House of Lords
Tuesday, 14 July 2015.
2.30 pm
Prayers—read by the Lord Bishop of Portsmouth.
Oaths and Affirmations
2.36 pm
Several noble Lords took the oath, and signed an undertaking to abide by the Code of Conduct.
Authors: Rights and Income
Question
2.38 pm
Asked by The Earl of Clancarty
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they plan to take to improve the rights and income of professional authors and writers.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con): My Lords, it is important that authors are properly remunerated for their work, which is why the United Kingdom provides strong copyright protection for authors as well as the public lending right. The Government have introduced a range of measures to improve the enforcement of copyright, including a dedicated online IP crime unit run by the City of London Police.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB): My Lords, is the Minister aware of the recent ALCS research which finds, alongside a significant decline in the number of full-time writers, a 29% drop in the median income of professional authors in the last 10 years to a paltry £11,000 a year? What are the Government doing to protect the written word in this country and enable being a writer to be a viable career choice for young people?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe: My Lords, I agree with the noble Earl that writing is a vital part of our creative industries, and that is why we have the public lending right. We have a great library network to encourage people to read and to borrow. I think that we also have world-leading copyright laws.
Baroness Rebuck (Lab): My Lords, I declare that I have spent 40 years in book publishing. We should be proud of launching more titles per head of population in this country than anywhere else in the world. However, our overall revenues are falling. Half of our independent bookshops have closed, undercut by cheaper e-books and heavy discounting of physical books. “Every little helps”, as the Minister will know from her former life, but it does not always help everyone. Does she agree that we need to safeguard not only the revenues for writers but the whole book ecosystem on which their revenue depends?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe: I agree with much of what the noble Baroness says. She is a great role model from her work in the publishing industry, which was worth upwards of £9.9 billion of GVA in 2013. The creative industries make an enormous contribution to our economy. The digital world and the digital single market are of course changing everything; that is why we are always looking at how we should adapt our regulatory framework, both at national level and within the European Union.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD): My Lords, as the Minister knows, there have been many calls to change the application of the Unfair Contract Terms Act to intellectual property contracts over the past few years. Is it not now time to have a full review of how contracts for creators can be made fairer? How can we regard ourselves as the champions of creativity in the UK when the scales are so heavily weighted against creators?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe: My Lords, I do not agree that the scales are too heavily weighted against creators: there is a balance between the consumers who are going to buy works and the creators and writers. We have to have a good incentive system. The noble Lord knows a huge amount about the law of contract and I will follow up the point that he makes with him. We made a lot of reforms following the Hargreaves review. We have adjusted and changed matters appropriately, and I think that was a good result.
Lord Walton of Detchant (CB): My Lords, I declare an interest in that for many years I have been a member of the ALCS—the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society—from which I receive minuscule sums about twice a year when people, in their wisdom, decide either to borrow or to photocopy from any of my published works. Many libraries have lost their paid staff and are staffed wholly by volunteers. Can the Minister say whether such libraries are no longer covered by the public lending right so that those authors whose works are photocopied or borrowed from them no longer receive any financial benefit?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe: My Lords, it is for the local authority to determine how best to provide a comprehensive and efficient library service. Volunteer-supported libraries are considered for public lending right—the point that was at issue—where they are within a library authority’s statutory public library service.
Baroness Williams of Crosby (LD): My Lords, in the discussions that are going to take place on the BBC licence, will the Minister recognise the huge contribution the BBC makes to encouraging and supporting young authors? It has a whole list of series, such as “Book of the Week”, that depend on attracting young authors. Would the Government agree to bear this very much in mind in whatever decision they finally make about the licence issue?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe: The noble Baroness is absolutely right. I am glad to say that, thanks to my noble friend Lord Fowler, we will be debating the BBC later today in this House.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab): My Lords, a very sunny atmosphere descended on your Lordships’ House as the Minister mentioned the PLR and public libraries, which cannot be right. Fully operating public libraries have been decimated in the last five years and, as the noble Lord said, there are now difficulties in interpreting how the PLR operates when volunteers are involved. Is it not time now, given the change in the way publishing operates, for the Government to institute a proper review of the PLR to make sure that our authors, who contribute so much to the creative industries, get proper remuneration from all borrowing that is done?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe: My Lords, the noble Lord is right that libraries have declined in number, but the new modern libraries are amazing. We still have 3,142, which is an impressive network. I was in one of the modern libraries at Canada Water only last week. The Government are committed to looking at the options to extend PLR to remote e-learning. That was one of our manifesto commitments and I am sure we will be debating some of the related points that he has made in the coming weeks and months.
Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville (Con): My Lords, in the light of what has transpired in these exchanges in relation to the public lending right, would my noble friend consider encouraging a prize for the public library responsible for raising the most public lending right in the course of a year?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe: My Lords, I like it when this noble House gives us innovative ideas, and I shall take that back to the Culture Minister, who I am sure will be very interested in the idea.
Mediterranean: Migrant Trafficking
Question
2.45 pm
Asked by Lord Roberts of Llandudno
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what proposals they have to support Italy and Greece in their efforts to assist people trafficked across the Mediterranean from north Africa and the Middle East.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) (Con): My Lords, the best way to support member states under pressure is to break the link between getting on a boat in north Africa and being permitted to settle permanently in the EU. The UK is playing a leading role in EU efforts to tackle the people smugglers, address the upstream drivers of illegal immigration, and explore radical ideas to greatly reduce the likelihood of illegal immigrants being able to remain in the EU.
Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD): I thank the Minister for that response. Many noble Lords will know that Llangollen international music festival—
Lord Roberts of Llandudno: I am delighted at that. Last week, it brought in thousands of people but only one group there had a standing ovation—the group from Nepal. People are sympathising with the terrible destruction that there has been. It shows the basic compassion and care of the British people. Does the Minister really think that the Government are responding to the immigration and the great tragedy evolving in the Middle East and Mediterranean—and the burden is being shared between Greece and Italy more than anybody else—in a way that is equivalent to the compassion and care that British people feel?
Lord Bates: The noble Lord is absolutely right in this regard. This country has a proud record of offering asylum to those in need, and we continue to do that through a variety of programmes—but our view is that it is best done through individual programmes such as Gateway, introduced by the party opposite when it was in government, Mandate, and the Syria Vulnerable Persons Relocation Scheme. It is better done at a country level rather than internationally, but we are absolutely unrelenting in wanting to seek a solution to the tragedy unfolding in the Mediterranean.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB): Did the Minister have a chance to read the debate in your Lordships’ House last Thursday about the biggest displacement of people since World War II? In particular, could he tell us—given the reply that the House received on Thursday—when the interdepartmental ministerial meeting will take place? Will there be on the agenda for that meeting the creation of protection zones for those who are at risk and, particularly, the plight of children, after the request last week by Save the Children that this country should find places for 1,500 at-risk children?
Lord Bates: My noble friend Lord Courtown told me about that debate, and I have had an opportunity to read it. I gave a commitment that we would have a cross-departmental ministerial meeting, and that is in process. Certainly, all those issues, particularly looking for radical solutions to this crisis through the UN and the EU, will be very much on the agenda, and I will be happy to report back to the House.
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead (Lab): My Lords, does the Minister share the questionable view expressed by the Home Office Minister James Brokenshire, who last week said that the majority of those who seek to make the journey to Europe are economic migrants. Is it not crystal clear, for instance, that desperate Afghans, Eritreans and Syrians who are fleeing violence, conflict, oppression and persecution should definitely not be categorised as economic migrants?
Lord Bates: I think that the quotation from my right honourable friend James Brokenshire was particularly about the central Mediterranean, where there were examples of a large number of people coming from sub-Saharan Africa who would not normally be granted asylum. That is not the case—and I am sure we would agree on this—in the eastern Mediterranean, where the vast majority are coming from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. There are different causes, and it is a fast-changing problem.
The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth: My Lords, is the Minister aware of the practical support being given in welcome and support for displaced people by the British community, particularly in Greece, working in partnership with ecumenical colleagues in the country and supported by many churches here, donors and the Anglican communion throughout the world? That work is focused on the Anglican Church in Athens. Will the Minister give an assurance of the Government’s support for that work for these many people in very acute need?
Lord Bates: I am very happy to give our support to that. We give our support to the European Asylum Support Office which has locations in Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria and Italy. In fact, we are the largest provider of bilateral assistance to that organisation. What the church is doing is to be applauded. It is absolutely in keeping with the priority we see in providing these vulnerable people with the care they need.
Earl Attlee (Con): My Lords, does the Minister agree that it is very important to concentrate on a long-term, upstream solution rather than purely on short-term solutions?
Lord Bates: My noble friend is absolutely right. Part of the issue is to deal with the immediate crisis and stop the deaths that are occurring in the Mediterranean, but there is a bigger part, which is how you build stability within these countries so that people do not have to embark on this perilous journey. That is why we are so proud of our overseas aid budget, which of course is the second largest, in cash terms, in the world.
Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab): My Lords, if the Government are serious about breaking the link between being picked up in the water and getting permanent access to live in the EU, which is the phrase the Government always use and which the Minister used today, why do the Government not instruct the Royal Navy that when it picks up these poor people, having saved them, to ship them back to Libya or where they come from? If that requires some negotiation in advance with the powers currently controlling the ports of Libya, why are such negotiations not already in progress?
Lord Bates: Because we have an agreement with our EU partners that when people are picked up under international maritime rules they will be taken to reception centres in Lampedusa or Italy. That is the current plan.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB): Italy is spending £800 million a year on this work and is receiving £60 million a year from the European Union. Should Her Majesty’s Government work with the European Union in order to give Italy and Greece greater support in this work?
Lord Bates: I am sure that that is right. We are trying to do that through the European Asylum Support Office. It must be remembered—this is a serious point about how we approach this—that the overseas aid we give is some five times what Italy gives in overseas aid. We need to provide help, but we also need to draw attention to what this country is already doing to address the problems upstream.
Lord Paddick (LD): Does the Minister agree with the Chancellor of the Exchequer that those with the broadest shoulders should bear the biggest burden? In terms of absorbing the refugees coming across the Mediterranean, the two weakest economies in Europe are having to absorb all these migrants whereas this country, which has very broad shoulders, accepts hardly any.
Lord Bates: I do not think it is quite right to say that we do not accept any. We grant asylum to 12,000 migrants a year and have granted asylum to 4,200 from Syria. It is a point, where they come from. We have asked to work with the Italian Government and for them to abide by the Dublin regulations to ensure that there is better fingerprinting and recording of people as they arrive in that country and then we can have a better discussion about how we handle their relocation thereafter.
Income Per Capita
Question
2.53 pm
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to secure an increase in the level of income per capita.
The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord O'Neill of Gatley) (Con): My Lords, to achieve meaningful and lasting growth in the level of income per capita and living standards we need a sustained pick up in productivity. Interestingly, the most recent data have shown a notable rise in productivity, admittedly from somewhat disappointing data beforehand. Of course, it should not necessarily be assumed that this is the start of a trend. This is why the Government have just published a productivity plan that sets out how we will achieve a step change in productivity.
Lord Wigley (PC): Does the Minister accept that GDP per capita now is still lower than it was in the first quarter of 2008 and that the disparity between the level of income per head in London and in Wales or, indeed, in the north of England, remains very stubborn indeed? What plans do the Government have in the document he has just drawn to the attention of the House to close the disparity between London and the rest of these islands?
Lord O'Neill of Gatley: My Lords, I encourage every Member of this House to read all 82 pages of the document because it includes considerable detail to answer those questions. To be brief—I am aware from my recent appearances in this House that one has to be brief and not put Members to sleep—one of the most important measures related to previous Questions that I have been asked is that we have authorised an independent review into the accuracy of all UK economic statistics, which are highly relevant to this Question.
Baroness Kramer (LD): My Lords, I am pleased that the Liberal Democrat plan to help to close the gender pay gap has been reannounced by the Government. Will the Minister join me in congratulating the former coalition Minister, Jo Swinson, who pushed through the relevant amendment on corporate disclosure? Will the Government now take steps to close the pay gap between older people and the under-25s, who will not be eligible for the new minimum living wage?
Lord O'Neill of Gatley: I would like to make reference to the presentation of the Budget and the policies included, which, I think I am right in saying, considered many ideas from many people in undertaking its commitments to raise the living standards of everyone in the UK.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con): My Lords, does my noble friend agree that the way in which we can increase per capita income is by selling goods and services competitively across world markets, and that there is a limit to the good that Governments can do but almost no limit to the harm?
Lord O'Neill of Gatley: My Lords, while again I use this opportunity to encourage all Members to read our brilliant document, I shall also make reference to forces that I believe are important from my previous life on the topic of sustainable development and GDP per capita, one of which is indeed the performance of a country’s trade balance, particularly its export performance. That is something that our private sector needs to take the lead on. All that a Government should do is to make sure that it has the right environment to allow it to flourish.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab): My Lords, this is no laughing matter. Can the Minister explain to the House how the proposed changes in child tax credits will affect the per capita income of those involved?
A noble Lord: It is on page 64.
