linked with legal highs, including those that are being temporarily banned under the order, have been reported in the newspapers. Under the new structures in the NHS, is there a role for Public Health England in collecting information about what is happening, who is turning up at A and E, and who is accessing drug treatment services for problems with legal highs?
I want to refer to prevention. Once a drug has become established, as Benzo Fury clearly has, usage may not automatically—
The Chair: Order. It is inappropriate for people on the dais to pass notes directly to the Minister, and if that continues, I will ask them to leave.
Diana Johnson: Once a drug has become established, as Benzo Fury clearly has—as I said, it has been the marketplace for four years—its usage may not fall significantly after declassification. We need to change the attitude of users and inform people about the dangers they are being exposed to.
The Minister said that a lot of young people take the view that because legal highs are legal they are safe to take. As I understand it, the people who take these types of substances tend to be from a distinct demographic—young, often well educated, and from stable backgrounds. On the whole, members of that group see themselves as being discerning consumers and fairly brand-savvy. As the Minister said, they may be taken in by the myth that legal highs are safe, and may identify certain brands as safe. However, as we know, and as further research and evidence will show, many legal highs are far from safe. I am concerned that we are not getting the message across about what these substances can do. There is a greater capacity for members of that group, as distinct from hardened users of heroin or cocaine, to adapt and change their behaviour. It is therefore possible that an awareness campaign will have an effect.
Steve Brine: Does the hon. Lady agree that this time of year especially, as the festival season gets under way, is a prime opportunity for that?
Diana Johnson: I am grateful for that comment. The hon. Gentleman makes a strong case for why, particularly at this time of year, some form of action to inform young people would be helpful. That is absolutely right.
The Angelus Foundation is led by Maryon Stewart, who lost her daughter in tragic circumstances. Her daughter, a medical student, took a legal high, drank some alcohol, and unfortunately died. Maryon has taken up the cause to make sure young people are given information and know about the risks of taking legal highs. She has developed a number of resources to help young people and their parents understand what legal highs can do. If the Minister has not already met representatives of the Angelus Foundation, I ask him to consider doing so, because they have very good ideas that would assist in getting the message across. [ Interruption. ]
The Chair: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Lady. If Members want to have private conversations, would they like to leave the Committee?
Diana Johnson: I regret the fact that last week, Parliament decided not to vote for personal, social, health and economic education to be put on the national curriculum for our schools. Informing young people in schools is an area where we are really missing a trick. It is a great shame that we have missed that opportunity. The Minister is a Liberal Democrat, and his party’s long-standing policy is to get PSHE on to the school curriculum.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab): In an answer to a recent parliamentary question I tabled about school inspections, I was told that the number of times the word “well-being” is mentioned in Ofsted inspections is zero. Well-being does not seem to be an issue for the Conservatives—in fact, for the whole coalition. Does my hon. Friend agree that it should be put on to the curriculum?
Diana Johnson: I am very grateful to my hon. Friend and yes, absolutely I agree. Giving young people the life skills they need to make good, sensible decisions and to not indulge in risky behaviour feeds well into teaching them about well-being.
The Minister chairs the inter-ministerial group on drugs, and I understand that he has convened a special meeting to discuss the problem of legal highs. At that meeting, will he consider whether the ACMD has sufficient resources to perform its job of looking at legal highs? Secondly, will he consider developing European co-operation on analysing and responding to these drugs? Thirdly, will he look at the role of Public Health England in collecting information on legal highs and working with local health and well-being boards to develop prevention and treatment programmes? Fourthly, will he look at the role of the Department for Education in drug prevention and education? Prevention has not been on the agenda of the inter-ministerial group on drugs since the Government came to power; the Government need to consider the prevention agenda.
