Drugs Strategy

HC Deb 21 June 1996 vol 279 cc1109-78

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Newton.]

9.34 am

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Tony Newton)

I welcome this opportunity to open a full day's debate on the Government's strategy against drugs. It is almost exactly a year ago—on 9 June 1995—when hon. Members last had a chance to assess progress in tackling drug misuse. That debate provided a considerable number of thoughtful and informative contributions and I look forward to a similarly constructive discussion on this occasion.

No one present this morning and no one who is a parent or who has concerns about the dangers facing our young people can fail to reflect on the serious problems of drug misuse—and not just in this country, although they are certainly serious enough here.

I can give some facts by way of illustration. The total street value of seizures of illegal drugs in 1995 was £457 million, 5 per cent. up on the previous year; the number of drug offenders was 87,000, 25 per cent. up; the number of notified addicts was 34,000, 21 per cent. up; and, the number of newly notified addicts was 13,500, an increase of 17 per cent. One study found that 664 drug misusers, before treatment, committed more than 70,000 crimes over a three-month period. The just published 1994 "British Crime Survey" showed that more than four in 10 of 16 to 29-year-olds said that they had taken an illegal drug, although—an important balancing factor—only 14 per cent. had taken one in the previous month.

Surveys regularly show that drugs and drug-related violent crime are high among public concerns at all levels of society and that our young people—in rural areas just as much as in towns and cities—feel consistently pressurised by what is sometimes described as the drug culture. Even though those figures are disturbing, it is important not to respond to them with despair or with a sense that nothing can be done. It remains the case that drug misuse among young people is not, and I stress that word, a routine "rite of passage"—the phrase sometimes used. Less than a quarter of our young people have taken a prohibited drug in the past year and it is still the case that more than half of our youngsters never take an illegal drug.

Cannabis is easily the most dominant drug of misuse, with just 6 per cent. of our young people ever having taken Ecstasy, 3 per cent. cocaine, 1 per cent. heroin and less than 1 per cent. crack. In acknowledging the problem, we must be careful not to exaggerate it and be unnecessarily defeatist. Nevertheless, we face a major challenge in tackling a problem that causes harm, destruction to families and communities and ultimately, and of course most tragically, deaths; there were nearly 2,500 drug-related deaths in England and Wales in 1994.

Mr. Paul Flynn (Newport, West)

I apologise for interrupting the right hon. Gentleman at such an early stage, but I am confused by what he is saying. He has used the expression "illegal drugs" about four times and "drugs" eight times. A particular drug is involved in 40 per cent. of all crimes of violence and of abuse—a drug called alcohol. It is important to differentiate between illegal drugs and drugs, but many of us want to talk about the drugs of massive abuse, which are tobacco, alcohol and some medicinal drugs. The Leader of the House should make it clear to which drugs he is referring.

Mr. Newton

I think that I have made it pretty clear that I am talking about drugs in the sense in which the word is conventionally used—I have just listed a number of them—but that is not to dismiss concerns about alcohol problems, for example. I am sure that if the hon. Gentleman catches your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, he will want to develop further the point that he just implied. The Government have a range of policies designed to address alcohol misuse. Several drug action teams, to which I shall refer later, embrace programmes against alcohol abuse alongside their programmes against drug abuse in the sense in which I am using the term. I do not dismiss concerns about alcohol, but my speech today is focused on drugs in the sense of the chemical substances that I mentioned.

The Government have been pursuing a vigorous response to the problems that I have outlined. I am speaking today because I have the task of chairing the Cabinet Sub-Committee on Drug Misuse and, through it, of overseeing the development of strategies for tackling drugs across the United Kingdom. With the active support of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment, my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary, and my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General, who is responsible for Customs and Excise, I have been particularly concerned with developing a strategy for England, "Tackling Drugs Together", which I presented to the House, in the form of a White Paper, in May 1995.

At the core of the strategy is tough law enforcement, accessible treatment and effective education and prevention. All three are important. We aim to make communities safe from drug-related crime; to cut the acceptability and availability of drugs to young people; and to reduce the health risks of drug misuse. Significant resources are available year on year to do that—more than £500 million—and additional resources are being provided as and when necessary, such as an extra £34 million for 1996–97 for new education training projects, publicity, drug treatment services, and treatment and control programmes in the Prison Service.

The strategy's progress is dependent on partnerships at national level and on partnerships between local agencies and their wider communities, especially with the new drug action teams that have been established across England. I want therefore to report primarily on the achievements of the first year of the strategy and to look forward to some of the tasks ahead.

First, I should refer to the significant developments in other parts of the UK. Under the leadership of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Scotland Against Drugs campaign was set firmly under way last month. It was set up with all-party support, which I hope all such campaigns enjoy and will continue to enjoy, and is making a substantial impact on public confidence and support north of the border.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales last month established a new drug and alcohol strategy for Wales, with a new unit managing it.

Mr. Flynn

I am sorry to interrupt—I promise that this will be the last time—but the right hon. Gentleman mentioned Wales. In its campaign against drugs, why did the Welsh Office decide a month ago to cut the funding of Alcohol Action Wales, a body that has done tremendous work in co-ordinating the hundreds of people who are working to reduce the problems caused by alcohol abuse? Are not the Government concentrating on illegal drugs and neglecting the harm done by drugs that are legal?

