Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-23
Topic: Mixed Topics
Sally Rachel Hamwee (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My noble friend and I also have in this group Amendments 19 and 22. This takes us to the exemptions from the substances which may be the subject of the commission of an offence, and the other provisions in the Bill Our first amendment would allow the Secretary of State, by regulation, to add other substances to the list in Schedule 1. I wondered whether that point was covered by, "add … any description of substance", but I do not think that normal language would mean that, and the Constitution Committee—I suspect the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, is going to mention this—did not think so either. If it is not going to be possible in the Bill as drafted for other substances to be added, then why not? That seems to fly in the face of the respect that we all pay to the scientific process Dealing with certainty of provision and ministerial authority in respect of exempted substances, the Constitution Committee commented—I will mention just this one paragraph—on the powers of the Secretary of State being, "unconstrained by any explicit statement of the purpose or purposes for which that power may be exercised", and suggested that: "The House may wish to consider whether it is appropriate to confer upon the Secretary of State a power … unconstrained by any textual indication as to the purpose" That is part of the theme of certainty, which we touched on earlier. Amendment 19 would require the Secretary of State to exercise that power to add any substance—my addition—or to add or vary any description, or remove any substance, on the basis of recommendations of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency; in other words, to implement its recommendations. The Secretary of State must also use the power to include a substance where that body or the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, "determines that the substance poses a low overall risk" As regards the bodies which would make recommendations or a determination under this amendment, more than respect has been paid to both those bodies during this debate. The ACMD should be at the front and centre of this debate; it seems to have been somewhat sidelined in some of the consideration of the Bill. Our amendment in the next group, which we will look at next week, addresses that point In proposed new subsection (2B) in Amendment 19, we refer to the determination of a substance which poses a low overall risk. I can see that phrase might be thought to be rather woolly and insufficiently tough on drugs. However, it comes straight from Section 1 of the Misuse of Drugs Act, which sets out the role and responsibilities of the ACMD, whose duty is to keep under review drugs, the misuse of which, "is having or appears to them"— the ACMD— "capable of having harmful effects sufficient to constitute a social problem" It goes on to talk about, "preventing the misuse of … drugs or dealing with social problems connected with their misuse". I take that to be very wide indeed, and to include health. We think that that phrase would properly link assessments as to what should be exempted with terminology which must now be understood in this field. I beg to move.