Lord O'Neill of Gatley: My Lords, I am very pleased to hear that one Member of the opposition Benches has read the productivity report in detail. On the specific question, as we showed in the Budget documents and in parts of the productivity document, we believe that when all the measures are looked at in total, eight out of 10 working households will be better off as a result of the personal allowance, the national living wage and the welfare changes announced collectively in the Budget.
Lord Flight (Con): Does the Minister agree with Alistair Darling that the Government subsidising wages tends to depress wages and leads to overemployment, and thus poor productivity growth?
Lord O'Neill of Gatley: My Lords, I suggest that Alistair Darling has made many interesting contributions towards improving Britain’s economic performance and productivity performance, including that observation.
Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab): My Lords, I take it that the Minister accepted the post because he intends to do good rather than harm to our productivity figures, in which we compare so badly to our leading competitors. However, how are the Government doing good when they dither over airport expansion, postpone rail electrification, have slippage on road programmes and generally fail to give the necessary government investment that would help on productivity? Even the construction industry is anticipating a drop in productivity this coming quarter. How on earth are we going to solve our chronic balance of payments problem while our productivity levels remain so low?
Lord O'Neill of Gatley: My Lords, I am still learning the practices here, and I am extremely tempted to give a very long answer to that very detailed question. I shall find the appropriate moment do so. Suffice it to say, at the risk of repeating myself, that I think I am right in saying that the very specific attention this document gives to all the factors that are important for productivity has never before been given, including virtually every single topic that the noble Lord mentioned.
Lord Wrigglesworth (LD): My Lords, as the Minister has done so much work on this subject, can he tell the House which he thinks comes first: higher pay or higher productivity?
Lord O'Neill of Gatley: My Lords, there is considerable debate in leading academic circles about causation, as I am sure many Members of this House are aware. Historically the conventional belief has been that higher productivity will lead to higher wages. Due to the length of time during which this country and many others have shown signs of weak productivity and wages there is growing evidence, which has obviously influenced the choice of policy, that deliberately trying to raise wages for the less well off may result in a boost to productivity, as the ONS estimated in its independent analysis of this measure when it was announced last week.
Criminal Justice: Secure College
Question
3.01 pm
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to support young people in the criminal justice system in the light of the decision not to go ahead with the building of a secure college.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Faulks) (Con): My Lords, in recent years we have seen welcome reductions in proven offending by young people and in the number of young people in custody. However, we have not seen similar success in reducing reoffending by young people. We are carefully considering how the youth justice system can more effectively prevent offending by young people and set them on a path to a better future.
Lord Beecham (Lab): My Lords, will the Minister convey to the Lord Chancellor the thanks of this House for his abandonment of his predecessor’s misconceived plan to house in a so-called secure college one-third of the young offenders in custody? Can he tell us whether and how the £1.56 million staffing and procurement costs and the £4.04 million of development costs incurred during this sorry saga can be recouped?
Lord Faulks: I am happy to convey the good wishes of your Lordships’ House to the Secretary of State. As to the spend, it will not be recovered. The pathfinder designs could be used or adapted to other forms of youth or adult custody in the future, and alternative provision could be developed on the prepared site at Glen Parva. However, the noble Lord and the House may be relieved to know that we will not be spending £85 million on the secure college.
Lord Dholakia (LD): My Lords, will the Minister agree that the purpose of the secure colleges, as against secure training centres, was to double the time available for education in these prison establishments, thus leading to better job opportunities for inmates on release? Now that this option is not available, and bearing in mind the shocking report produced by the prison inspector about the lack of staffing in prisons, how will these objectives be met, and what will be the future role of the Youth Justice Board in providing the type of education required?
Lord Faulks: The noble Lord is right that the secure college had at its heart the ambition of improving the provision of education for young offenders. As he will know from his experience in this area, a large majority of them have either been expelled from school or not attended school, and many of them are barely literate or numerate. The Government intend to focus very much on the education of young people. Since March 2015 a greater focus on education has followed, and the number of hours of education available to young people has more than doubled. However, we are not complacent.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB): My Lords, the noble Lord will be aware that I am truly grateful that this plan has been abandoned. However, has he looked at all the wealth of research on community interventions with reoffending young people? Down the generations, material has been produced on how working in a one-to-one relationship with these youngsters can change their behaviour significantly. I ask the Minister to look at that again in the review, because that is what changes lives.
Lord Faulks: The noble Baroness was a doughty opponent of secure colleges and I acknowledge that. Of course, she will be as pleased as the rest of the House at the drop in the number of young offenders in various forms of youth custody from 3,000 in 2007 to just over 1,000 now. However, we need to do more, and she is right that when young people leave we will be encouraging them to become re-established in the community and to make up for the very unfortunate starts that many of them have had.
Lord Elystan-Morgan (CB): The Minister will know that for many years we have been incarcerating far more young people per 100,000 of the population than almost any other country in Europe. Do we still hold that unmeritorious accolade?
Lord Faulks: I am afraid that I cannot give the noble Lord the statistics off the top of my head. At the moment we certainly incarcerate something like 85,000 of the overall adult population. As I said, we have reduced the number of young people in prison, and I shall write to the noble Lord with the comparative figure in due course.
Baroness Corston (Lab): I think it is right to say that there are now fewer than 50 girls in the category to which this Question applies. A couple of years ago the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Women in the Penal System, which I chair, held a year-long inquiry which showed that even those girls do not need to be held in this kind of accommodation and can be dealt with in the community. Does the Minister accept that?
Lord Faulks: I can assist the noble Baroness and the House by telling her that, as of today, 36 girls are in custody—19 in secure training centres and 17 in secure children’s homes—so it is a reducing number. I think that those who are responsible for sending young women and girls to prison have it well in mind that it should be a last resort. The Government are anxious to keep all young women and girls out of prison if it can possibly be avoided.
Lord Ramsbotham (CB): My Lords, in connection with the question asked by my noble friend Lady Howarth, the Children and Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Taskforce, formed by NHS England, is currently looking at ways of holding these damaged children near enough to their homes to ensure continuity of treatment. Can the Minister assure the House that the findings of this task force will be included in whatever work is done in the Ministry of Justice?
Lord Faulks: It is very much a matter that will be at the forefront of our mind. Of course, one of the difficulties is that if a limited number of young people are in youth custody establishments of one sort or another, they will inevitably be scattered all over the country. Having, as it were, local institutions creates quite a challenge but it is a consideration that is highly relevant.
Baroness Walmsley (LD): My Lords—
Lord Elton (Con): My Lords, the purpose of incarceration is rehabilitation. In view of the growing clarity of the importance of education in that function, when did the Government last review sentencing policy, and are there available sentences that enable children to be held in suitable accommodation long enough to achieve some educational progress?
Lord Faulks: The noble Lord identifies one of the main philosophies behind the secure college, which was to enable a sufficient block of education to be provided to young people when they were in youth custody of one form or another. That will be very much a part of the consideration that the Government give to maintaining some sort of continuity, even if there are relatively short periods when a young offender is in some form of establishment.
Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]
Report
3.08 pm
Baroness Meacher (CB): My Lords, the contents of Amendment 1 are reflected in Amendment 3. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Rees, the noble Lords, Lord Norton and Lord Howarth, and my noble friend, if I may call her that, Lady Hamwee, for putting their names to one or other of those amendments. My noble friend Lord Patel also wanted to add his name to one or other of the amendments but unfortunately the lists were full. I simply want to make the point about the breadth of support for the amendments.
The purpose of the amendments is to limit the scope of a blanket ban to synthetic psychoactive substances. That raises two issues: should we seek to limit the scope of the blanket ban at all; and, if we should, is the word “synthetic” the right one? I will not repeat what I or others said in Committee, but will refer to events since—there have been a number.
On the first point, since Committee, overwhelming support has emerged for limiting the scope of the blanket ban. As the Minister knows, the Government’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs makes very clear in a letter to the Home Secretary that it cautions against a blanket ban on all psychoactive substances. The ACMD points out:
“It is almost impossible to list all possible desirable exemptions under the Bill. As drafted, the Bill may now include substances that are benign or even helpful to people including evidence-based herbal remedies that are not included on the current exemption list”.
The Minister will also be aware of the letter to the Prime Minister published in the Times from the former Archbishop of Canterbury—one cannot go a lot higher than that—among other eminent academics and ethicists. They say:
“It is not possible to legislate against all psychoactive agents without criminalising the sale of harmless, everyday products that produce changes in mood”.
I very much hope that the Home Secretary will heed the advice of those many experts.
The second point raised by the amendment is why we use the term “synthetic” to define the ban on psychoactive substances. I believe I am right in saying that the Conservative manifesto referred to a ban on
legal highs. In tabling the amendment, I assure the House that we seek to respect the Government’s manifesto commitment. However, the term “legal high” is, I am told, not appropriate for legislation. There is consensus among the experts that the target of the Bill should indeed be legal highs. The ACMD uses the word “novel”, and I shall quote a short paragraph from the ACMD letter on the issue. It states:
“The ACMD would support a ‘blanket ban’ on Novel Psychoactive Substances, but cautions against a blanket ban on all psychoactive substances”.
I have very good reason to believe that the ACMD would be entirely happy with the term “synthetic psychoactive substances” in place of the word “novel” to define a legal high. For me, that is very important.
At a meeting with a top professor of neuropsychopharmacology and a QC, we discussed the relative merits of the words “novel”, “new” and “synthetic” in this context. It was agreed that neither the term “novel” nor the term “new” would be recognised in a court of law. We have many lawyers here, and I am sure they will tell me if my legal adviser is wrong or right. Mr Fortson QC was very clear on this point. He said that the best term to define legal highs and thus to honour the Conservative manifesto commitment would be “synthetic psychoactive substances”. The following sets out what we agreed as drafted by one of those experts:
“We recommend that the target of the Bill be amended to define the banned substances as synthetic psychoactive substances. This will at a stroke eliminate the requirement for many innocuous psychoactive botanicals to be exempted, eg, perfumes, incense, herbal remedies”.
I believe that there could be many hundreds, perhaps thousands more. In particular, it will cover all current and future synthetic cannabis analogues, which are proving such a huge problem in prisons and elsewhere.
The only botanicals currently used recreationally that might currently pose any concern—I emphasise “any”—are kratom and salvia. However, they are not reported to lead to deaths or public disorder and, if they became more of a concern, they could readily be controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. The point about botanical substances is that it takes years to create a new one. The Bill is designed to control synthetic substances, a new one of which can be created in a matter of minutes. The need is to find a definition of banned substances that is proportionate, ensuring that the Government avoid banning all sorts of harmless products and cause untold problems for manufacturers, shops and consumers, while spreading the blanket ban widely enough to catch all harmful synthetic substances—that is, those substances not controlled by the Misuse of Drugs Act.
On this point, I should notify Ministers and the House that I plan to table a tidying-up amendment at Third Reading to bring all synthetic psychoactive substances currently controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act under the control of this legislation. It makes no sense to have hundreds of synthetic psychoactive substances controlled under one Act, while any new psychoactive substance would be controlled under different legislation —that is, this Bill. I hope very much that that amendment at Third Reading will not be controversial.
3.15 pm
I turn to the issue of harm, addressed in Amendments 2, 6 and 7. I say at the outset that the wording of these probing amendments could be improved. For me, the main point of these amendments is to focus the minds of Ministers and your Lordships on what many have described as an extraordinary feature of the Psychoactive Substances Bill: the elimination altogether of the concept of harm from the system of control of supply, importation and production of psychoactive substances. The Government’s hand-picked expert panel recommended the inclusion of the concept of harm and a safety clause whereby substances of low or no harm would be excluded from the Bill. It is a matter of concern that this key recommendation is not reflected in the Bill—though I must confess that I have a feeling I know why, and it is a perfectly reasonable reason.
The Government’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs draws attention in its letter to the Home Secretary to the view of the expert panel concerning the need to include the concept of harm in the policy framework. The ACMD points out quite rightly that the suppliers of benign or beneficial substances could be prosecuted under the Bill. Is that what the Government really intend? The letter in the Times from senior scientists, academics and ethicists also expressed concern that:
“It is not possible to legislate against all psychoactive agents without criminalising the sale of harmless, everyday products that produce changes in mood”.
This amendment seeks only to bring the boundaries of the Psychoactive Substances Bill into line with the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 in determining a level of harm below which the supply, import and distribution of a substance would not be a criminal offence. As some in this House know, I am a critic of the Misuse of Drugs Act on many grounds, but it does recognise that only harmful drugs should be controlled.
I understand that the Government want to avoid delays in banning dangerous substances while their level of harm is assessed, and this is a matter with which many of us have considerable sympathy. The issue of setting the level of harm as a floor below which a substance would not fall within the scope of the legislation is complex. The European Union still has not implemented its excellent regulation on psychoactive substances, purely because it is still working on defining what that threshold of harm should be. All are agreed that this is an important matter and a solution needs to be found, but it will certainly not be straightforward to find it. Therefore, I seek an assurance from the Minister that the Government will work with the ACMD and others to find that solution.
To end my remarks, I return to the first matter addressed in Amendments 1 and 3: the use of “synthetic” to define psychoactive substances controlled under this legislation. Can the Minister assure the House that the Government plan to work with the ACMD to find the right solution to the definition issue? Does he agree that, as it stands, the very wide definition in the Psychoactive Substances Bill is not satisfactory? Will the Government either work with the ACMD to agree the word “synthetic” or, if there is a better term to define legal highs, use that? I beg to move.