Mr. Newton

That is a rerun of the hon. Gentleman's first intervention. The fact is that the Government take all those problems seriously, but there are different strands, and there are different approaches to tackling problems in different parts of the United Kingdom, as is considered appropriate to the circumstances in each case.

The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Westminster, North (Sir J. Wheeler), is spearheading a partnership strategy in Northern Ireland. In each case, the strategies are being pursued with every effort to secure all-party support. I pay tribute to the approach that the hon. Member for Knowsley, North (Mr. Howarth) has consistently adopted. Our approach is eliciting widespread support across the community.

Such breadth of support is vital to our efforts everywhere, not least in England. That is reflected by the fact that the Prime Minister himself led the event to mark the first anniversary of the drug strategy last month at the Royal National theatre. Many hon. Members have contributed to that support, not least my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Mr. Rathbone), who continues to do such an excellent job as chairman of the all-party group on drug misuse. He has not been able to attend the start of the debate, but I know that he hopes to join us later and I hope that he will be able to contribute.

The strategy is increasingly mobilising a wide range of agencies and individuals who have demonstrated their commitment to the partnership against drugs. I especially acknowledge the expert advice that the Government receive from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which only last week produced another excellent report, this time on drug misusers and the prison system, with the self-explanatory title of an "Integrated Approach". The report, which the Government have welcomed, sets out in clear detail how the Prison Service should consider taking forward its responsibilities.

It is only right to acknowledge the tremendous strides that the Prison Service has made over the past year in establishing 22 highly innovative treatment programmes, in implementing mandatory drug testing without any significant difficulties, and in demonstrating to prisoners, their families and the wider public that it is serious about tackling drug misuse. I saw that strikingly confirmed at Wayland prison in Norfolk earlier this year. An imaginative and, I hope, effective treatment programme had been put in place.

I also pay tribute to the many excellent voluntary sector agencies which continue, in a sometimes difficult climate, to deliver quality services at a fair price. I especially commend their involvement at local level in working with those directly at risk of drug misuse.

Mr. Michael Fabricant (Mid-Staffordshire)

Does my right hon. Friend acknowledge the valuable help that has been given by the national lottery? Is he aware that Resolve, a national solvent abuse charity based in my constituency, has received a lottery grant of more than £70,000, which will be put to good use?

Mr. Newton

I am glad both to acknowledge my hon. Friend's point about the contribution that national lottery funds are making, not only in this aspect of our national life but in many others, and to note the importance of the solvent abuse problem and the need to tackle it. Many drug action teams have that very much on their agenda.

The private sector has also already demonstrated its potential for working with other agencies on drugs. Iceland plc, for example, inspired a recent Power Rangers competition for young people against drugs; Royal Insurance has sponsored a highly effective theatre group, which made a real impact on some primary school children whom I saw last October at a school in Notting Hill; and earlier this year, British Telecom produced "Sorted", a powerful and influential anti-drugs video that some hon. Members may have seen.

The video was a response to the tragic death of Leah Betts, following her 18th birthday party last November. It is fair to say that that death, which occurred at a hospital in my constituency, has done more than any other single incident to highlight the dangers of that hopelessly inappropriately named drug, Ecstasy. I especially acknowledge, as other hon. Members will want to, the tremendously courageous efforts of Leah's parents, Paul and Janet Betts, in mobilising public awareness about the dangers of Ecstasy and other drugs, and in highlighting the importance of reducing the supply of and demand for such drugs.

Lady Olga Maitland (Sutton and Cheam)

In view of the tragic deaths of Leah Betts and many other young people, does my right hon. Friend agree that it is dangerous to encourage the call for the decriminalisation of drugs because it only exacerbates the problem? Drugs are evil and should stay outside the law. Will he make his position on that clear?

Mr. Newton

I shall indeed. The shortest answer that I can give is that I very much agree with my hon. Friend.

Mr. Flynn

I have spoken to the person who carried out the post-mortems on seven people who have died from Ecstasy, and I believe that the Leader of the House has given an extremely misleading account of the cause of death of that tragic young woman and others. I shall refer to that later in the debate, but we should give accurate advice to young people so that further deaths are avoided. The two key factors are overheating and excess water consumption.

Mr. Newton

I am tempted to suggest that it might be more helpful if the hon. Gentleman kept those points for the speech that he will no doubt seek to make later rather than continuing to intervene on mine—not that I mind responding, but it makes it more difficult to develop a series of connected remarks. As it happens, I gave no account of the cause of Leah Betts' death; I merely referred to the unhappy fact that it was undoubtedly related to taking the drug Ecstasy.

Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark and Bermondsey)

The right hon. Gentleman referred to the private sector. Does he agree that one of the most effective private sector contributions of the past year has been the play and film "Trainspotting"? I do not know whether he has seen it, but I believe that there has been no more graphic, dramatic and effective presentation of the disruption, social unease and devastating effects of drugs than that film. If we could get the message across as clearly as that film does, we would have a far less difficult job in drugs education.

Mr. Newton

I have not had the opportunity to see that film. I note the hon. Gentleman's commendation; I have certainly read a great deal about it.