Chris Ruane: The answer to another parliamentary question I tabled said that 32.3% of 15 to 25-year-olds have one or more psychological conditions, and that
percentage is rising. Mental ill health will be the biggest health burden on the whole planet by 2030. Do we also need to look behind the reasons for the massive increase in mental health issues in young people, as well as just giving them the cures or saying, “Don’t do this. Don’t do that”? Research needs to be done to find out why 32.3%—one third—of all young people in the UK have one or more mental health conditions.Diana Johnson: My hon. Friend makes an important point. That statistic is quite shocking and I hope the Minister will reflect on it.
A presumptive ban on new substances coming into the country is being used in Ireland, Poland and New Zealand. I know the Minister is about to embark on a world tour to look at various ways in which drugs are dealt with around the world. Will he look at those countries to see whether we can learn anything from them?
9.22 am
Mr Browne: Thank you, Mr Bone, for your attentive chairing of our Committee. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North for the constructive way in which she approached the subject and for her and her party’s support for the Government’s measures. She raised a whole series of more general questions about legal highs that go wider than the matters before us. However, I think they are within the remit of our deliberations, so with your permission, Mr Bone, let me try to address those points, which, as I said, were made constructively.
The approach of this Government and our predecessor regarding ACMD is to try to have the best scientific basis informing our decisions on the legal status of drugs—whether they are legal or illegal, and what category of illegality they should be placed in if we deem them to be illegal. That process is rigorous and painstaking, rather than arbitrary or at the whim of politicians. We think that is the right basis on which to make decisions.
Because of what I described earlier as the mutating or evolving threat of legal highs and the rapid evolution of the public health risks caused by them, we have a system of temporary banning orders such as that before us today. That is exactly so that the ACMD can conduct a quick initial analysis and tell us whether there is good cause for concern. We can then impose a temporary, 12-month banning order, as we are doing now, and buy the ACMD time to look in greater detail at the potential risks. We are trying to introduce flexibility and greater speed into the system without compromising the fundamental evidence-based and scientific underpinning of the system.
Some people might say that that is excessively cautious and that we should be legislating much quicker, before we have a solid, scientific basis. That is a legitimate view, but it has not been the practice hitherto of this Government or their predecessor.
Chris Ruane: The Minister raised the issue of legal and illegal drugs. I tabled a parliamentary question asking about the number of antidepressant prescriptions issued in 1991 and 2011. In 1991 the number was 9 million; in 2011 it was between 46 million and 47 million. That is a 500% increase in 20 years. Does the Minister think that the reasons why people are turning to illegal and legal drugs should be researched?
Mr Browne: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. I sometimes caution people of a small “l” liberal disposition who think that the solution to many of our ills is to decriminalise or legalise whole categories of drugs. There is an interesting debate to be had, but it is nevertheless worth noting that the consumption of legal or prescription drugs has grown and that alcohol abuse causes much concern in our communities, whereas the consumption of heroin and crack cocaine, for example, has actually fallen in recent years in Britain. It does not therefore automatically follow that decriminalising or legalising a drug reduces harm to society. There may be other reasons to consider that approach, which other countries in Europe have taken, but the hon. Gentleman is right to draw the Committee’s attention to the growing problem of prescription drugs misuse, which I am led to believe is even greater in the United States, where it is a serious public health problem.
Chris Ruane: The Minister mentions prescription drugs misuse, but these were drugs prescribed by a GP for a patient.
Mr Browne: There are two issues. One is people misusing prescription drugs and the other is people using prescription drugs, or drugs that can be bought over the counter without a prescription, in line with the directions, but harm being caused through dependency if such drugs are used over a longer period. That social problem is perhaps not given the attention it warrants, because the consumption of such drugs is legal and Committees of this type do not meet to deliberate about the issue.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con): Following the Minister’s point about such Committees not meeting often, I want to further the argument of my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester. If those who want illegally to trade drugs make changes to a family of drugs, how quickly can we act to stop them? Committees such as this do not happen all the time, but things change quickly out there in this market, so how quickly can we act?
Mr Browne: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. His point forms a large part of the comments of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North, so I will address it now as it is the nub of the issue.