Baroness Hamwee (LD): My Lords, I have added my name to the noble Baroness’s Amendment 3, and my noble friend Lord Paddick and I have Amendments 4, 5, 8 and 9 in this group.
On the term “novel”, which is the subject of one of our amendments, the Secretary of State in her correspondence with the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs has explained how difficult a term this would be in legislation. I entirely accept that point, but as it was raised by the ACMD, which said that the omission of the term widened the scope of the Bill beyond that originally intended and cautioned against a blanket ban on psychoactive substances—because, for reasons we have heard, it would be almost impossible to list all desirable exemptions—I thought it was appropriate to raise it. As the Secretary of State points out, one might ask: novel since when? The use of the term “novel” as used by the ACMD is in itself slightly novel, but it is a term that is widely used. We have talked throughout this Bill—the term has come into common usage—of “new” psychoactive substances. If “novel” means new, and we have been using the term “new” again today, I think that it deserves some explanation from the Minister.
Importantly, I support the noble Baroness with regard to the term “synthetic”, because surely that is what this Bill is really all about. The Minister spoke in Committee about producers of new psychoactive substances constantly looking for loopholes, and I of course understand that, but the term is more precise than “novel”. I hope the Government can consider some way of addressing concern about the breadth of the ban. To me, the term “synthetic” imports a notion of artificiality, of materials being brought together, a combination. That is probably what it means; I suspect one of those comes from the Greek and one from the Latin. It suggests imitating a natural product.
The Minister referred in defence of the Bill to natural products being available in head shops which are far from safe. He mentioned fly agaric mushrooms. I had a quick look the Kew botanic gardens website this morning, which calls them,
“the most iconic of … toadstools … commonly depicted in children’s books and on Christmas cards”,
so let us be very careful where we tread. It refers to their hallucinogenic properties, which I do not doubt, but then states that they have been well-known for centuries. Much the same can be said about salvia divinorum. The second part of that name suggests that there are sacred aspects to that substance, as is the case. Again, it has been in use for centuries. So I question whether it is appropriate to ban such substances now through this mechanism. We have a lot of drugs legislation, as the noble Baroness said, and one has to accept that this is a fairly hastily prepared Bill. It is not, I would have thought, directed at natural, albeit dangerous, substances known for centuries.
Is there something about how these plants are treated that distinguishes them from other plant-based drugs which are covered by the Misuse of Drugs Act? In the case of a substance that is integral to a religion, like the variety of sage to which I have referred, is there a mechanism for permitting its use in a religious context?
The question of harm is fundamental to everything we are talking about. As has been said, this issue has been raised by the ACMD and we on these Benches—and, I am sure, the whole House—are concerned about ensuring that harm is the focus of the legislation. My noble friend and I are concerned about the whole premise of the Bill—we have debated this before—because we do not believe that a complete ban can work. Human beings do not take well to prohibitions and if new psychoactive substances become more difficult to get hold of, they will be driven underground or users will turn to more harmful substances. That is why we believe that harm should be the focus of the Bill.
I turn now, as I did at the previous stage, to the Misuse of Drugs Act. This established the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and gave it an advisory role where,
“the misuse is having or appears to them capable of having harmful effects sufficient to constitute a social problem”,
“preventing the misuse of such drugs or dealing with social problems connected with their misuse”.
I thought it would be appropriate to import those words into the Bill and our amendments deal with that. We do not seek to put them into Clause 1, as the noble Baroness has done, because that is an overview. It points to the definition clause but we have included the words in our amendment to Clause 2, the definition clause, providing a requirement on Ministers to refer matters to the ACMD and allowing it to oppose exemptions on this basis. The Secretary of State’s letter to the ACMD refers to a discretion about the definition and scope of the exemptions. We want to make it clear that the basis should be harm, not an unqualified, undefined term but using the terms in established legislation.
I have just seen, as other noble Lords will have done, the ACMD’s letter of 13 July. I do not criticise it but I am sure that I am not the only noble Lord who thinks that we could have done a better job on this Bill if there had been consultation with the ACMD before it was published. The advisory council has moved very quickly—it cannot have been easy for it—but it refers in its letter to having had only a narrow window of opportunity to make recommendations for amendments and to begin to formulate advice. This House does its best work when we have a good basis to work from and are not trying to second-guess the experts in the field.
Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab): My Lords, it is remarkable that the international community, having been increasingly aware of and alarmed by the dangers of new psychoactive substances, has none the less not so far succeeded in establishing a definition that is watertight in legal terms and available to the Government to use in their legislation as they seek to fulfil their manifesto pledge. The expert panel, on page 38 of its report, advised that the definitions in use in legislation would need to be robust. This group of amendments seeks to specify more closely the generic problem that we are seeking to address through this legislation.
In seeking to tighten and, in a sense, limit the scope of the Bill in this way, let me not give the impression—I know that other noble Lords who have supported
these amendments would not want the impression to be given—that we in any way minimise the dangers from new psychoactive substances. This is a serious and challenging social problem.
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Some of these new psychoactive substances have shown themselves to be capable of inducing paranoia, psychosis, seizure and, indeed, death. We have very limited testing facilities. The risks of taking an unidentified powder on its own, let alone in combination with other such drugs or alcohol, are very great. Some new psychoactive substances are more dangerous than the controlled substances that they seek to mimic. There is a very serious problem and we are absolutely at one with the Government in their determination to find effective ways to address this problem.
However, it seems to me that the term “psychoactive substance”, as deployed in the Bill, qualified only by the exemptions set out in Schedule 1, is too loose and too imprecise. Noble Lords who are lawyers and experienced judges will know far better than me what difficulties such looseness of definition might present to the courts. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, with his experience as a senior police officer, will also appreciate the difficulty of looseness of definition when it comes to police officers performing the duties laid down for them in the Bill. It is very important that we try to light upon a form of words that expresses more precisely the nature of the drugs and the danger with which we are seeking to deal.
Therefore, I was encouraged by what the Home Secretary said in her letter of 11 July. Perhaps I may say how much, I am sure, all noble Lords who participate in these debates appreciate the rapidity and the comprehensiveness with which the Home Secretary has responded to the letter dated 2 July that she received from Professor Les Iversen, the chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. Her letter is very helpful in a great many respects. She says that she welcomes the offer of the ACMD to discuss this issue with officials and that:
“I propose that such discussions might usefully explore options for strengthening the definition of a psychoactive substance”.
I take it that we are all agreed that further work is needed to get the wording of this legislation right so that it is appropriately targeted.
Legislation in other countries, from which the Government have borrowed—the Irish, Polish and Romanian legislation—all omit the language of harm, which has been introduced, or I might say would be reintroduced, from the language of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 in Amendment 2 and, I think, Amendments 6 and 7. The Irish and Polish laws state that the psychoactive effect must be “significant” for the offences to come into play, which is a kind of qualification. The Romanian legislation goes further and is much more akin to the New Zealand legislation, which the Government have rejected. Under the Romanian legislation, a supplier or producer is required to submit a psychoactive risk assessment and to describe the nature of the substance in question.
There are difficulties with the concept of harm. The Misuse of Drugs Act 1971—chapter 38—established the remit of the advisory council. In wording that is
used in some of these amendments, the advisory council is enjoined to take into account questions of harm. But it seems to me that there cannot be a simple, objective view taken of harm. The harm that a drug may cause depends on the context. It depends on the dosage, on the purity of the particular batch and on the person who consumes it, who may be an experienced, recreational drug user or perhaps a vulnerable and ignorant teenager. It depends on a whole range of social factors that probably would need to be taken into account. Even the original legislation probably creates a task that is singularly difficult for the ACMD to fulfil. No doubt that is one of the considerations that will be dwelt upon in the conversations between the ACMD and Home Office officials.
The expert committee also warned that closer thought needed to be given to possible unintended consequences of the loose and generalised term “psychoactive substances” used in the Bill. We do not want to criminalise priests. The more vigorously the priest swings the censer, the more incense is let loose into the body of the church. As I understand it, these days priests can no longer enjoy the benefit of clergy, so we have to be very careful that we do not unintentionally criminalise either priests or florists because flowers have psychoactive effects. I remain concerned about Lady Bates, and the Minister, as, when he presents her with a bouquet of flowers, both he and the florist may be in breach of the law. He shakes his head but he has not yet told us how the language of the Bill protects him in such a situation. Of course, the enforcement authorities are advised to take a proportionate response so they may let him off lightly, but I would not be happy to rely upon that alone.
The Home Office’s own annual review declares that the Government’s policy in the European Union is to,
“work to ensure proportionate and effective EU level action on NPS”—
that is, new psychoactive substances. But then the Government rejected the EU’s proposed legislation and produced this legislation which, as drafted, is neither proportionate or, it seems to me, likely to be effective because it imposes too much of a blanket ban, and we know that life does not work like that. If you simply say, “Here’s a social evil, we’re going to ban it. We want it to go away”, however much the police and other authorities attempt to prioritise enforcement of the ban amid all their other very challenging and difficult responsibilities, it seems to me highly unlikely that people will give up their drug-taking practices.
Given those considerations and given the warning of the ACMD that,
“The psychoactivity of a substance cannot be unequivocally proven”,
we have to tread very carefully. I believe that the term “synthetic” proposed in Amendments 1 and 3 is appropriate because the drugs that we are trying to deal with—the so-called new psychoactive substances—are now being routinely and rapidly synthesised, principally in China but also in India. I understand that the Minister, on one of his admirable sponsored walks, is about to do a walking tour of China. It may well be that in the course of his perambulations he will look in on one or two of these laboratories. Following his
earlier fact-finding mission incognito to Glastonbury, he ought to pursue his investigations that little bit further. Anyway, we must deal with that. These are new drugs, synthesised in rogue laboratories, principally in China. If we use the term “synthetic”, we catch what we need to catch.
I understand that naturally derived substances have over the years since 1971 been pretty comprehensively reviewed by the advisory council. One or two may escape the more limited, tighter definition of “synthetic psychoactive substances”, and nitrous oxide, which the Government are anxious to control, may be one of them. However, if they are perturbed about that, I think that they already have means to hand under the 1971 legislation to deal with the problem of nitrous oxide. Salvia was mentioned, as were one or two other botanical substances. They can all be dealt with under the powers that already exist. I am very pleased that the Home Secretary, having regrettably sidelined the ACMD in the earlier phase of preparation of this legislation, is now keen to consult it, allow it to advise her officials and to bring it on board so that its expertise can be brought to bear.
I hope that, by the time this Bill reaches the other place, the Minister and his colleagues will find language which delimits and denotes much more precisely and exactly the drugs which are the evil that we are trying to protect our young people’s health and lives from.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB): My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, is right to avoid the use of the word “novel” or “new”. The problem is that what may be new or novel today may not be so next year. What we are seeking to do in this legislation is to create a series of criminal offences, and the prosecutor will need to be very precise in leading evidence to satisfy the requirements of the definition. A solution along the lines suggested by the noble Baroness, supported by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, avoids that word, which lacks the precision that is needed. Of course, the word new or novel is widely used in common parlance, but that is not really the test that should be applied for legislation such as this. I am therefore sure that the noble Baroness was right to find some other form of wording, and the one she has suggested avoids that difficulty.
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope (LD): My Lords, I want to make two quick points as a codicil to this important group of amendments. I strongly support the attempt of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, to insert the word “synthetic”. As a former pharmacy graduate—non-practising—who studied such things, to me, the word “synthetic” makes perfect sense in this context, and it would make the Bill a lot clearer. I also support the amendments in this group that would reintroduce the concept of harm, which the 1971 legislation introduced in a way that has stood the test of time. Indeed, I am behind the thrust of all these amendments.
My noble friend Lady Hamwee referred to the Committee stage of this Bill, which the ministerial team dealt with in an exemplary way; it listened very carefully and did the best it could. But any Member of this House who has had the advantage, as some of us have, of reading the recent letter from Professor Les Iversen
and the Home Secretary’s response of a few days later, will be left, as I certainly am, with a real concern about the difference in tone between the two approaches taken. I and many others expressed the concern in Committee that the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs was being written out of the script. I use that harsh language deliberately, although I am not blaming the Minister.
On the second page of his letter, Professor Iversen says:
“The ACMD … wishes to present its concerns that the Bill, as drafted, may not achieve its aims”,
which is a pretty fundamental thing to say,
“and may produce serious unintended consequences”.
The heading of the subsequent paragraph states:
“The omission of the word ‘novel’ has widened the scope of the Bill”,
which all of us on my side of the argument were arguing against with the Government Front Bench. The heading of the next paragraph states:
“The psychoactivity of a substance cannot be unequivocally proven”.
Again, with my academic background, I support that view, which is the one taken in Committee. The heading of the next paragraph states:
“The Bill uncouples the concept of harm from control of supply, importation and production”,
which is the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and others were making.
What relationship do the Government really have with the ACMD, given that they seem to be so far apart? We had a manifesto commitment which talked in yellow journalese about
“a blanket ban on all new psychoactive substances, protecting young people from exposure to so-called ‘legal highs’”.