In response to the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) and others, it is important to recognise that young people can offer a powerful antidote to the complacent assumption that drugs are an inevitable part of growing up. Prompted by an invitation, which I readily accepted, from the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks), given on the Floor of the House at the time of the White Paper's publication, I visited an excellent youth awareness programme project in Newham. I have also visited a further project at Merton. At the anniversary event led by the Prime Minister, one of YAP's workers, a 17-year-old young man called Danny, presented a compelling case for young people to get credible information about the realities and dangers of drugs. That is the exact point made by the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes).

The hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) will be interested to note that when I went to Merton, I was struck by the strong reaction from young people to a recent "Panorama" programme, which they believed had sent out confused and contradictory messages about the dangers of illegal drugs.

When I have talked to young people, many of whom have unhappily misused drugs, but who are now helping to prevent other young people from doing so, I have met strikingly few who advocate the legalisation or decriminalisation of the drugs that they have experienced. I am happy to make it clear, once again, to my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam that we have no intention of legalising or decriminalising any currently illegal drugs.

There is simply no evidence that legalising any drugs, including cannabis, will do anything other than increase their use and the health risks and real harm that such drugs cause our young people. We should pay heed to the remarks of the mayor of Hulst in Holland, who has stated categorically and publicly what damage that country's liberalisation policy has caused in the past 20 years. Those problems are causing concern to a number of Holland's neighbours, as the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Sackville), made clear in a speech this week.

In the year since we launched "Tackling Drugs Together", we have seen some real progress. In an answer to a parliamentary question from my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes on 13 May, I outlined in considerable detail the achievement of all 49 White Paper tasks that were set for the first year. I do not propose to weary the House by rehearsing the full catalogue of those actions and steps forward, but I want to highlight some of the key developments.

First, in relation to supply reduction, enhanced efforts have been made on the international scene to tighten up the routes for drug trafficking. Only last month, the United Nations drugs control programme, with strong British support, made significant progress on action against Caribbean drug exports. Closer to home, co-operation between the police and Customs and Excise—which is improving all the time—assisted by the work of the National Criminal Intelligence Service, continues to develop, with joint operations and ever closer work together against joint targets and performance indicators. Police efforts to target major drug dealers within our country are complemented by Customs and Excise success in working against major drug trafficking organisations overseas. For example, customs dismantled or significantly disrupted nearly 100 international smuggling organisations during 1995.

Earlier this week, the Association of Chief Police Officers led a national drugs conference that was attended by a wider range of other agencies committed to tackling drugs than ever before. We heard of further innovative schemes and ideas to enhance efforts to reduce the supply of drugs. One excellent example, of which the hon. Member for Knowsley, North is no doubt aware, is that of Merseyside police—clearly at the front line of drug-related crime—which is working closely with the local authority to target drug dealing at nightclubs.

Similar good progress has been made towards reducing the health risks of drug misuse. The free national drugs helpline answered nearly 200,000 calls in the first year of its operation and is improving its service still further. The effectiveness review, undertaken under the auspices of the Department of Health, and on which the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Mr. Bowis), will comment later, reported on 1 May with the most comprehensive analysis ever of the effectiveness of drug treatment services in this country, and offered practical and effective steps for improving them still further. That task force, under the Rev. Dr. John Polkinghorne's leadership, gained widespread credit for its rigorous and realistic approach. Forty drugs projects were funded centrally last year to develop a range of early intervention services for a wide variety of vulnerable young people.

To avoid any misunderstanding, I should like to emphasise that enforcement, sometimes known as interdiction, and improved services are important ingredients that go together with something no less important, the need to reduce demand for drugs. Our hopes for a most effective reduction in drug misuse in the longer term clearly lie in that objective. We have also made good progress in that respect. Schools are now taking forward national guidance sent to them last year by the Department for Education and Employment, through better, more consistent drugs education for our young people. They are responding positively to the emphasis in the guidance on developing policies for drug education, and on dealing sensitively but effectively with drug-related incidents.

A national drugs campaign aimed at young people and their parents was launched by the Health Education Authority in February. An important part of that is the provision of clear, straightforward information of the kind set out in the "Parents' Guide to Drugs", which was recently launched. That document was subject to some rather unfair and selective media quotation that gave a distorted impression of its contents, but it provides parents with an important basis of factual information. They need that to help their children resist illegal drugs.

Mr. Simon Hughes

I share the right hon. Gentleman's opinion and commend him for his attempt to get the message across correctly. We must ensure that the media do not distort such a report by dramatising the slightly conciliatory points of view that it might put forward. The more collaboration we can achieve with the media, so that they act responsibly, the more effectively the message will get across to those who need to hear it.

Mr. Newton

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his approach, and I agree with what he says.

In that context, it is especially striking to note the extent to which the police, without in any way neglecting their enforcement tasks, have increasingly viewed their role in education and demand reduction as important. Two of our major forces, the Metropolitan police in London and the Greater Manchester police—with one of whose senior people I spoke about this a few weeks ago—have recently launched strategies geared at helping young people to resist drugs.

Mr. Fabricant

I am curious on one point. Perhaps my right hon. Friend can clarify it for me. Certain ethnic communities in London and elsewhere feel that taking some drugs, particularly marijuana, is part of their tradition. I am a great believer in the saying, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." Those communities obviously do not think that. Perhaps he can explain the Government and police views on the issue.

Mr. Newton

I am not in a position to give a police view of a particular problem—certainly not off the cuff at the Dispatch Box—but the Government position is that we seek to tackle the misuse of drugs in every part of our society and that our approach is the right one, across the spectrum.