I have already talked about our desire for an evidence-based system and the rigour that flows from such an approach, but it inevitably requires prioritisation by the people scrutinising the evidence and requires them to monitor effects over time. The test that we set for such orders is that a drug is being misused or is likely to be misused. We could change the test to say, “The drug is not being misused, and we don’t know whether it is likely to be misused, but we have a hunch that it could be misused at some point in the future, so we are going to act in advance of that.” At the moment, however, we look at whether a drug is being or is likely to be misused and, inevitably, that requires assessment before we can make that judgment.
We do ban whole categories of drugs, and although the order deals with two categories only, within those categories there are many different drugs. There are
many different chemical formulae, all of which can be called separate drugs but are referred to as one collective group. That is an attempt to make the legislative position more robust than if we named each individual drug. We do not refer to brand names because the person selling the drug could just change the name. One would need a chemistry degree to know, hand on heart, precisely what we are discussing this morning, because we are actually looking to ban whole families of chemical formulae.There is an interesting conversation, which I am personally open to, about whether we might take a different approach. The hon. Lady talked about the system in New Zealand, where the presumption is that a drug is illegal unless it has medical approval to be legal. In other words, New Zealand starts at the other end of the scale: rather than assuming that a drug is legal unless it is banned, it is assumed that it is illegal unless it is approved. That, of course, means that a sense of whether a drug is being misused is not needed; scientific research is not required because the substance is already banned.
However, such an approach is not necessarily the solution to all our problems. It is constantly brought to my attention that a lot of legal highs are sold as not being for human consumption. Of course, a licence is not needed to sell as a drug a product that is not for human consumption. There are potential loopholes, however the system is framed. As the hon. Lady said, I am examining what we can learn from other countries about how to approach the issue and drugs policy more generally. I do that in a genuine spirit of open-mindedness—not assuming automatically that the United Kingdom has come up with the best answers to all the questions posed, when other comparable countries have similar problems.
Chris Ruane: I thank the Minister for giving way yet again. He mentions the evidence base when looking at legal and illegal drugs. In 2004, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence accepted mindfulness as a better way to treat repeat episode depression than antidepressants and other legal, or illegal, drugs. That practice has not been taken up by GPs or the health service. It puts the individual in control and involves no drugs. There are no long-term effects, and it is cheaper in the long run to administer. Mindfulness is now being taught in primary schools in Wales and throughout the UK. Surely such an approach needs to be considered as a way of preventing young—and older—people from turning to legal or illegal drugs.
Mr Browne: That widens the scope of the debate a little beyond what we are here to discuss, and perhaps falls within the remit of Health, rather than Home Office, Ministers. However, I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point.
Chris Ruane: Will the Minister give way?
Mr Browne: Perhaps for a final time.
The Chair: Order. As I am in such a good mood of well-being, I have let the discussion grow a little. However, the issue is tangential, and we ought to stick as closely as we can to the order before us.
Chris Ruane: The Minister mentioned the Home Office. Criminals put away in jails are literally a captive audience; 85% of them suffer from mental illness. Does he consider that mindfulness and other non-drug based talking therapies and treatments should be used?
Mr Browne: Yes is the short answer. Our drugs strategy is about trying to reduce the demand, reduce supply and support rehabilitation. Those are the three strands. Obviously, reducing demand is important. The fewer people who wish to take drugs or feel the requirement to do so, the better it is for them as individuals and for society more generally.
Let me cover a few other issues that were raised. The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North drew attention to European co-operation, which is important. I recently visited the European centre in Lisbon, and there are quite large variations—greater than we might think—between different European countries regarding which drugs are fashionable. Drugs are subject to fashion in the way that other products are. There is not a uniformity of threat throughout the European Union or Europe more generally; nevertheless, there are trends, and approaches that we can learn from each other, which is what we are trying to do. I agree that European co-operation would be beneficial.