That is the kind of language we would see in manifestos, and a few short weeks or months afterwards we get this Bill, which seems a long way away from Professor Iversen and his colleagues. That is a concern to me. I do not blame the Minister, by the way, but that is a concern that this House is right to reflect on Report. Admittedly, there are proceedings in the House of Commons and I am sure that the Minister’s approach in Committee—the way that he was prepared to pick up points and reflect on them—will continue. I have been in this business a long while and I can see a long distance between these two bits of correspondence. The Minister has some work to do to persuade this House on Report that that gap is not dangerous and that people may not get hurt unless this is sorted out before the final passage and Royal Assent of this Bill.
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Lord Ramsbotham: My Lords, I was very glad to hear the confirmation by my noble and learned friend Lord Hope of the possibility of the use of the word “synthetic”. I must admit that, having been slightly unhappy at the thought of the way this Bill might go, that thought was exacerbated by reading the annual report of the Chief Inspector of Prisons yesterday, in which he mentioned specifically the harm that was being done in our prisons by legal highs. That added speed to the need to do something about it. I was very
glad that my noble friend Lady Meacher mentioned prisons because in addition to the police, the prison authorities need weapons in their hands so that they can take action against the people who are causing the harm with these substances.
Lord Elton (Con): My Lords, I have a very small question to ask relating to the definition of harm, which is qualified by the word “social”. I wonder what in fact that constitutes. If a drug results merely in the inability of the user to sleep satisfactorily or if it interferes with his learning but does not, as a general effect, cause him to disrupt those about him, is it still a social harm? It seems to me that self-harm is a dangerous product of these drugs and it would be a great pity if individuals taking them were not protected when we have the opportunity to do so by a definition which included that which harms the individual as well as society. This is a lawyer’s question. I hope that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, might be able to lay my fears to rest; otherwise, either the Minister or the mover will doubtless do so.
Lord Hope of Craighead: My Lords, I am not sure if I am allowed to speak again on Report but I am challenged here. The words in the amendment are “social problem”, not social harm. I think that may be an answer to the noble Lord. They are different phrases, with different meanings.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con): My Lords, I have no particular difficulty with the first amendment concerning “synthetic”, and I think I indicated that to the Minister some time ago before it was actually formulated as an amendment.
However, I have considerable difficulty with the second amendment and how it is going to work. If somebody produces this material and that production is to be a crime, in the general view I have about the law he must at least have the means of finding out whether what he is doing is criminal. The difficulty that has been expressed before in relation to these psychoactive substances is that they are produced so quickly and changed so quickly and the harm is done so quickly that the Misuse of Drugs Act can hardly catch up with them. That is a very serious problem.
I agree very much with what the inspector has said in his report about the difficulty of prisons. Indeed, I have been told before that there are considerable difficulties with the input into prisons, by whatever means, of these legal highs. They certainly seem to have the effect of producing considerable violence, which is undoubtedly a social problem if ever there was one. How is this to work? The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs will have to give advice. Will that not create exactly the same difficulty as the attempt to use the Misuse of Drugs Act to control these legal highs has proved to have in the past? That is the need and reason for the production of the Bill.
The noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, said that the definition is very wide. My view is that, on the whole, the legal effect of a definition is rather more related to its precision than to its particular width. In some cases, the definition of what is made criminal is very wide indeed—as undoubtedly it should be to
encompass many methods of carrying out the offence. I cannot see how the mechanism suggested here is going to be capable of working, given the problems that exist. I have been trying to think of how this could be modified but so far without too much success, except that something depends on the intention of the laboratories producing these substances. What are they doing it for? Are they intending to help people to sleep well or behave well and so on? I think they are probably not.
The purpose for which these substances, which may be synthetic, are produced seems highly relevant but it is quite difficult to get at defining an offence by reference to that. However, if the purpose for which the substance is produced is something that the state considers should be criminalised, that is a possible way to define an offence. That would at least have the effect of it being decided in relation to the time of production. It might not be possible to prove it immediately but the essence of it would be something that has happened before that production was put into the hands—or the body, one way or another—of the person receiving it, which is part of the crime that the Bill seeks to establish.
Lord Howarth of Newport: What would be the practicalities of trying to prove the intention of a chemist in China?
Lord Mackay of Clashfern: The intentions in China are possibly as human as intentions here. If people produce a substance in China, it is bound to be possible to say why they are doing it. I agree that the more remote they are, the more difficult it is to bring to bear our criminal system but the system has to work when the drug is brought into operation in this country. The people who bring it in will have a purpose. They will no doubt have some kind of relationship with those who produce it, in China or elsewhere. I do not think that they are normally bringing it in as a charity but for some commercial purpose.
As far as I can see, the type of approach that the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, has suggested may be capable of being rephrased to bear on the purpose for which the drug is produced. If that were possible, it would be a much more feasible and workable solution than is contained in Amendment 2 at the moment. I am very sceptical about anything I could say about a definition of this kind that is supported by no less a person than the noble Lord, Lord Rees of Ludlow. However, this has legal implications as well, which is why I have been encouraged to say what I have thought about it up to now.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab): My Lords, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, hit on the essence of the Bill at the beginning of his contribution. It takes a different approach from the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, because of the speed with which these new products are coming into our society. We all at least agree that their impact is one of tremendous and peculiar harm. The Labour Front Bench supports the Bill and the essential concept behind it. We had a manifesto commitment to address legal highs and we approve of the device used, which is a wide definition with exceptions. That is the difference between the two
sides in this debate. We therefore, as a generality, oppose the narrowing of definitions, as that would go to the essence of how the Bill is designed to work.
Amendment 1 would narrow the definition to “synthetic”, which would potentially exclude a large group of naturally occurring substances. Amendments 2, 5, 6, 8 and 9 all seem to be about the same concept, with the same words used over and over again, as in Amendment 2, to limit the definition to,
“any drug which is, or appears to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to be, misused and of which the misuse is having, or appears to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs”—
“to be capable of having, harmful effects sufficient to constitute a social problem”.
Those ideas would drive right through the concept of the Bill and reverse its essence, meaning the psychoactive substance would first have to be proved harmful. The Bill is poised the other way round: if the substance is psychoactive, it is presumed to cause harm and is illegal under the Bill unless exempted.
The wording and framing of those amendments seems also to leave out the concept of self-harm, which the Bill seeks to address. It certainly takes out the more complex issues of harm such as dosage, volume et cetera. We therefore cannot support those amendments.
Lord Howarth of Newport: I am very grateful to my noble friend for giving way. How does he deal with the objection raised by Professor Iversen and his colleagues on the ACMD in their letter of 2 July? The professor warns that:
“The psychoactivity of a substance cannot be unequivocally proven”.
He goes on to say how difficult it would be to demonstrate in court that a particular substance was indeed psychoactive. He also says:
“It is almost impossible to list all possible desirable exemptions under the Bill”.
Are those two objections not very serious ones to the legislation? What is my noble friend’s response to Professor Iversen?
Lord Tunnicliffe: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that intervention and hope to respond to it, at least in part, as I progress through the points I am making.
Amendment 7 would delete the definition in the Bill and would hence create the opposite effect from the one that we wish to pursue. For those reasons, in general we oppose these amendments. But—and it is an important but—we have become increasingly concerned with the operation of the Bill. What will happen? The concern that was building up and which came out on the first day in Committee was about how it will work operationally. It is of particular concern because the Bill refers specifically to the “balance of probabilities” and then, in other places, ends up with criminal sanctions. That is starting to feel very wrong. We challenged the Minister on this and he promised to write to me to provide reassurances about the operational aspects and the whole issue of proving whether something was psychoactive. I intend to refer to the letter that I got from the Minister. I thank him for the letter and
I thank him and the team for making sure that it was copied to anybody who has spoken in the event—so anybody who has spoken in the debate so far should have a copy of the letter.
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The letter touches on the whole problem of what an enforcing officer does, how he handles things and how he comes to a conclusion, and so on—and it is not that helpful. But perhaps that is because being a policeman, customs officer or whatever is a difficult task; it is about decisions of degree. We have a concern about that, but I think that the Government in the letter commit to doing the best job that they can and to use the best advice, and I do not think that we can take that any further. The really key issue is about when someone will go to prison or be fined. What will be the process and the burden?
On the first page of the letter, the Government assure us:
“We are … committed to ensuring that there are mechanisms in place to determine the psychoactivity of seized substances in a timely and effective way”.
That seems to be for the efficient operation of the Bill and to cover the concerns that the advisory committee has about the provability of psychoactivity—it is a commitment from the Government to do something about it. On the next page of the letter, they set out the mechanisms that are being set up and offer three views of how psychoactivity might be proved,
“using existing data … identifying a substance’s chemical structure … and … in vitro neurochemical profiling”.
They seem persuadable. But I now go on to quote the letter directly, because I would like a response from the Minister. In the middle of that page, it says:
“Ordinarily, it can take between 9-12 months for a drug to be brought under the control of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, following the advisory and parliamentary process. Until a drug is listed in Schedule 2 to the 1971 Act, no offence can be committed under the Act in relation to that substance”.
Since the essence of the letter is that analogous procedures are going to be used for the proof that a substance is psychoactive, how long do the Government envisage the new processes will take, particularly the parliamentary processes?
The next paragraph of the letter is crucial in securing that appropriate level of proof before somebody is either fined or committed to prison for an offence under the legislation. It says:
“By contrast, under the Bill, substances are not required to be tested, assessed and/or then listed in order for enforcement officers to make use of the enforcement powers conferred by the Bill. As described above, the Bill gives enforcement officers the tools to be able to search for and seize any substance they reasonably believe to be psychoactive. The same ‘reasonably believes’ test applies to the issue of a prohibition notice or premises notice and applications for prohibition orders and premises orders are determined on the basis of the balance of probabilities”.
However—that is my however; it is not in the letter—the key sentence is the one that follows, which says:
“In the case of a prosecution for an offence under clauses 4 to 8 or (depending on the nature of the failure to comply with an order) 25 of the Bill, it will be for the prosecuting authorities to establish beyond reasonable doubt the psychoactivity of the substance in the order to secure a conviction”.
In other words, as I read it, the prosecuting authorities must meet the criminal test of evidence before an individual can go to prison or be fined for an offence under the Bill. I am concerned by the words in parenthesis,
“depending on the nature of the failure to comply with an order”,
and I would like the Minister to assure me that it means the general point that I have made. The letter goes on to say that various mechanisms will be set up, and I hope it implies that there are going to be adequate resources.
Given an affirmation by the Minister that I have accurately quoted his letter, some response on the time issue and an assurance that nobody will be sent to prison or fined unless the psychoactivity of the substance has been proved by the criminal test of beyond reasonable doubt, we are content with the definition in the Bill and will not be supporting any of the amendments.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) (Con): My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, for giving us the opportunity for this debate on Report. We have had a busy period between Committee finishing and Report commencing. It has been a very productive time. We have had many meetings, which were promised in Committee, about different aspects. We have had a rapid flow—a flood, even—of correspondence, which has been two-way, as it has been with the ACMD as well. This is, in a sense, how the process of legislation should work: Committee is a meaningful process, the Government reflect on it and then come to Report having considered further.
The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, speaks with great authority and insight on these issues. Although there are a number of points which I need to address in my speech, I want to make sure that, as in an examination essay, when you try to answer the question that is put early on, just in case the examiner is not quite following the depth of your analysis, I put it on record that we are not ruling out the term “synthetic”. We are not saying that it is not adequate; it is within the complex of debate. The ACMD did not offer an opinion on “synthetic”. It suggested “novel” and we responded with “new”. I will come back to this, but I do not want to let the moment go by without saying that this is a genuine process by which we want to consider all the options and weigh the very signification contributions from Members of this House. We have benefited from the legal expertise that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay offered us on how this may be viewed. This is a significant matter which we will want to reflect upon very carefully as we go through.
I was also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, for his intervention; he mentioned Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons, which has talked about the seriousness of this problem in the prison estate. It has been a growing problem. That observation came after Committee.
We also had the intervention from the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, who reflected on the number of deaths in custody that had been due to this. He had examined 19 fatalities in prison between April 2012 and September 2014 where the inmate was known or strongly suspected to have been taking drugs, and this
was a relevant factor in their death. We will be coming to responses to that in later groups of amendments, but I appreciate that point being made.
If the House will bear with me, I shall put some remarks on the record while I seek to address the points made particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, and mentioned by other noble Lords during the debate. The Government take seriously the views of the advisory council. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, asked if there was a difference here. There should be a sort of tension between anyone who has a statutory duty to advise and, whoever are the Government of the day, I am sure that that tension is there.
We recognise that there were members of the ACMD who were on the expert panel. The ACMD advised particularly on the science while the expert panel, which was set up and asked to undertake the particular report by Norman Baker under the previous coalition Government—I am not going down that route—included people from a wider group, including law enforcement officers and various drug treatment organisations. They were the ones who came forward with a recommendation for a ban. Again, though, I want to make it clear that any reading of the report would show that it was hardly obvious what needed to happen; it was not a no-brainer. The expert panel wrestled with the question; they saw a number of disadvantages and advantages, but on balance they came down on the side of a ban.