Prevention and education projects throughout the country embrace partnership in an effective and practical way. For example, the Home Office drug prevention initiative has established a parents for prevention project in Birmingham, and in Northumbria a partnership with Proctor and Gamble—again, private sector involvement—has ensured that all 13-year-olds in the region receive consistent messages about drugs at school. Those are examples of practical projects on which we can build.

We are seeking to do that at local level, where action really matters, by establishing drug action teams throughout England—probably the biggest development in the past 12 months. The purpose of those 105 teams is to assess the nature and scale of local drug problems, to identify and implement action in line with the objectives of the overall strategy, and to keep their policies and operations on a coherent and effective footing.

I am hugely encouraged by the teams' progress to date, particularly bearing it in mind that they were established only last September. Since then, every team has submitted to me a comprehensive and detailed action plan setting out their objectives for the next two years, and I have formally agreed them, on the basis of monitoring progress through my central drugs co-ordination unit officials, to whom I pay particular tribute. That small unit has got through an amazing amount of work in a relatively short time. Every team is embarking on significant action to make a real difference in their local communities, in close consultation with groups and individuals who understand the practical problems on the ground.

During last year's debate, there was some concern about whether there would be sufficiently senior representation on the teams from health and local authorities, police, prison and probation services. I have been impressed by those senior people's commitment to work as closely as possible with their local communities, including the voluntary sector and district councils. There has been a particularly good contribution by local authority people leading the teams, including—and in the all-party spirit of this, I am happy to pay tribute to him—Labour councillor Derek Boden, who heads the Bury team. Like many other team leaders, he is showing considerable commitment and determination to achieve results.

Those results are already being seen in areas such as targeting drugs hot spots, increasing security for prison visits, bursaries for pupils to develop peer education packages, information and advice to young people in pubs and nightclubs, training and support for parents and teachers, shared care arrangements with general practitioners, and local council schemes for collecting discarded needles. Those and other activities are set out in a digest of good practice and ideas for drug action teams, a practically oriented document that we published in April.

Last month, I wrote to all Members of Parliament in England to highlight drug action teams' work, informing every Member of how to contact his or her local team. As a result, many colleagues on both sides of the House have made contact with their local teams. I hope that more contacts will take place and that those that have started will be sustained and developed.

It is still early days for drug action teams and I recognise that not all teams have been able to make as much progress as some. I have been impressed by the commitment to practical action, clearly demonstrated, for example, by the Essex team, led by the chief constable, by the leaders of the eight Greater Manchester drug action teams, whom I met a few weeks ago, and, more recently, by the team that I met in the London borough of Merton. Some teams have found it more difficult to pull together in the limited time, but I am convinced that there is collective determination throughout the country and that the teams can—and in many cases are already beginning to—bring about action that can make a difference.

The momentum needs to be sustained across all aspects of our strategy. Centrally, the Government will seek to play their part in that. Last month, the Prime Minister announced the creation of the post of an international drugs co-ordinator. I am pleased to inform the House that the co-ordinator will be taking up his post next month and will work closely with our principal international partners and with the UK Departments and agencies concerned. One of the key tasks will be to stimulate and to co-ordinate UK action in relation to producer and transit countries, and to ensure that UK international drugs initiatives are followed up and implemented vigorously.

Targeting dealers remains a priority and that is why my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary has announced, as part of the Government's strategy on crime for England and Wales, plans to make sentences for drug dealers' third offences a mandatory minimum of seven years. The proposals are, I believe, widely supported in the House and were referred to this week by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department in his speech to the Association of Chief Police Officers conference.

As for treatment, we are making £6 million of additional money available this year for methadone treatment programmes and services for young people. Guidance will shortly be sent to local authorities and others on practical measures to reduce the scope for drugs entering rave and club premises, and to minimise the dangers that drugs may cause—all in the context that we need to be clear on the central message that the only safe drug is no drug at all. Mobilising the support of parents and businesses in that effort continues to be central to our work.

A new development which, I hope, will give further impetus to much that I have been talking about—including the role of drug action teams, the voluntary sector, parents and businesses—is the establishment, announced by the Prime Minister last month, of a £2 million drugs challenge fund. It is open to all drug action teams in England this year to put forward bids for money, with a substantial commitment, we hope, from local businesses—the private sector. That will be geared towards specific projects that will make a difference to local communities. They include arrest referral schemes, drug education projects and projects to reduce drug-related crime.

Drug action teams will shortly be invited to bid, and I look forward to agreeing a significant number of innovative and practical ideas. The fund will be administered by my officials in the central drugs co-ordination unit, working with colleagues across the Government. The fund was a central Government partnership, in that it was resourced by contributions from no fewer that four Government Departments, with a significant Treasury contribution.

All hon. Members know that drug misuse is such a complex problem that there is no magic wand to wave or soundbite solution. Recognising that, the Government's drugs strategy sets some specific and practical short-term tasks, but that is against the background of a much longer-term determination to eradicate the dealing that causes so much misery, to reduce health risks to victims, drug misusers and their families and, above all, to enable our young people to resist illegal drugs by giving them hard information and compelling facts.

Undoubtedly, that approach, with the continuing cross-party support that I have mentioned several times, will in time make a substantial difference. For the first time in our country, we have the firm structures to do so and the benchmarks to assess progress over time, not least as a result of the excellent work being undertaken by the police, schools, prison, probation and social services inspectorates. The strategy must now engage our communities at large, with the aim of enabling our young people to resist the false lure of drugs and ensuring that they get the best possible chance for a better life.