The hon. Lady referred to hospital admissions. This is a difficult issue. In a briefing session for this debate, I had a long conversation about whether we have accurate measures of hospital admissions for legal highs. The difficulty presented to me is that a lot of people who are admitted to hospital having taken a legal high have taken some other substance at the same time. Either they have taken a combination of legal highs, a legal high and an illegal drug, or a legal high and a high amount of alcohol. So it is difficult to say with precision the degree to which they were admitted to hospital as a result of having taken the legal high, because what actually caused the harm has to be disaggregated and because, ironically, a substantial number of legal highs actually contain illegal drugs—they may have several components, one of which is illegal. There is then the difficulty of classification if the person was admitted to hospital for taking a drug that is legal, but a component of that drug—which may be the one that caused their ill health—is not legal at all.
We want the best evidence we can get, and there is no lack of good will or willingness in Government—or, no doubt, in Public Health England, although that is more within the remit of the Department of Health—to try to have such an evidence base, but that is perhaps slightly less easy to do than it may appear on first inspection.
A point was made about whether this is a good time of year to remind people of the dangers of legal highs. It is indeed, and I have written to organisers of various festivals to remind them of their responsibilities to the audiences they attract, often having charged them a considerable price for a ticket. We are doing our best to ensure that that information is disseminated, although we appreciate there is a limit to what a Minister can achieve in trying to influence the behaviour of hundreds of thousands of festival-goers.
Diana Johnson: Is the Minister aware that there was a campaign in European nightclubs to indicate to young people that taking legal highs with alcohol could result
in death? That campaign was run throughout Europe and was very successful. Maryon Stewart from the Angelus Foundation is keen for the Government to take up that idea and to spread information about what young people might face if they take legal highs and drink.Mr Browne: The hon. Lady makes a fair and good point that public information is important and that there are often added risks in taking drugs in combination, including legal drugs such as alcohol. We try to inform the public, and I am sure there are always new, more imaginative and different ways of doing that. For example, the “FRANK” website, which I believe is visited by hundreds of thousands of individual users annually, has lots of information about the impact and public health risks of drugs. The website tries to put those risks to people in a non-judgmental way—to use a slightly jargony word—so that they can make their own assessment without feeling that they are on the end of a moral lecture, and can come to a rational decision about what is in their own best public health interest.
There is a perennial debate about the purpose of schools, which I suppose is not my central ministerial duty. Schools have a role in helping to create good citizens, but obviously they have a key role in trying to impart knowledge to young people on conventional core curriculum subjects. There are only a certain number of hours in a day, so the Government need to strike the right balance between those two things. If it were easy to effect attitudinal change across society as a whole by, for an hour or two, telling children what they should believe, there would be parents across the land thinking that their task had been made easier. Almost a fifth of children leave school with no qualifications, which is a
much wider social problem, but it also suggests that telling children something at school does not necessarily mean they are listening to or absorbing it to the degree we would wish. However, wider civic education is part of what we wish to see in schools, and that is happening. There should be some flexibility regarding the precise form it takes, because people are lobbying to say we should do more in schools about drugs, personal finance, sex education, appropriate sexual relationships, healthy eating, teaching people to cook properly and exercise—The Chair: Order. One thing that they could teach in schools, Minister, is sticking to the matter at hand.
Mr Browne: Mr Bone, I was only seeking to illustrate the point by giving a long list. All those issues have merit, but parents also worry because they want their children to be taught about mathematics, English literature and other issues as well, and it is a question of fitting those into the school day. As you rightly observed, Mr Bone, I have slightly left the beaten track, tempted by our lively debate.
We are dealing with a specific order, as I outlined in my opening remarks. We continue to support the work of the advisory council to ensure it has access to the information it needs to produce evidence-based advice on drugs. That is an important public health protection measure. I commend the order to the Committee.
That the Committee has considered the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Temporary Class Drug) Order 2013 (S.I. 2013, No. 1294).