As the House is all too aware, the Bill is designed to capture substances supplied for human consumption that have psychoactive effects. Its aim is to cover substances that are not currently controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 but, as with any drug when misused, carry risks. The definition has been deliberately drawn widely, as the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, said, and is a necessary move away from the approach taken in the Misuse of Drugs Act. Potentially, this is the equivalent of the “Whac-A-Mole” problem—I am desperately in search of a more elegant legal term—where a substance is banned under a temporary banning order, but then up it pops again a few days later with a slightly changed molecule to get around the legislation. It is not accidental that we have drawn this widely; it was deliberately done to recognise that there is a particular problem here.
As my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay pointed out, this is a dynamic, fast-moving and fast-changing market. The market in psychoactive substances has dramatically changed over the last few years and shows no signs of abating. In fact it seems to be getting worse: we had an excellent session with Public Health England, to which all interested Peers were invited. One of the points that that body made was that a lot of clinics say that the ease of access to these drugs is fuelling a particular problem. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, and others, such as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth, also had the opportunity to meet a children’s organisation. We will come back to that later, but that organisation talked about how these so-called legal highs are used as part of the grooming process for vulnerable young people. These are very serious problems.
Amendments 1, 3 and 4 suggest ways in which the definition might be adjusted to restrict the scope of the Bill and its offences to those substances that are
synthetic or are “novel”. We have previously debated the merits or otherwise of including a reference to “synthetic” in the definition of a psychoactive substance. As I indicated in Committee, there are a number of naturally occurring substances, known in years past as “herbal highs”, that are of concern and are far from safe. The noble Baronesses, Lady Meacher and Lady Hamwee, referred to those.
4.15 pm
Salvia divinorum, or salvia, is a Mexican plant, with leaves that contain psychoactive chemicals that produce hallucinations when chewed or when dried and smoked. There is concern that salvia can trigger psychotic episodes, particularly in young people and people with a history of mental health problems. Other plant-based psychoactive substances include Kratom, which is sold as a psychoactive ingredient in “branded” products such as Palm Wine and Dutch Haze. Kratom acts as a sedative at higher doses and carries the risk of physical dependency. A further example is fly agaric mushrooms, which are used for their hallucinogenic LSD-type properties. Our view is that while these may not warrant control under the 1971 Act, the Bill provides a legal framework, subordinate to the 1971 Act, which should be deployed to restrict their availability. To do otherwise would arguably be arbitrary and would leave a loophole for those looking to maintain their profits from this trade.
The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, has taken up the advisory council’s recommendation that we should amend the definition to cover only “novel” psychoactive substances. I have already referred to our policy rationale in capturing some long-standing intoxicating substances in the context of natural products. This reasoning applies equally to products synthetic in nature such as nitrous oxide, which the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, mentioned, and alkyl nitrites, or “poppers”, which were tolerated for many years when control under the 1971 Act was the only option.
The other side of the coin is one of legal clarity. As the Home Secretary set out in her response to the advisory council, the inclusion of the term “novel” to describe psychoactive substances in legislation was considered unworkable. To make an amendment of this kind to the Bill would suggest that Parliament intended to exclude from its ambit psychoactive substances in existence before the enactment of the Bill. The psychoactive substances market that exists just prior to the Bill’s enactment would not be covered. That is clearly not our intention or an acceptable outcome, as the point we are getting at is that every time we redraw the rules too tightly, these very devious and sophisticated drug operations simply change their terms to fit the new criteria.
Fixing a point in time to the definition was also considered unworkable. Do we take the date when a substance was first discovered, manufactured or identified in the recreational market? Or, perhaps, we should identify the date on which a substance became widely used—a term which itself would be challenging to define. Of course, we are looking for a general approach to all these substances, not a substance-by-substance one. It is our view that this market is so fluid that to specify a specific cut-off date, either for the generality
of psychoactive substances or for particular substances would be impractical, open to misunderstanding and abuse. The advisory council has helpfully clarified that the term “novel” should not be taken as introducing the concept of timing, which is just as well given the difficulties I have highlighted.
The UK is not unique in framing its legislation, where the predominant target is psychoactive substances generally, in the way set out in the Bill. Neither Ireland, New Zealand nor Australia—at both federal and state level—have used the terms “new” or “novel” and refer to psychoactive substances generally.
Amendments 2 and 5 to 8 seek to define a psychoactive substance—
Lord Tunnicliffe: My Lords, I am, albeit temporarily, on the same side as the Minister, and I am now confused. I think he said—some minutes ago, I grant you—that the Government had not ruled out the use of the word “synthetic”, but then he went on to rule it out. Can he be clear: are the Government thinking about adopting the word “synthetic”, and if so, in what timescale? If I misheard him, he now has the opportunity to be absolutely clear.
Lord Bates: I ask the noble Lord please not to go to the other side just yet but to stay with me a little longer. I was referring to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and was talking about the use of the term “novel” in this context. That was the ACMD point, as opposed to the point about the use of “synthetic”, which I shall come to later and have already touched upon. Now the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, looks puzzled; perhaps I have lost him in gaining the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe. Perhaps I may continue with what I was saying and then I will come to the specific point raised by the noble Lord.
I accept that while our target in this Bill is substances that are harmful when misused, or which have the potential to cause harm, the Bill seeks to define the effect of these substances rather than to make any explicit reference to their harms. Of course, the advisory council has a considerable and impressive track record in making these harm assessments. It is a scientific body of experts which for the last 40 years has been advising successive Governments. These amendments would require assessments of individual substances, or even groups of substances, for the purpose of bringing them within the scope of the Bill and its offences.
Our fundamental issue with that is that it would perpetuate the inadequacies and frustrations of our current approach under the 1971 Act. As the expert panel found, a substance-by-substance approach would not meet our core objective to get fully ahead of the market and scientific developments. It would allow the suppliers to adapt their range of substances on sale in response to new controls. That is exactly what has happened in the past and is behind the purpose of this legislation. Indeed, by driving innovation in the market, the current approach adds to the harms caused by these substances, as each new generation of psychoactive substances is more potent than the last. We need a change in gear—that is what the blanket ban will deliver.
Finally, Amendment 9 adopts a different approach again to how we define a psychoactive substance for the purposes of the Bill. Clause 3 enables the Home Secretary to make regulations, subject to the affirmative procedure, which add to or vary the list of exempted substances in Schedule 1. As we have previously debated, the regulation-making power in Clause 3 has been designed to future-proof the list of exempted substances and ensure that, for example, medicinal products are not inadvertently caught by the blanket ban provided for in the Bill. Schedule 1 contains broad categories of established substances and products that we want to exclude from this regime, mostly because they are already regulated by other legislation.
I turn to the specific point put to me by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe. He pointed to the advisory council’s concerns about proving psychoactivity as a point of law. I wrote to the noble Lord on this very issue, and he quoted my letter, in which I said:
“The Government is committed to supporting the law enforcement community in the exercise of their powers under the Bill. We will work with the national policing lead and College of Policing on the development of policing guidance”.
It is important to recognise that different powers in the Bill apply to different standards of proof. For example, the powers of seizure in Clause 42 operate to a “reasonable belief” test. An officer’s reasonable belief that a substance is psychoactive could be based on a number of factors, including the substance’s packaging, its markings or even whether the individual from whom it was seized appeared intoxicated and the officer could infer that the substance found might be responsible. The same “reasonable belief” test applies to the issuing of a prohibition notice or a premises notice. Applications for prohibition orders and premises orders are determined on the basis of the balance of probabilities.
In the case of a prosecution for an offence under Clauses 4 to 8—I think that this comes to the point that the noble Lord invited us to look at—we have the criminal test of “beyond reasonable doubt”. Clause 25, which is referred to in my letter, deals with the offence of failing to comply with a prohibition order or premises order. That clearly involves the civil test of the balance of probabilities. However, failure to comply with the order can involve a criminal sanction. Therefore, quite rightly the noble Lord came back and asked whether it was possible that we could end up with someone being caught between the two tests—the civil and the criminal—and facing a criminal sanction on the balance of probabilities test. As I understand it, that is at the heart of his concern. I can certainly give him the assurance that before any criminal sanction could be made under Clause 25, there would need to be proof to the criminal standard of “beyond reasonable doubt” that the substance involved was indeed psychoactive.
I hope that that clarification will help the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, with his concerns. I also hope that the point that I made right at the beginning to the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, that we are continuing in a genuine dialogue with the Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs, will allow her to—
Baroness Meacher: Before the Minister sits down, I would like to put one question to him on that issue. He said at the beginning that he was not ruling out the term “synthetic”, but I then became very confused
when he started talking about a number of botanicals. Does he agree that there is in fact great value in separating the machinery for botanical substances, which are developed over many years and which can be brought under the Misuse of Drugs Act if they are dangerous—harmful—from synthetic substances, which need a rather different kind of machinery? I think that the Minister was indicating that there are botanical substances that may be to some degree harmful.
Of course the police are able to use common sense. They tend not to arrest and criminalise the possession of herbal cannabis. They will know that it is infinitely less dangerous than something such as alcohol. The same would apply to other botanical substances developed over many years. If they were brought under the Misuse of Drugs Act, which the Minister referred to as rather draconian, that Act also could be used with a degree of common sense. I want to be clear whether the Minister accepts the great value of separating these two completely different sets of substances.
Lord Bates: The noble Baroness goes to the heart of the issue; we have a problem with that. We are just not convinced. There are botanicals, to which we have referred. There are other substances, such as nitrous oxide. Does “synthetic” as a term cover what we want it to cover, or will we be reassembled back here at some future date trying to clamp down on another loophole which has been exploited? That is the difficulty. When I say that I am not ruling out the term “synthetic”, that is absolutely correct, but we want to make sure that if the term is used, it is understood in a legal context as achieving the intention of the Bill, which is to uphold a blanket ban. I hope that, with that, I have provided some clarification.
Lord Howarth of Newport: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. What is his difficulty about using the apparatus already available to the Home Secretary under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 to deal with botanical substances and, I think, nitrous oxide—natural substances about which the Government are concerned? It is open to them to classify them perhaps as class C drugs and deal with the problem in that way, distinguishing between natural substances and the synthetic substances that constitute this huge social threat by being barraged into our society week after week to the great danger of our young people.
Lord Bates: That was the point that I was trying to address in response to my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay, who talked about the speed of this: the cumbersome process that existed before to categorise something, the period of time, and the agility of the criminal gangs behind the production of these substances. That goes to the heart of the purpose of the blanket ban. I know that we may not necessarily agree on that point, but I hope he will understand that that is where we are genuinely resolute: how do we uphold the blanket ban—which is the advice that we received from the expert panel, what similar panels in Wales and Scotland believe to be the way forward and what operates in Ireland—in a way that recognises the nuances we have but does not allow people to escape through loopholes? That is the challenge we are wrestling with. It is a dialogue that we are committed to continuing,
both with your Lordships in the remaining process of the Bill and as it goes to another place, should it be your Lordships’ will that it does. That dialogue will continue; it is genuine and we are continually listening to views on this.
4.30 pm
Lord Tunnicliffe: Listening to the Minister, one might almost interpret him as saying that this is a balanced issue on which he needs more time to think and on which he wants to involve noble Lords. However, the only time when noble Lords will get another chance to debate this will be at Third Reading. Is the Minister saying that he may be able to take this away and shed more light on his conclusions at Third Reading?
Lord Bates: Look at the pace of events over the past week and the exchanges of correspondence that there have been. This is moving because we are genuinely exploring what the definition should be. Of course we will keep it under review for Third Reading and, should the Bill go to the other place, it is likely that, as a result of deliberations in your Lordships’ House, government amendments will be tabled in other areas dealing with other clauses. Therefore, through the normal process, we will get an opportunity to consider those Commons amendments should they be made. There will be opportunities for this discussion to continue with the ACMD in the proper way. However, I come back to the basic principle on which the noble Lord and I agree absolutely: we cannot have any more loopholes popping up so that people can exploit the gaps in the legislation. That is the whole point. We might as well not have the Bill if it will simply open up a number of new areas—be it botanicals or some other derivative—that can be used for the purposes that the Bill is intended to clamp down on.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern: Before the noble Lord sits down, let me make clear that the present difficulty is that botanical substances could be used as a basis for some form of psychoactive substance that would be dangerous in a way that was not shown hitherto. The Government’s present position is that “synthetic” should not be inserted but that further considerations may help clarify that problem. Therefore, the safe thing to do at the moment is leave out “synthetic” and use the general definition, which is what the group set up specially for this purpose advised.
Lord Bates: That would seem an elegant solution.
Lord Tunnicliffe: Is the Minister saying—I think he is about to get an answer from the Box—that he may well further consider this issue before Third Reading and that we should debate further at that point? That is very important to the noble Baroness in deciding whether to press her amendment.
Lord Bates: In responding on the Bill, I gave a number of examples of particular botanical substances that would fail the test of “synthetic”. Therefore, it is very much as my noble and learned friend has said. Those substances do not meet the harm threshold of the 1971 Act, but some natural substances are controlled under it. This is part of the confusion and discussion that is still to be resolved, but we believe that what we have at the moment is clear in terms of the intent of
the Bill and that to insert “synthetic” at this stage would unnecessarily limit the scope of the Bill and potentially open up new loopholes, which would need to be closed down legislatively on another occasion.