I commend the strategy to the House. Together with my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Health, who will reply to the debate, I shall listen carefully to the contributions that hon. Members make to further a cause that I am sure we all hold in common.

10.9 am

Mr. George Howarth (Knowsley, North)

This is a welcome and timely debate. We should not only continue to monitor the developments of the Government's strategy, which we have consistently supported, but we should consider developments that have taken place in the 12 months since we last debated the subject—also on a Friday morning—assess the scale of the problem and keep it permanently under review. The Leader of the House was right to discuss those issues so thoughtfully.

The Leader of the House quoted some statistics on drug abuse and associated crime. Although both are often highly organised, a large volume of drug-related crime takes place at a very low level, which is nevertheless intolerable in many local communities. People commit burglaries and various other offences simply to obtain money to sustain their habit. That is a problem for all communities.

The Leader of the House rightly says that this is not an inner-city or urban problem. Many rural communities—towns, market towns and villages—suffer from the problems that beset urban communities in terms of drug abuse and all that goes with it, including crime.

We must be realistic about the extent of drug abuse, but it would be wrong to assume that, because there is a large-scale problem, we are being overwhelmed by it. We should not give in; the consequences would be far too serious.

Drug abuse wrecks young lives. Some lives are even lost as a result; some of the more publicised cases have been mentioned. I identify the Opposition with the remarks by the Leader of the House about the parents of Leah Betts and their great efforts since her tragic death. It is important that people realise that, although her case rightly received much publicity, very many young lives are lost, and many more young lives are wrecked, as a result of drug abuse.

We are right to worry about such highly publicised cases, but we should also worry about the effect on the lives of people who have nothing to do with drug abuse. I shall hold a surgery in my constituency tonight, and I guarantee that two or three—perhaps one or two more—of the cases will be a problem related to drugs. I am sure that that is the case at other hon. Members' surgeries. It may be a couple living in a block of flats, the communal areas of which are used at night by young people abusing drugs. Problems result. They leave debris behind. Young mothers have spoken to me who are rightly concerned about coming out of their front door in the morning to find, in a communal area, used needles, the debris from heroin abuse, silver paper and so on. Drug abuse has a marked effect on the quality of the lives of innocent people who just happen to live in the area where it is going on.

Similarly, I have received complaints—and taken them up with the police and the local authority—from people who, night after night, have had to endure dealing going on at their gates or across the road in a shopping precinct. When it is drawn to their attention, the police—Merseyside police in my local authority area—respond magnificently, but people are made miserable by having to live cheek by jowl with dealing.

My local authority, Knowsley borough council—not uniquely, as many others do it—has adopted a firm policy, which I support. Anyone who is convicted of drug dealing in a council property is evicted. It is now routine. Whatever difficulties in the local process that might cause, I support the council in that, because it is intolerable for people to live cheek by jowl with drug dealing.

Last summer, a head teacher showed me around a school, not in my constituency but in Liverpool. There was a discreet area at the back of the school, out of view from the main road, which young people were using to abuse drugs at night when the school premises were closed. It was a primary school. Young children were coming into school every morning to find, in the back entrances to their school and around the play area, discarded needles, silver paper and all the horrendous debris that goes with drug abuse. They are the realities of the lives of innocent people who are affected by the problems.

In common with other Members of the House, I have received a copy of a briefing paper by the Standing Conference on Drug Abuse, which makes some interesting points. It welcomes, as we do, the strategy set out in "Tackling Drugs Together", but it draws attention to three areas of concern. I hope the Minister will comment on them.

First, SCODA says that the resources available to tackle the growing drug problem might not be adequate. The Leader of the House mentioned some additional resources, which we would join in welcoming, but there should be continuing evaluation to ensure that all the resources are in the right places so that we may continue to tackle the problem effectively.

Secondly, SCODA argues that the balance of priorities and expenditure between control and enforcement measures and the provision of education, prevention, treatment and care needs more thought. I would welcome any comments that could be made about that, if not this afternoon, in the coining months. That needs further consideration.

Thirdly, SCODA mentions the absence from drug strategies of the contribution that might be made by Government programmes in training, employment and housing. I do not want to make too much of that—I certainly do not want to use it to be overly critical—but obviously there are links between lack of opportunities in the economy, lack of a decent place to live and other social disadvantages, and drug abuse. It is not uniquely the case, but if people do not have much of a stake in life, it is much easier to drift into drug abuse than if they clearly have a stake.

I am not trying to get into a debate about the stakeholder economy, but I am often struck by the difference between my generation, who were teenagers in the 1960s, and the generation who are teenagers today. In those days, people of my generation had props, a stake in life—in my case, an apprenticeship. The expectation was that, if we behaved ourselves and did not get into too much trouble, life would gradually improve each year. That is not always clear in every community today. I do not say that to make a major political point, but there are connections between the extent of people's opportunities and their expectations of a career or even a family—in some cases even the possibility of family life is excluded. All those factors were powerful disincentives that stopped people getting involved in drugs and crime. In many communities those disincentives no longer exist as comprehensively as they did in the 1960s.

The Leader of the House has repeated the argument about legalisation and decriminalisation. I firmly place on record again the fact that we support his argument.

