Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-07-14
Topic: Mixed Topics
Alan Thomas Howarth (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, my Amendment 54 in this group ranges more widely than that of my noble friend, and might indeed be regarded as somewhat clunky. However, it is intended to be illustrative of the range of issues that I think ought to be covered in a proper annual review or annual report issued by the Home Office I have looked at the three annual reviews issued since 2013. The February 2015 review of the progress of the Drug Strategy 2010 consists of all of 28 pages of text. It covers some of the issues indicated in my amendment which I think ought to be covered in an annual review, but far from all of them. I am afraid to say that it seems to me a thin and superficial document which is simply not commensurate with the importance and complexity of the issue and the major social challenge that drug abuse presents. It is also an inadequate form of accountability to Parliament, being as flimsy as it is. It contrasts with the European Drug Report, which is produced annually by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, which is a much more substantial document, containing tables, graphs, citations and footnotes—an altogether more serious and substantial report. We do not find that kind of material in the Home Office’s annual review The Minister said in her foreword to the latest annual review, "We are not complacent". That is good. However, on page 10, she spoke about: "Promotion of good practice in demand reduction in NPS at EU and international level, led by the UK" That is a fine assertion but, as I said in the previous debate, not to me a convincing one. Regrettably, the annual review does not go on to tell us what this promotion has meant or what the good practice in demand reduction should be The expert panel’s report said on page 53 that adequate monitoring of whatever the policy proves to be, "needs to be in place" I think that it was looking for a substantial annual review. It also seems to me that the implication of the letter from Professor Iversen to the Home Secretary of 2 July is that a whole range of issues need to be kept under solid and informative review The expert panel report contains a very important section on pages 35 to 36, in which it sets out the key opportunities and the key risks of the policy that the Government have embarked upon in this legislation. Among the key risks are those of supply, demand, enforcement, harms, forensic science, legal issues and communications. Among the opportunities are, again, supply, demand, enforcement, harms, forensic science, legal issues, communications and costs, so, according to the expert panel, there are both opportunities and risks entailed in the Government’s policy. I suggest that certainly the Government’s initial report, which they have promised to issue within 30 months, but also the annual review issued by the Home Office, ought to deal in very substantial measure with all those opportunities and risks that have been found The section of the European Monitoring Centre report on prevention tells us that the use of NPSs by young adults ranged from a high of 9.7% in Ireland to a low of 0.2% in Portugal. It also tells us that Sweden, which practises a draconian prohibitionist policy, has the second-highest drug-induced mortality among 15 to 64 year-olds. These are among the sorts of pieces of information that ought also to appear in the Home Office’s annual review Page 15 of the last edition of the annual review, in the section discussing restricting supply, referred briefly to liaison with Pakistan, Afghanistan and West Africa, but had nothing whatever to say about liaison with China and India, which are the key countries in terms of NPSs. On page 19, we are told that the UK, "chaired a G7+ country Expert Meeting … in Berlin in November 2014", which led to agreement on a "set of actions", but we are not told what the actions were. On page 23, we are told that there is a strategy of: "Transferring the responsibility for developing locally led, integrated, recovery orientated treatment systems to local authorities", but there is no discussion of the funding situation for local authorities—the very large cuts there have already been, followed, of course, by the cuts just announced to the funding for Public Health England.