Baroness Meacher: My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. It has turned into an incredibly wide-ranging, constructive and interesting debate, so I am most grateful to all noble Lords. I want to pick up in particular on the comments made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay. His initial comment was that he had no problem with the word “synthetic” and then introduced a very interesting point: that the intention behind a substance is very pertinent. Interestingly, he raised a similar point in writing to the chairman of the ACMD, saying that this would be a helpful addition to the definition of a synthetic psychoactive substance. If you bring in the intention behind the substance, then you have really got it. I am very grateful to the noble and learned Lord for that contribution.
Things became a bit more confused a little later, because if a botanical substance is treated and becomes a psychoactive substance it would automatically come within the definition of synthetic psychoactive substance. That is the purpose of the amendment: to keep a separation between genuinely botanical products, which take years to develop and produce and which can very properly be controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act, and those substances which are treated, and can be treated rather quickly, to create another synthetic psychoactive substance. Those latter should be brought under the control of this legislation. It seems to me that we can produce two sets of very logical, useful legislation to deal with those two completely different types of substance. They might have similar effects, but their production and its timeframe are entirely different. They have to be treated differently under the law. I wanted to make that position clear bearing in mind the points made by the Minister, who said that he was not ruling out the use of “synthetic” but then raised some rather serious questions about whether he could introduce “synthetic” to define psychoactive substances covered by this Bill.
The crucial point here is that the Irish experience shows that you cannot assess whether a substance is psychoactive without using human beings to test it. It has not worked in Ireland. Dealing with the matter in the way that we have suggested in the amendment is a great deal better than they have managed to do in Ireland.
I hope I have managed to thank everybody adequately. I also thank the Minister for his meetings with me and, in particular, for the very helpful meeting we had yesterday. Only because I know that the ACMD supports us in this amendment and now feel confident that the Government will have serious discussions with the council about this issue, and because I am therefore confident that the Government will find their way to doing the sensible thing and having this clear division between botanicals and synthetics, I am prepared to withdraw my amendment.
Clause 2: Meaning of “psychoactive substance” etc
5: Clause 2, page 1, line 15, leave out paragraph (a) and insert—
“(a) in the opinion of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs is capable of producing a psychoactive effect in a person who consumes it, and
(aa) is, or appears to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs likely to be, misused and of which the misuse is having, or appears to them capable of having, harmful effects sufficient to constitute a social problem, and”
Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, before I speak to Amendment 5, perhaps I should say to noble Lords who are wondering what is happening, “Do not go away”. I did not wish to abuse the House by too much toing and froing during the exchange on the first group of amendments but some points came out in that debate that are relevant to Amendment 5.
The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, made some interesting points and analysis of the situation in regard to harm. I shall quote again from the ACMD’s letter of 2 July on the concept of harm. It stated:
“Without the inclusion of the words ‘harmful’ or ‘potentially harmful’, the ACMD can envisage situations whereby the supplier of benign or beneficial substances could be prosecuted under the Bill”.
It also stated that the expert panel set up to consider this issue,
“recommended the inclusion of the concept of harm and a ‘safety clause’”—
“whereby substances of low or no harm—
and we know the difficulties of setting a threshold—
“would be excluded from such a Bill”.
Self-harm has been raised. It is a social problem within the terminology I have used, which, as I have said, is lifted from the Misuse of Drugs Act.
Without wishing to expand on this, to think now of using this Bill to ban botanical substances—types of sage and mushroom have been mentioned—which have been legal for centuries raises questions about propriety and whether it is too authoritarian and so on. Perhaps that is not an issue for now.
I accept the point about the time taken to show harmful effects causing social problems but we have to put this in the context of the substance producing a psychoactive effect and the time and difficulty involved with that. My amendment would deal with the question of harm without sabotaging the direction of the Bill.
If amendments are made in the Commons, we may welcome them. However, if amendments are not made in the Commons, we will not have the basis for further discussion because at that stage we cannot reintroduce issues that are unrelated to amendments that the Commons have made. I therefore beg to move and I wish to test the opinion of the House.
4.43 pm
Contents 95; Not-Contents 314.
CONTENTS
Addington, L.
Alderdice, L.
Allan of Hallam, L.
Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon, L.
Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, B.
Barker, B.
Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury, B.
Bradshaw, L.
Brinton, B.
Burnett, L.
Chidgey, L.
Clancarty, E.
Clement-Jones, L.
Dholakia, L.
Doocey, B.
Dykes, L.
Erroll, E.
Fearn, L.
Glasgow, E.
Greaves, L.
Grender, B.
Hamwee, B.
Harris of Richmond, B.
Haworth, L.
Humphreys, B. [Teller]
Hussain, L.
Hussein-Ece, B.
Hylton, L.
Janke, B.
Jolly, B.
Jones of Cheltenham, L.
Kerr of Kinlochard, L.
Kinnoull, E.
Kirkwood of Kirkhope, L.
Kramer, B.
Layard, L.
Lee of Trafford, L.
Loomba, L.
Low of Dalston, L.
Luce, L.
Ludford, B.
Macdonald of River Glaven, L.
Maclennan of Rogart, L.
McNally, L.
Maddock, B.
Manzoor, B.
Maxton, L.
May of Oxford, L.
Meacher, B.
Miller of Chilthorne Domer, B.
Neuberger, B.
Newby, L. [Teller]
Nicholson of Winterbourne, B.
Northover, B.
O'Neill of Bengarve, B.
Paddick, L.
Palmer of Childs Hill, L.
Parminter, B.
Pinnock, B.
Purvis of Tweed, L.
Rea, L.
Redesdale, L.
Rennard, L.
Roberts of Llandudno, L.
Scott of Needham Market, B.
Sharkey, L.
Sharp of Guildford, B.
Shipley, L.
Shutt of Greetland, L.
Smith of Clifton, L.
Smith of Finsbury, L.
Smith of Newnham, B.
Steel of Aikwood, L.
Stern, B.
Stoneham of Droxford, L.
Strasburger, L.
Suttie, B.
Taverne, L.
Teverson, L.
Thomas of Gresford, L.
Thomas of Winchester, B.
Tope, L.
Tordoff, L.
Turnberg, L.
Tyler, L.
Tyler of Enfield, B.
Wallace of Saltaire, L.
Wallace of Tankerness, L.
Walmsley, B.
Walpole, L.
Wigley, L.
Williams of Crosby, B.
Willis of Knaresborough, L.
Wrigglesworth, L.
Young of Hornsey, B.
NOT CONTENTS
Aberdare, L.
Adonis, L.
Ahmad of Wimbledon, L.
Altmann, B.
Alton of Liverpool, L.
Anderson of Swansea, L.
Anelay of St Johns, B.
Armstrong of Hill Top, B.
Armstrong of Ilminster, L.
Ashton of Hyde, L.
Astor of Hever, L.
Attlee, E.
Bach, L.
Baker of Dorking, L.
Balfe, L.
Bassam of Brighton, L.
Bates, L.
Beecham, L.
Berkeley, L.
Berridge, B.
Best, L.
Bew, L.
Bichard, L.
Bilimoria, L.
Billingham, B.
Black of Brentwood, L.
Blair of Boughton, L.
Blencathra, L.
Blood, B.
Boateng, L.
Borrie, L.
Bowness, L.
Brabazon of Tara, L.
Bradley, L.
Bridgeman, V.
Bridges of Headley, L.
Bristol, Bp.
Brooke of Alverthorpe, L.
Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, L.
Brookman, L.
Brougham and Vaux, L.
Browne of Belmont, L.
Browning, B.
Buscombe, B.
Butler of Brockwell, L.
Butler-Sloss, B.
Byford, B.
Caithness, E.
Callanan, L.
Cameron of Dillington, L.
Campbell-Savours, L.
Carrington of Fulham, L.
Cathcart, E.
Cavendish of Furness, L.
Chadlington, L.
Chandos, V.
Chisholm of Owlpen, B.
Christopher, L.
Clark of Windermere, L.
Clarke of Hampstead, L.
Clinton-Davis, L.
Cohen of Pimlico, B.
Collins of Highbury, L.
Condon, L.
Cope of Berkeley, L.
Corston, B.
Courtown, E.
Cox, B.
Craig of Radley, L.
Crickhowell, L.
Crisp, L.
Cumberlege, B.
Curry of Kirkharle, L.
Davies of Oldham, L.
Davies of Stamford, L.
De Mauley, L.
Dear, L.
Deben, L.
Deech, B.
Denham, L.
Dixon-Smith, L.
Donaghy, B.
Donoughue, L.
Drake, B.
Drayson, L.
Dubs, L.
Dundee, E.
Dunlop, L.
Eaton, B.
Elder, L.
Elton, L.
Elystan-Morgan, L.
Evans of Bowes Park, B.
Evans of Temple Guiting, L.
Evans of Weardale, L.
Farmer, L.
Farrington of Ribbleton, B.
Fellowes, L.
Fellowes of West Stafford, L.
Fink, L.
Finkelstein, L.
Finlay of Llandaff, B.
Flight, L.
Fookes, B.
Forsyth of Drumlean, L.
Foulkes of Cumnock, L.
Fowler, L.
Framlingham, L.
Freeman, L.
Freud, L.
Gale, B.
Gardiner of Kimble, L. [Teller]
Gardner of Parkes, B.
Garel-Jones, L.
Geddes, L.
Giddens, L.
Glendonbrook, L.
Goldie, B.
Golding, B.
Goodlad, L.
Gordon of Strathblane, L.
Grade of Yarmouth, L.
Grantchester, L.
Green of Hurstpierpoint, L.
Greenway, L.
Griffiths of Fforestfach, L.
Hannay of Chiswick, L.
Harries of Pentregarth, L.
Harris of Haringey, L.
Harrison, L.
Hart of Chilton, L.
Haskel, L.
Haughey, L.
Hayman, B.
Hayter of Kentish Town, B.
Healy of Primrose Hill, B.
Helic, B.
Higgins, L.
Hilton of Eggardon, B.
Hodgson of Abinger, B.
Hollick, L.
Holmes of Richmond, L.
Hooper, B.
Horam, L.
Howard of Lympne, L.
Howard of Rising, L.
Howe, E.
Howe of Idlicote, B.
Howell of Guildford, L.
Howie of Troon, L.
Hoyle, L.
Hughes of Woodside, L.
Hunt of Kings Heath, L.
Hunt of Wirral, L.
Inglewood, L.
Irvine of Lairg, L.
James of Blackheath, L.
Janvrin, L.
Jay of Paddington, B.
Jenkin of Kennington, B.
Jones, L.
Jones of Whitchurch, B.
Jopling, L.
Judd, L.
Kakkar, L.
Keen of Elie, L.
Kennedy of Southwark, L.
Kilclooney, L.
King of Bridgwater, L.
Kingsmill, B.
Kirkham, L.
Kirkhill, L.
Laming, L.
Lamont of Lerwick, L.
Lawson of Blaby, L.
Leigh of Hurley, L.
Lennie, L.
Lexden, L.
Liddle, L.
Lingfield, L.
Liverpool, E.
Livingston of Parkhead, L.
Lyell, L.
Lytton, E.
McAvoy, L.
McColl of Dulwich, L.
McDonagh, B.
McFall of Alcluith, L.
MacGregor of Pulham Market, L.
Mackay of Clashfern, L.
MacKenzie of Culkein, L.
Mackenzie of Framwellgate, L.
Mandelson, L.
Mar, C.
Marlesford, L.
Massey of Darwen, B.
Mawhinney, L.
Mawson, L.
Mendelsohn, L.
Mitchell, L.
Mobarik, B.
Monks, L.
Montrose, D.
Moore of Lower Marsh, L.
Morgan of Ely, B.
Morris of Aberavon, L.
Morris of Bolton, B.
Morris of Handsworth, L.
Moynihan, L.
Naseby, L.
Nash, L.
Neville-Jones, B.
Neville-Rolfe, B.
Newlove, B.
Noakes, B.
Northbrook, L.
Nye, B.
O'Cathain, B.
O'Neill of Gatley, L.
Palmer, L.
Pannick, L.
Patel, L.
Patel of Blackburn, L.
Patten of Barnes, L.
Pendry, L.
Perry of Southwark, B.
Pitkeathley, B.
Plant of Highfield, L.
Plumb, L.
Popat, L.
Prescott, L.
Prosser, B.
Puttnam, L.
Quin, B.
Ramsay of Cartvale, B.
Ramsbotham, L.
Rawlings, B.
Rebuck, B.
Rees of Ludlow, L.
Reid of Cardowan, L.
Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, L.
Robertson of Port Ellen, L.
Rogan, L.
Rooker, L.
Rosser, L.
Rowe-Beddoe, L.
Rowlands, L.
Ryder of Wensum, L.
St John of Bletso, L.
Sanderson of Bowden, L.
Sassoon, L.
Scotland of Asthal, B.
Seccombe, B.
Selsdon, L.
Shackleton of Belgravia, B.
Sharples, B.
Sheikh, L.
Shephard of Northwold, B.
Sherbourne of Didsbury, L.
Sherlock, B.
Shields, B.
Shrewsbury, E.