Lady Olga Maitland

I welcome the fact that the hon. Gentleman supports my right hon. Friend on the issue of the decriminalisation of drugs. Will the hon. Gentleman therefore condemn the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms Short), who has clearly hinted that she favours the decriminalisation of drugs? I say "hint" because I give her some benefit of the doubt, but the truth is that she has said that there should be taxing and selling of cannabis in a separate place than hard drugs". She said that we should look at that possibility. Will the hon. Gentleman utterly condemn the hon. Lady because it outrageous that a public person should make that statement when so many young lives are at risk?

Mr. Howarth

As I recall, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms Short) argued, and then retracted—[HON. MEMBERS: "Ah!"] The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) should listen to what I have to say—she has asked me a question. My hon. Friend the Member for Ladywood argued that a royal commission should be established. The Opposition's position, which I have consistently maintained, is that there is no point in establishing a royal commission because that implies that, if it argued in favour of decriminalisation or legalisation, we would be willing to accept it. I can see no circumstances in which the Labour party would accept that, so I see no argument for a royal commission.

As the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam has chosen to introduce my hon. Friend the Member for Ladywood into the argument, perhaps she will tell me whether she agrees with the vice-chairman of the Conservative party, the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan), who said in his book, "Saturn's Children": Logic suggests that the only completely effective way to ameliorate the"— drug— problem, and especially the crime which results from it, is to bring the industry into the open by legalising the distribution and consumption of all dangerous drugs, or at the very least decriminalising their consumption. Does the hon. Lady agree with the vice-chairman of the Conservative party?

Hon. Members

He is not the vice-chairman.

Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes)

Order. I think that the House knows my views on seated interventions. It would be appropriate if each hon. Member sought to advance his or her own arguments.

Mr. Howarth

It was not I who chose to introduce the note of discord into the debate, Madam Deputy Speaker. To make it clear: that quote that I gave is contained in a book that the parliamentary private secretary to the chairman of the Conservative party wrote less than two years ago. Does the hon. Lady agree with him or is she willing to condemn him?

Mr. Simon Hughes

Just before we leave what is, I suppose, the inevitable outcome of such a debate—party-political point scoring—may I ask whether the hon. Gentleman accepts that we gain nothing by identifying differences of view within parties on such a subject? There are differences of view within each party represented in the House. He has clearly put the view of the Labour Front Bench, the Government have put their view, and I shall put my party's view. It would be a nonsense society if, when the Front-Bench team of each party put its view, every member of that party had to hold and express the same view. If that were the case, we might as well live in a totalitarian state where democracy and debate were not allowed.

Mr. Howarth

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. It is up to him to defend his party's position; I am putting the Labour party's official position. It had not been my intention to give that quote; I was seeking to be as consensual as the Leader of the House, but as the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam chose to introduce one of my colleagues into the debate, I thought it wise to introduce one of hers. I agree that the more consensus on the issue that we have across the House, the more likely we are to make progress—it is as simple as that. For that reason, the Leader of the House was generous enough to acknowledge that, on behalf of the Opposition, I have consistently supported the Government in that. We shall continue to do so as that is the only way in which we can deal with the problems.

I should like to say a few more words about the case against the legalisation and decriminalisation. We should not underestimate the power of the argument for legalisation and decriminalisation. It sends entirely the wrong message to young people—it tells them that it is okay to do this. Officialdom, represented through Parliament or the Government, is seen to be saying that it is okay—it is not okay. It is a serious problem.

Mr. Flynn

To follow the logic of my hon. Friend's views on the main killer drugs of society, is he in favour of prohibiting alcohol and cigarettes?

Mr. Howarth

I have been down that path with my hon. Friend before and I have said on more than one occasion that, on this issue, he shows an uncharacteristic attachment to market forces. There are problems with alcohol abuse and with tobacco abuse, but there are different ways of dealing with them. Unfortunately, both those activities are long established and legal—if the starting point was different, we might deal differently with the problems. Although at some points in history some drugs that are now illegal were legal, most drugs that are in general use have been illegal for a considerable time. We have to deal with the position as it is rather than as my hon. Friend might prefer it to be.

Mr. Richard Spring (Bury St. Edmunds)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is well known among professionals that the thrill of illegality is part of the attraction of drugs to some young people? The difficulty is that decriminalisation removes the thrill of illegality for a certain sort of young person who could be tempted to use harder and yet more dangerous drugs.

Mr. Howarth

I understand the hon. Gentleman's argument, but we could extend that principle to almost anything. We could say that stealing cars and joyriding produces a thrill—I know that the hon. Gentleman would not suggest that—so we should think of decriminalising that activity. People get a kick out of all sorts of illegal activities, but that does not necessarily justify decriminalising them.

The experience of areas where there have been experiments with decriminalisation shows that it causes confusion in policing. If some substances are decriminalised while others remain illegal, police forces and those responsible for dealing with the problem find it confusing. If some substances are dealt with on a legal basis while others are dealt with on an illegal basis, it becomes difficult to keep track of who is selling what to whom, where and when.

Those who support decriminalisation must recognise that, if we decriminalise in one country, one city or one area, we inevitably produce a magnetic effect. That is the experience in Holland. I would not support the argument, but those who do so must understand that unless they are prepared to support it on a co-ordinated, almost international basis in order to prevent the magnet effect, the inevitable consequence would be that the city or area of decriminalisation would attract more and more people because they would know that they could indulge in drug abuse with relative impunity. That would be true were London or any of the constituencies represented here to introduce decriminalisation. That is the experience in other countries, but it is certainly not an experience that I would recommend.

