HEROIN (Hansard, 15 December 1955)

§ The Secretary of State for the Home Department and Minister for Welsh Affairs (Major Gwilym Lloyd-George)
With permission, Sir, I should like to make a short statement.
In debate in another place on Tuesday the question was raised whether the powers of the Secretary of State under the Dangerous Drugs Act, 1951, relating inter alia to the control of the manufacture of heroin, extend so far as to empower him, for any purpose other than preventing the improper use of the drug, to refuse to renew the existing licences to manufacture when they expire at the end of this year.
The Government are examining this question and, in order to give the time for the consideration of this aspect of the problem which is undoubtedly required, have decided to renew the licences when they fall due for a further period of twelve months. Communications have been sent accordingly to the two licensed manufacturers.
I want to make it clear that the only doubt that has arisen is on the question of the legality of prohibiting the manufacture of this drug. There is no doubt about the power to prohibit its import or export and no licences to import or export will be issued after the 31st December, 1955.

§ Mr. Gaitskell
While we are grateful to the Home Secretary for, at last, giving us a full statement in this House about the views of the Government in this matter, may I ask the right hon. and gallant Gentleman whether he is aware that the way in which the whole affair has been handled seems to us to be most unsatisfactory? Is it not the case that, had it not been for my right hon. and learned Friend the noble Lord, Lord Jowitt, this difficulty would not, apparently, have occurred to the Government at all? Can the right hon. and gallant Gentleman give us an assurance that in future, when important changes of Government policy are to be announced, they will be announced in this House and not spasmodically and casually in another place?

§ Major Lloyd-George
I think that the right hon. Gentleman is under a misapprehension. If a statement is to be 1398 made, it is the practice, which is always followed, to make a statement in both places simultaneously. This was a debate in which specific questions were asked of the Government, and it was most proper that the Government spokesman should answer questions put to him.

§ Dr. Summerskill
In view of the remarkably rapid change in the policy of the Minister and the Ministry of Health in consquence of the legal advice tendered to them in another place, can the right hon. and gallant Gentleman say what was the nature of the legal advice given to him and to his right hon. Friend before the original statement was made? Also, would he say whether the Attorney-General or the Solicitor-General were consulted? Perhaps the Home Secretary can say whether they have been consulted only recently and whether they have amended their original opinion?

§ Major Lloyd-George
This is not as simple as the right hon. Lady might think. The relationship between the Statute and the Regulations is not as clear as that. This Act has been on the Statute Book since 1920. It was consolidated in 1951. The first request from the World Health Organisation was made to the Government in 1950, and this is the first time that this doubt has been expressed. Raising this matter on Tuesday, the noble Lord, Lord Jowitt, said that he approached it with some caution. He said there was a great deal of doubt about it, and he said also that it was a new point which wanted careful consideration. That is what we propose to give to it.

§ Sir R. Boothby
May I ask my right hon. and gallant Friend whether he will give an assurance that before any final decision is taken in this matter there will be further consultation with the British Medical Association and the Medical Research Council, and that this House will be given an opportunity to debate the subject before the Government come to a decision?

§ Major Lloyd-George
I am sure my hon. Friend will appreciate that it will not be easy to find something better than the representative committee to give advice to Ministers on points of this kind. We cannot consult the whole of the medical profession—

§ Mr. Stokes
Thank goodness, or we should all be dead.

§ Major Lloyd-George
—which, if I may say so, is not a profession from which one gets complete unanimity when one approaches it.
The point is, and surely it is accepted on all sides, that the proper body to confer on technical matters with Ministers is the body representing the particular profession or industry with which they have to deal. Otherwise, consultation is absolutely impossible. This Committee has met the Minister of Health and given its advice on this very important matter, and I cannot yet see what better representative committee we can get.

§ Mr. Shinwell
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I was under the impression that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman had said that he was not considering a statement made in another place, but something arising out of the debate. It is my impression—you will correct me, Sir, if I am wrong—that it is out of order in this assembly to discuss a debate which occurred in another place.

§ Mr. Speaker
As I understood the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, he was answering a criticism that a statement was made in another place instead of in this House first; and he said that if it had been a statement by a Minister made in the usual way it was customary to make it simultaneously in both Houses, but that this matter arose in another place out of a debate that took place there and was, I presume, to that extent unpremeditated; and that it was in consequence of a legal objection which was raised that the thing came out.
On the question of referring to debates in another place, the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) is perfectly correct. It is an old rule of this House, in order to maintain comity between the two Houses, that there should be no reference to the debates in another place. But to that there is this exception; that when a statement of Ministerial policy is made by a Minister who is a noble Lord in another place, that has always been subject to comment in this House, because it is taken to be the voice of the Government rather than of the noble Lord individually.

§ Dr. Summerskill
I asked the Home Secretary two specific questions, I think quite clearly, and he has evaded both of them. May I ask him again: first, 1400 what was the nature of the legal advice which he obtained before this statement was made; and, secondly, did he consult the Law Officers?

§ Major Lloyd-George
I think I am right in saying that it is entirely without precedent for the nature of any advice given by the Law Officers to be revealed in this House.

§ Mrs. Braddock
In view of the fact that this matter is being postponed for twelve months, may I ask whether it is the intention, as was previously suggested, to present all the facts about it in a White Paper? Does not the Home Secretary think, after consulting the Minister of Health, that the House is entitled to have the whole of the information about this matter placed before it?

§ Major Lloyd-George
I can assure the hon. Lady that a White Paper will be published as soon as it is ready.

§ Dr. Stross
The Home Secretary stated that there would be a ban on the export and import of heroin. Is he aware that everyone will approve of that? Would he tell the House whether there was ever given to him any evidence at all that there has been any illegal manufacture of heroin in Britain? Has he noted that this must be the first time that a Government Department has told medical men what they may or may not do in treating their patients, and that this is something which is most embarrassing and probably entirely wrong?

§ Major Lloyd-George
That, again, opens up a very wide issue which I do not think it would be appropriate to deal with now. This is not the first time that it has been suggested, because it was suggested in 1950.

Dr. Bennett
May I ask my right hon. and gallant Friend whether, under the powers he has, he can restrict the amount of heroin produced under his licences in a given year to that which will be needed in this country by the profession, taking into account existing stocks?

§ Major Lloyd-George
Yes, Sir.

§ Dr. Broughton
May I ask the right hon. and gallant Gentleman whether he is aware that many doctors and patients are relieved and gratified to learn that the ban is not to be imposed for another 1401 twelve months? May I ask the Minister also whether the Government have reluctantly postponed the imposition of this ban because the powers of the Home Secretary were challenged, or whether I may congratulate the Government on their wisdom and courage at having dropped the ban altogether?

§ Major Lloyd-George
I am always happy to be congratulated by the hon. Gentleman, but I cannot accept his congratulations this time. As I have pointed out, and I want to emphasise, the only doubt which has arisen is on the question of the legality of prohibiting manufacture.

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. This is a matter of suspending a change of policy for a year. If the House desires to do something about it, there will be ample opportunity in the intervening period.