Simon, V.
Singh of Wimbledon, L.
Skelmersdale, L.
Slim, V.
Smith of Basildon, B.
Smith of Gilmorehill, B.
Spicer, L.
Stedman-Scott, B.
Sterling of Plaistow, L.
Stirrup, L.
Stoddart of Swindon, L.
Stowell of Beeston, B.
Strathclyde, L.
Suri, L.
Sutherland of Houndwood, L.
Swinfen, L.
Symons of Vernham Dean, B.
Taylor of Bolton, B.
Taylor of Holbeach, L. [Teller]
Thomas of Swynnerton, L.
Tomlinson, L.
Touhig, L.
Trees, L.
Trefgarne, L.
Triesman, L.
True, L.
Trumpington, B.
Truscott, L.
Tugendhat, L.
Tunnicliffe, L.
Turner of Camden, B.
Uddin, B.
Ullswater, V.
Verma, B.
Wakeham, L.
Wall of New Barnet, B.
Warner, L.
Warsi, B.
Warwick of Undercliffe, B.
Wasserman, L.
Watson of Invergowrie, L.
West of Spithead, L.
Wheatcroft, B.
Wheeler, B.
Whitaker, B.
Whitby, L.
Wilcox, B.
Wilkins, B.
Williams of Trafford, B.
Woolmer of Leeds, L.
Young of Norwood Green, L.
Younger of Leckie, V.
5 pm
10: Clause 3, page 2, line 14, leave out “such” and insert “—
(a) the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, and
(b) such other”
Lord Rosser (Lab): I do not wish to speculate on whether it was my eloquence and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, in Committee or the letter of 2 July from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs that carried more weight with the Government, who have now put their name to an amendment providing for the Secretary of State to consult the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs in specific circumstances. I hope it might be the former explanation but I fear it is probably the latter.
The letter from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs stated that the Home Office should amend the Bill so that:
“In keeping with our role in the Misuse of Drugs Act, there should be a statutory duty to consult ACMD”.
Nevertheless, it is one for the record when the Minister responsible for the Bill adds his name to an amendment moved by the Opposition. I thank the Minister for that and for delivering so handsomely, in my opinion, on his undertaking in the debate in Committee on this issue to consider the matter further in advance of Report.
I do not think there is really any need for me to say any more, although the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, or the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, may wish to contribute. But on the basis that the Minister’s name is on this amendment and that therefore he will not be opposing it but supporting it, I beg to move.
Lord Paddick (LD): My Lords, my name is on this amendment. We moved a similar amendment in Committee. Obviously, we are very pleased that, for whatever reason, the Minister has added his name to what is now the Labour Party amendment.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has raised a concern about whether it was consultation and the debate in Committee that persuaded the Government to change their mind on this or whether it was the letter from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. It is very disappointing that the consultation with the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs did not take place at a much earlier stage in the preparation of the Bill, rather than after its publication. It certainly would have saved a lot of time and debate if that had happened. Even now, from the latest letter in the correspondence between the Home Secretary and the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which we saw yesterday, it appears that the advisory council wants further changes and amendments. It is not right that we should have a half-baked Bill presented to this House on the understanding that it does not really matter because, if any deficiencies are highlighted as a result of this late consultation, they can be put right in the other place. We in this House have the right to amend Bills to make them worthy of being passed into law. We should not rely on amendments made by either the Government or the Opposition in the other place when the Bill is first presented to this Chamber.
Lord Howarth of Newport: My Lords, in supporting the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Rosser, I express my welcome to the amendment tabled by the Government. It gives me particular pleasure to support my noble friend but it also gives me pleasure to support the Minister in his tabling of that amendment. It is never really profitable in politics to seek to take credit; it is much more important that there should be results. But there has been pressure from all quarters for the Government to make it clear—and make it clear in the Bill—that they were going to involve the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs in carrying forward the policy for which the Bill would legislate, so this can be nothing but good. If any credit is due to this House, because the issue has been emphatically raised in our proceedings, then it is one more instance of how the Minister has been the most honest of brokers between this House and his department. The integrity, good will and energy with which he has mediated these debates through to his colleagues in the Home Office is something which I think we all very much appreciate. I would like to place that on the record.
Lord Bates: My Lords, this may be a short group as we, too, welcome this amendment. I do not think I have ever known an occasion before where all three main parties have put their names to the same amendment. It is a matter of semantics as to whether we have all come around to Amendment 10 or everybody has come around to government Amendment 22. What matters most is that we are all on the same page. In the context of the previous debate, that same page very much underscores the importance which the Government place and should place on the advice which they receive from the advisory council.
The Explanatory Notes made it clear that we expected to consult fully the council on Clauses 3 and 10. However, in bringing forward these amendments to turn such an expectation into a statutory duty, we have been mindful not just of those views and its opinion but of the deliberations and the views expressed in your Lordships’ House. These amendments reaffirm the value we place on the independent expert advice from the advisory council and our commitment to a constructive working relationship with it on the provisions of the Bill and the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. We will continue to work with the council to achieve our common purpose of reducing and preventing harms caused by psychoactive substances to individuals, especially young people, families and communities. For these reasons, I am happy to support Amendment 10 and similarly to commend Amendment 22 to the House.
Schedule 1: Exempted substances
11: Schedule 1, page 37, line 7, leave out paragraph 2 and insert—
“2 All medicinal products prescribed by a doctor or sold by a licensed pharmacist.”
Baroness Meacher: My Lords, in moving Amendment 11 I shall also speak to Amendment 12, both of which we debated in Committee. I intend not to repeat anything of the arguments we used then but rather to reflect on developments since. The intention of the amendments is to ensure that all legitimate medicines and substances used for any form of legitimate research are exempted from the scope of this legislation.
I am most grateful for the Minister’s letter to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, in which he says that the Government are looking again at the definition of medicinal products in Schedule 1 to ensure that it is fully aligned with existing medicines legislation. The question is what exactly that means. I only seek an assurance from the Minister that the definition will include all medicines prescribed on a named-patient basis and all unlicensed—or any other—psychoactive substances prescribed by a doctor on the basis that the prescription is believed by that doctor to be in the best interests of the patient. My clear understanding is that a doctor can prescribe any medication, even if it is unlicensed or not recognised, so long as they believe that it will help the patient. Many medicines come on to the market which may have been tested in other countries or in other ways but which have not been through UK systems.
Amendment 12 deals with research. It would be helpful to have an assurance that all legitimate research, including laboratory research, involving psychoactive substances in academic institutions or undertaken by industry will be fully exempted from the scope of the Bill. Alternatively, perhaps the Minister could assure the House that the Government will seek an assurance from the ACMD that whatever wording is used will achieve that objective. We just want all noble Lords to be completely satisfied that these two objectives will be achieved.
I have added my name to Amendment 24, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. The aim here, as I understand it, would be to ensure that the regulations exempting medicines and research are in place by the implementation date of the legislation. The wording in the amendment itself is slightly different, but I am sure that that is the intention. No doubt the Minister will comment on this in her response to this group of amendments.
Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, Amendment 24, to which the noble Baroness has added her name, comes from my noble friend Lord Paddick and me. Like the noble Baroness, I will not spend long on this, because I am optimistic about where the Government are going with it. I was concerned that the current provisions of the Bill are too limited, because they are limited to medicines. However, I will repeat one comment that I made at the last stage. Professor Val Curran, in her report for the all-party parliamentary group that the noble Baroness chairs on regulating cannabis for medicinal use, referred to a “stranglehold on research”. She sets out, quite pithily, the “costly obstacle course” involved in undertaking any research, because of the time taken by licence applications. Import licences are being granted for so short a time that they expire before the arrangements for the research can be made, so I welcome the Government’s further consideration of this. As Professor Curran says, at the moment, UK research into this area is a “massive uphill struggle”.
Lord Howarth of Newport: My Lords, I am not sure that the issue of the medicinal use of cannabis is germane to this particular Bill—
Baroness Hamwee: I would just make it clear that I am talking about research. It happens to be in that context, but it is research.
Lord Howarth of Newport: I was not meaning in any way to attempt to refute or reject something that the noble Baroness had just said—I was apologising to the House for being about to mention the medicinal use of cannabis, because it is somewhat marginal to the Bill. However, ensuring that research for medical purposes, or indeed for other legitimate industrial purposes, is not inhibited by the provisions of this Bill certainly is germane, and it is rendered all the more important because of the difficulties that the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 already places, in practice, on certain sorts of research that it is highly desirable should be pursued. I also have the report by Professor Val Curran and Mr Frank Warburton in my hands, and I was going to draw to the attention of the House the observations made by the authors of that report that there is what Professor Curran calls a “stranglehold on research”. She says in the report:
“Carrying out research into cannabis in the UK is a costly obstacle course. It involves a minimum outlay of £5,000 to cover licensing and security; licence applications take about a year”.
She broadens out what she says to deal with other substances in Schedule 1, saying:
“As a result of its Schedule 1 status in the UK only four hospitals have been granted a licence to hold stocks of cannabis although all of them are able to hold heroin”.
So it is a somewhat confused situation. I was encouraged to read in the Home Secretary’s letter to Professor Iverson of 11 July that the,
“Government’s intention is for all bona fide medical and other scientific research to be untouched by the provisions of this Bill”.
I simply draw to the attention of the Minister and the House that the provisions of the 1971 legislation already make for very considerable difficulty in pursuing bona fide research into certain substances in Schedule 1. I am very happy to know that the Government are consulting and looking to amend the provisions of this Bill in the House of Commons, and I hope that they take fully into account when they do the difficulties that the 1971 Act has already created.
5.15 pm
Lord Rosser: I shall be brief, but we have an amendment in this group, which states:
“Regulations under this section providing for medical research activity to be excluded from the application of the offences under this Act shall be laid before each House of Parliament within one week of sections 4 to 10 coming into effect”.
Something that has been referred to already is the letter that was received from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. One point made in that letter was that the Bill could,
“seriously inhibit medical and scientific research on psychoactive substances”.
We have had the response from the Government in a letter to me, in which they referred to the views of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. I take it that that includes the views of the advisory council on
the Bill’s potentially seriously inhibiting medical and scientific research on these substances. The Government’s letter said:
“So that we can properly consider the ACMD’s advice, we now propose to defer tabling Government amendments on these issues until the Commons stages”.
On the basis that that is still the position—and I hope that the Minister will be able to confirm that the Government are still looking at the matter of the impact on research with a view to tabling amendments in the Commons—that would certainly suffice with regard to our Amendment 23, if the Minister can give that assurance.
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con): I thank noble Lords for all their points. As discussed in Committee, there is common ground between these amendments and the Government’s position. As I said in Committee, it is the Government’s absolute and determined objective that bona fide medical and scientific research should be untouched by the provisions of the Bill. We will deal with the issue of research on cannabis when we reach Amendment 25.
It is already the case that broad swathes of research involving psychoactive substances fall outside the blanket ban. If a substance is not intended for human consumption for its psychoactive effects, it will not be caught by the Bill. Paragraph 3 of Schedule 1 exempts investigational medicinal products used in clinical trials. However, I understand, and the Government fully accept, that this exemption does not go far enough. This is an issue of some concern for the academic and scientific community. The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, referred in Committee and again today to the letter in support of her Amendment 12 sent to my right honourable friend the Home Secretary by the Academy of Medical Sciences and five other leading scientific institutions. My noble friend Lord Bates responded to that letter yesterday. I shall read out the critical paragraph in that response:
“We have now had some further discussions with the Department of Health and the Medical Research Council. In going forward, we need to ensure that any amendment to the Bill satisfies the scientific community as represented by the Academy of Medical Sciences and your co-signatories, as well as our own policy and legislative requirements. For this reason, we intend to develop this work in the coming weeks with a view to introducing an amendment when the Bill is considered by the House of Commons. To help achieve this I would value engagement between your representatives and officials from both the Home Office and the Department of Health to reach a common understanding and satisfactory outcome in the next few weeks”.
I hope that that will reassure noble Lords that we are firmly committed to bringing forward an appropriate amendment on this issue, but it will take more time to get it right in consultation with the Academy of Medical Sciences, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and others. We need to ensure that bona fide medical and scientific research is excluded from the ambit of the Bill, while not creating a loophole for others, whose only purpose is the recreational use of psychoactive substances, to exploit.
Amendment 11 is on a different point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, in seeking to expand the definition of medicinal products, and therefore the exemption for such products, in paragraph 2 of Schedule 1. The noble Baroness is pushing at an open door here.
As I also indicated in Committee, this is another area we are considering further with the Department of Health and the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency.
We are conscious that the Bill as drafted does not include unlicensed medicines for human use known as “specials”. These are lawfully manufactured, imported, distributed or supplied for the treatment of individual patients after being ordered by a range of healthcare professionals, not just doctors. As such, they need to be taken out of scope of the definition of a psychoactive substance.
In its letter to the Home Secretary, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs specifically raised concerns about the scope of exemption for herbal medicines. The European Herbal & Traditional Medicine Practitioners Association has also flagged a need to ensure that the exemption for medicines includes herbal medicines used by practitioners on a named-patient basis. This is another area where we are actively reviewing whether we need to adjust the current definitions in the Bill.