I acknowledge that there are considerable problems in getting the message across to young people. I return to the point made by the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Spring) a few moments ago. Fashions change and young people's perception of what is acceptable or not changes. There are many pressures on young people now, from the media, from the music they listen to and from the clubs to which they go for entertainment, which make it seem acceptable for them to do certain things. The argument advanced about Ecstasy by the Leader of the House illustrated that point.

Young people need to be aware that whatever the dictates of fashion in certain areas and whatever the music might say, drugs such as Ecstasy are very dangerous. The case of Leah Betts is not the only example of the damage that drugs can do; in her case, the result was fatal.

There is a case—I know that there is consensus on this—for explaining to young people who are liable to find themselves offered drugs how they can reduce the harm that they might do to themselves. It is, for example, important that water is available. But we should not explicitly encourage young people, either through fashion or by other means, to believe that everything is all right if they take Ecstasy in a certain setting. It is not because it can lead to horrendous consequences.

The Leader of the House rightly referred to the problems of drug abuse in the Prison Service. I am sure that he is aware that when mandatory drug testing was introduced—

Mr. Flynn

Quite right.

Mr. Newton

I think that the hon. Gentleman is probably talking about the problems of drug abuse in prisons rather than in the Prison Service.

Mr. Howarth

I stand corrected. I am not sure what evidence my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) has for saying that I was absolutely right. I apologise if my remark was misleading. I of course meant that drug abuse was a problem in prisons and, for that reason, we supported the introduction of mandatory drug testing. It has been useful in identifying the scale of the problem within individual prisons.

I tabled a question for written answer to which I received an answer on 22 May 1996 at columns 243–44; it makes interesting reading. The number of drugs tests carried out between February and October 1995, on a month-by-month basis, went from 207 to 717. In February 1995, the number of tests that proved positive was 78, of which five showed the presence of opiates and 70 showed the presence of cannabis. By February 1996, the number of positive tests for cannabis had risen to 791 and the number of positive tests for opiates was 178.

I do not use those statistics to be alarmist, but because they give us an idea of the scale of the problem. I know that the Home Office and the Prison Service monitor the results regularly to ensure that mandatory drug testing and the procedures for arresting the supply of drugs in prisons are going well. What worries me—the statistics show this—is that there is a problem with mandatory drug testing in that cannabis can be detected in the bloodstream for much longer than opiates. It may well be—the figures are too small to say this conclusively—that some prisoners are shifting away from cannabis, which can be detected for longer, towards opiates. I do not say that as a political point. However, it is important that the results are monitored and if that shift is taking place, we must consider what routines need to be introduced to try to monitor the problem slightly differently.

Mr. Flynn

I raised the matter with the Home Office 10 months ago. As a result of the huge choice of drugs in prisons—illegal drug use is endemic in almost all our prisons—prisoners can move freely from soft drugs to hard drugs. There is evidence from prisoners themselves that the drug examinations are persuading them to come off cannabis and to go on to heroin.

Mr. Howarth

I agree with my hon. Friend up to a point. However, I am not sure that the evidence is clear enough to enable us to make further conclusions. That shift could be going on and my point—I know that the Prison Service and the Home Office are concerned about this—is that we must keep a clear eye on the situation. If it becomes apparent that there is a need to change the procedures and to consider using different kinds of test, we should keep an open mind.

There is an argument that we need to consider further proposals on how to stem the flow of drugs into our prisons, and I have a suggestion to put this morning. I believe that there is scope for further action to stem the extensive drug abuse in prisons. It is simply unacceptable that people with a history of drug abuse are still able to gain access to drugs within prisons. More worrying still is the fact that many convicted prisoners develop a drug habit while they are in prison. We have seen the chief inspector's reports on, to take an extreme example, Styal prison where the level of drug abuse admitted by prisoners was up to 90 per cent. We would all agree that that is unacceptable. Over time, the objective should be to achieve an entirely drug-free prison estate.

Perhaps we should start the process by designating four or five totally drug-free prisons, following consultation with the Prison Service. Last week, I had the opportunity to talk to Mr. Tilt, the Director General of the Prison Service. He believes that it would be perfectly feasible to start by designating four or five drug-free prisons and then gradually to expand the number so that we had a totally drug-free prison estate. I realise that that would not be simple to achieve, but I believe that we could make a start.

Lady Olga Maitland

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. Is he aware that Downview prison, which is on the edge of my constituency, had a very active drug rehabilitation programme? I can safely say that the prison is almost drug free and could be regarded as a pilot and a leader for other prisons to follow.

Mr. Howarth

If the hon. Lady had waited a few minutes, she would have realised that I intended to go on to talk about Downview, which I had the opportunity to visit earlier this year. The hon. Lady is right; the crucial point about Downview is that the staff are very careful about who is allowed into the prison, which is in effect a drug-free prison.

Mr. James Couchman (Gillingham)

A better class of prisoner.

Mr. Howarth

The hon. Gentleman should not be so flippant because this is a serious subject.

For the process to work, one needs to accept in the prisons concerned only people who positively want to come off drugs or who can demonstrate that they are already free of them. I congratulate Downview because it is an excellent prison and its work is first class.