Medicines legislation is a complex area, as I know noble Lords are aware, and defining bona fide research is not as straightforward as one might imagine. We have certainly not so far been able to identify an off-the-shelf definition in existing legislation which we can readily apply. It is regrettable that we have not been able to table amendments in time for the House today, and I fear we will not be in a position to do so for Third Reading next Monday. I ask noble Lords to bear with us. We will use the time over the Summer Recess—no holidays for us—to bring forward appropriate amendments in the Commons. I will ensure that noble Lords taking part in this debate have sight of those amendments. Your Lordships’ House will then have an opportunity to consider the issue further when the Bill returns from the Commons in the autumn.
I hope that, in the light of that commitment, the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, will be content to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Meacher: My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. I thank the Minister for her reassuring comments, her assurance about the Government’s commitment to ensuring that all bona fide medicines and research will fall outside the scope of the Bill, and her assurance that the Government will consult key experts to ensure that the Bill is right in this respect. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Clause 5: Supplying, or offering to supply, a psychoactive substance
Lord Howarth of Newport: My Lords, this amendment is intended to avoid a situation in which we may find ourselves criminalising rather large numbers of young people. I am not sure that that is what the Government really want to do, and I myself would not at all like to see it happen. The Bill provides that it is not an offence to possess a psychoactive substance, but all means whereby people might obtain psychoactive substances would be made illegal. I do not know whether Ministers expect people to come into possession of psychoactive substances rather as if they had descended like manna from heaven—or perhaps, as some people would see it, surfaced from hell.
At all events, very many young people use psychoactive substances. I do not think anyone knows what the scale of use is in this country. The report on new psychoactive substances that the Home Office commissioned and published last year indicated that the data are extremely thin and inadequate. That is no one’s fault; it is a very widespread problem and it is hard to monitor the reality of it. Still, a lot of people are using psychoactive substances, just as a lot of students are using substances that they think will enhance their cognitive powers, and I do not think that a ban is going to stop them doing so.
The question is this: if a group of people club together, in the words of the Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs in its letter of 2 July, and one of them supplies a psychoactive substance to a circle of friends but does not do so for the purpose of financial gain—it is a shared social activity that they have agreed to undertake—should that become a criminal offence? I suggest that it should not. Secondly, more significantly than my suggestion is the urging of the ACMD in its letter to the Secretary of State, in which it says:
“The Bill has the potential to both criminalise and apply disproportionate penalties to many otherwise law abiding young people and adults…An example is a young person being prosecuted for ‘supply and importation’ in a case of ‘social supply’ where a young adult has bought small quantities of Novel Psychoactive Substances on-line on behalf of a group of friends who have ‘clubbed together’. The ACMD believes that criminal justice sanctions would be disproportionate to the harm caused by such acts”,
and I think the ACMD is right. In her reply to Professor Iversen’s letter, the Home Secretary offered some reassurance when she said that,
“the Bill contains both criminal and civil sanctions which will enable law enforcement agencies to adopt a proportionate response to offending behaviour. In addition, the police and Crown Prosecution Service will exercise their professional discretion taking into”—
I think the next word is “account” but it has been missed out—
“all the circumstances of the offence and the offender”.
So that is good. Oddly, she also says in the preceding paragraph that the expert panel,
“did not suggest excluding social supply”.
That is not how I read the expert panel’s report. Page 33 of that report, at the beginning of the section entitled “General prohibition on the distribution of non-controlled NPS”, in which the expert group set out to state the principles that should apply, said:
“Legislation of this type … can exclude … social supply”.
It did not recommend that it should exclude social supply, but contemplated that it should. I hope that the Government, in the light of that, might be prepared to think a little further about this issue.
5.30 pm
Why do young people use psychoactive substances? Young people are better able to answer that question than perhaps your Lordships are. However, there is an attempt to answer that question in the wholly admirable resource pack for informal educators that the Home Office produced just recently. In a section headed “Do we know why young people use NPS?”, the group that put the document together said that,
“curiosity is one of the reasons that young people might be tempted to use NPS. Of course, for some people, we can’t ignore that the enjoyment of the effects of NPS products will be a key motivation for use. They can offer escapism, relaxation, shared social experiences and adventure”.
If those are the motives, we have to be very careful that we do not end up criminalising people, because they look like pretty innocent motives. Very often we are talking about social rituals that groups of young people perform. There is of course also the reality that teenagers and people a bit older often feel the temptation to rebel against authority. If you ban them from doing something that they enjoy and think is fun, and they do not understand why it should be criminalised, it is quite likely that they will rebel against the ban. People experiment as they grow up and mature, and some people continue to use such substances through the decades of their life that follow, holding the view as they do—and as many highly competent scientists do—that the effects of individual controlled drugs and many new psychoactive substances are no worse than the effects of alcohol or tobacco.
That is one of the reasons why, as the House knows, I have taken the view that the safer course would have been to legalise and regulate a selection of such substances rather than to attempt to ban the lot. I am not at all saying to the House that we should encourage anybody to consume psychoactive substances; I am saying that we should not criminalise young people in the circumstances that I have quite narrowly defined in this amendment. We should not damage their education, their careers, or their prospects of obtaining credit or jobs. We should be careful not to alienate people who believe that their activities are innocent and should not be prohibited, and certainly we should be careful not to discriminate unwittingly against members of black and ethnic-minority groups. Again, I was encouraged that the Home Secretary in her letter to Professor Iversen said:
“I share the Council’s desire to ensure that the enforcement powers in the Bill do not result in discriminatory impact on members of black and ethnic minority … groups”.
Therefore I think that we are at one in recognising the risks there may be here.
I will repeat a figure I quoted at Second Reading. It seems tremendously undesirable that between 2009 and 2013, under the existing drug legislation, 60,000 young people were criminalised simply for possession, and there is a danger that this legislation will add to those numbers. It would therefore be helpful if the Minister could say if the Government will reconsider the question of whether someone who provides a new psychoactive substance to a circle of friends, not dealing and seeking to make money out of it, should be subject to the same penalties as an organised criminal or a street dealer. Would it be a statutory defence that
an individual obtained the psychoactive substances for themselves and their friends and not for sale or profit? Does the Minister envisage that there would be prosecutions in such a circumstance, and does he see that as being in the public interest? I beg to move.
Lord Paddick: My Lords, my noble friend Lady Hamwee and I have Amendment 16 in this group, which approaches the issue from a slightly different position. Our amendment suggests that:
“It shall be a defence that the person did not supply the substance for gain”.
The difference here is that as I understand it, the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, would mean that the prosecution would have to prove that this was the case, whereas in our case, if it was a defence, it would be a matter for the accused person to prove that they did not supply the substance for gain. As the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, said, on page 3, point 5, of the ACMD’s letter of 2 July, for very similar reasons it is not only concerned that this will criminalise,
“otherwise law abiding young people and adults”,
but concerned with regard to the discriminatory impact.
The Secretary of State is encouraging in her response to the letter, saying that,
“the police and Crown Prosecution Service will exercise their professional discretion taking into all the circumstances of the offence and the offender”.
However, the concern—which is not addressed by the Secretary of State, but is expressed by the advisory council—is that it is not simply a case of members of the black and minority-ethnic community being disproportionately stopped and searched by the police, which the Secretary of State addresses in her response, but that members of the black and minority-ethnic community are disproportionally more likely to be charged rather than cautioned for an offence. They are also disproportionally likely to have a formal disposal of their case rather than no further action being taken.
Therefore, while the Secretary of State’s efforts to improve the police’s use of stop and search is to be applauded, she does not address the other issues regarding the fact that members of that group are disproportionately more likely to face a form of sanction, be it a caution rather than no further action, and more likely to be charged with an offence rather than given a caution, bearing in mind that the Secretary of State says that out-of-court disposals would be used in “appropriate cases”. Our concern is that without it being a statutory defence, with the burden of proof lying on the accused, there is regrettably—to judge by evidence of what has happened in the past—a danger that the powers in the Bill will disproportionately affect black and minority-ethnic communities and will therefore discriminate against them, as the advisory council’s letter points out.
Baroness Meacher: My Lords, all that needs to be said has been said. I will simply express my support for these amendments, on the grounds that for a child of 14 to get a criminal record will be far more serious for them than any damage that might be done by some rather dubious psychoactive substance. That is not to say that I in any way support young people taking these things, but we know that they do. All the literature—
certainly that from Portugal—suggests that avoiding a criminal record is an enormous plus for a young person; they are much more likely to remain with their studies and get a job when they leave school. It is therefore a very serious matter to include these activities, whether it is sharing a substance with a group of friends or some such activity. The Government designate such an activity as a criminal offence at their peril in terms of the longer-term consequences, as well as the probable long-term costs to the Government, of dysfunctional young people, unemployed people and people getting into a criminal lifestyle.
Lord Ramsbotham: My Lords, I, too, support these amendments but for a slightly different reason. I have a Private Member’s Bill, which I hope will come forward, to amend the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act. In it is something that I found when inspecting the prisons in Barbados. I found that at the age of 18 everyone’s criminal record was examined and everything except for violent and sexual offences was expunged so that a child did not take forward a criminal record after that age. I mention this merely because I think we ought to take very seriously the matter of people—particularly young people—taking forward into later life an early criminal record.
Lord Hardie (CB): My Lords, I certainly sympathise with the observations of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, about the desirability of avoiding young people having convictions. However, I should like to take issue with the comment of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, about the prosecution of a 14 year-old. As a former Lord Advocate, I know that the prosecution will always take into account the circumstances of an offence. If we are faced with a 14 year-old who has supplied a psychoactive substance or cannabis to his friends, it is likely that there will be no prosecution—whatever his ethnic background,as far as the prosecution service in Scotland is concerned, I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and I would be very surprised if the English prosecution service took a different view.
However, I am concerned about the introduction of the defence proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, because one has to have regard to all the circumstances of the offence. I speak having, about 18 months ago, received a communication from a mother who was separated from her husband. Her teenager son had gone to stay with his father for a weekend and he went to a head shop. He obtained a psychoactive substance and, sadly, as a result of that he died.
I am concerned about this amendment. Suppose someone supplies a psychoactive substance to his friend, the consequence of which is death—are we to say that there should always be a defence that he should not accept responsibility for the consequences of his act? I am not thinking of a 14 year-old. What about a 20, 30 or 40 year-old who supplies such a substance to a younger person who happens to be his friend and the consequence is death?
I share the view of the Home Secretary that this is a matter that ought to be left to the discretion of the prosecutor, taking into account all the circumstances. If a defence is open to an individual in any circumstances,
that may mean that people who cause very serious damage to a family do not face up to the consequences. Therefore, I am against the amendment.
5.45 pm
Lord Bates: My Lords, it is very fitting that we come to the consideration of this amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, who put, as he always does, a very persuasive case. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, then spoke about the consequences of the ease of access to and availability of these very dangerous drugs in our society. That, in a sense, represents the parameters of our debate. This, in the whole list of recommendations in the letter from the ACMD to the Home Secretary, was probably the one to which we were most strongly opposed. I understand that, when preparing such legislation, there is a need for people with great expertise in science but there is also a need for people who focus on the legal aspects and how the legislation will be interpreted.
We are very mindful of the danger of creating a loophole effectively around the social supply of such substances. Later, we will debate what might constitute personal possession. We have said that people would not be prosecuted for the personal possession of substances but a lot of people have said that that is very difficult to define. There have been lots of attempts at doing so. In the Drugs Act it was specified as an absolute quantity. That was then felt to be unworkable and it was left to the judgment of the constable on the ground.
You could provide a defence for carrying a large quantity of psychoactive substances by saying that they were for social purposes, but the people behind these drugs have proved to be incredibly adept at finding their way around legislation. They are very savvy, being aware of the descriptions in the legislation to the letter, and they organise their activities around that. We feel that this would be a very wide loophole that would be exploited in ways that we did not intend.
The Bill seeks to tackle the trade in psychoactive substances, and social supply is central to how the trade operates. Social supply by friends was identified by the expert panel as the most common source for acquiring psychoactive substances. Therefore, it is clear that social supply, alongside sales from head shops and purchases online, is critical to sustaining the market in these substances. In its recommendation to create a general prohibition, the expert panel did not suggest excluding social supply, nor has this approach been taken in other jurisdictions. Moreover, in this respect the Bill mirrors the position taken towards substances that are subject to a temporary-class drug order.
We need to tackle the supply routes to remove these potentially dangerous substances from our communities. Excluding social supply from the scope of the Clause 5 offences would significantly weaken the framework of the Bill, not least by creating a loophole that could easily be exploited. Excluding social supply would also send out a confusing message. If a group of friends were poly-drug users and bought drugs on behalf of each other, they would be committing an offence if they supplied, say, cannabis to one another but not if they supplied a psychoactive substance.
The approach taken in the Bill—this is a point that the Home Secretary underscored in her response to the ACMD—does not mean that enforcement action will focus on social supply networks. Nor does it follow that someone arrested for a social supply offence will necessarily face prosecution. We are simply saying, as did the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, that that ought to be a matter for the prosecutors to decide. We are very conscious of the impact of criminalising young people—a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. That is why we have not made personal possession an offence, but social supply would be such a wide area that it would be too open to exploitation.