Another important aspect of the solution, of which the Prison Service is aware, is to deal with the families of those who have a drug problem. Someone can go through a drug rehabilitation programme while he is in prison only for him to come out to the same environment and the same family circumstances. His partner may be involved in drug abuse and all the good work can be undone in 24 hours.

Mr. Fabricant

I wish to ask a genuine question, because I do not claim to be an expert on the subject. I and my colleagues do not understand why every visitor to every prison is not thoroughly searched to ensure that drugs are not brought in. There would be no drugs in prison if everyone was carefully searched. Why does that not happen?

Mr. Howarth

I feel like my right hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) must feel at Prime Minister's Question Time when he is asked to answer for the Government.

Mr. Fabricant

It was a genuine question.

Mr. Howarth

I accept that. I have probably visited more prisons as shadow Home Affairs spokesman than anybody in the House—even more, I suspect, than the Home Secretary—and I have raised that very question with the Prison Service. The problem is that the Prison Service would have to carry out highly intrusive searches. It would be difficult for me to explain graphically to the House the extent to which visitors will go to conceal drugs. If the hon. Gentleman cares to use his imagination, he will realise that the nature of the human anatomy means that there are places in which people can conceal drugs that makes it difficult to find them. That is not to say that the Prison Service should not be ever more vigilant and it makes increasing use of sniffer dogs and other methods.

Some months ago, I visited Whitemoor prison, which is probably one of the most security conscious prisons in Britain and possibly in Europe, for reasons that the House will understand. It has elaborate procedures for visitors, so much so that when I visited the prison a group of partners of prisoners lobbied me on my way in to complain about how intrusive the search procedures were. When I met the governor, he showed me some video evidence of how drugs were passed from visitors to prisoners. The House would be amazed at the lengths to which some visitors will go to pass drugs over.

I find it curious that people should want to help their loved ones in prison by providing them with drugs. I do not think that is sensible, but people do it. I understand from the police and the prison authorities that pressures are put on the partners of prisoners by those associated with other inmates, and that they are taking drugs in because they are frightened not to. That problem must be dealt with.

If we had four to five drug-free prisons, we could build on work that has been done already in some prisons which have drug-free wings. I accept that some conditions would need to be attached to such prisons. For example, entrance to drug-free prisons should be strictly controlled and those already serving custodial sentences would have to demonstrate, through regular voluntary drug tests, that they were clean. Similarly, those embarking on a custodial sentence who wanted to opt into a drug-free regime would have to demonstrate that they had not previously been involved in drug abuse.

We should make a start and gradually build from four or five drug-free prisons—the Director General of the Prison Service believes that that is a feasible proposal—so that eventually over time we could envisage a totally drug-free prison estate.

The Leader of the House made another important point about supply reduction. I have had the opportunity in the past 12 months, on more than one occasion, to visit Merseyside police and those responsible for dealing with organised crime in the Metropolitan police force. I too pay tribute to the excellent work that they do and to the fact that they are forging partnerships with Customs and Excise, local authorities and other bodies.

The Leader of the House acknowledged that there is still more scope for greater co-operation between the various bodies involved in solving the problem of illegal drugs. I agree that the co-operation between Customs and Excise and the police, which has advanced, needs to be more structured in the future. There is evidence that clashes of culture about methods of work have made those bodies less effective than they might otherwise have been. That is not a criticism, because I accept that it is difficult for two separate organisations to work closely together. They are conscious of the need for greater co-ordination and co-operation and we must consider the sort of structures that might deliver that.

Mr. Newton

I seek to intervene in the same constructive way as the hon. Gentleman has approached the subject, for which I am grateful. While there is always scope for improved co-operation, recent events have been encouraging. For example, a couple of months ago, Customs and Excise and the police held a joint press conference—they asked me to take the chair—to announce their drug seizure figures. I believe that they intend to do the same next year. The fact that they are holding joint press conferences on a subject on which, frankly speaking, they used to compete with each other is encouraging. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would wish to join me in paying tribute to two people who have been especially involved in that improved co-operation—Keith Hellawell of the Association of Chief Police Officers and Dick Kellaway of Customs and Excise.

Mr. Howarth

I certainly join the Leader of the House to pay tribute to those two gentlemen. I was not seeking to criticise, but there is always scope for greater co-operation between the police and Customs and Excise. The development of the national criminal intelligence service should be added to the equation, because it does useful work collating and disseminating information. NCIS is already built into the structure to a great extent, but more could be done.

I have talked to senior police officers who are involved in the fight against drugs and they are frustrated. It is easy and sometimes effective to target local drug dealers on the streets, but it is difficult to go after the drug barons, for want of a better word, and those who control the whole enterprise. The problem is that the trail that leads to the drug barons includes money, but it often does not include drugs. It is difficult—hence the need for co-ordination and co-operation—to target the people who are ultimately responsible for the organisation of huge drug operations. To illustrate that, I can give an example. I had the opportunity last summer to spend some time with the Merseyside police drugs squad. It carried out a successful operation at a nightclub, which took about three months, and involved the use of off-duty uniformed police officers, in civilian clothes so that they would be less likely to be recognised. The squad collected a huge amount of evidence in that nightclub where Ecstasy and other substances were being sold. Eventually, the operation was closed down, and the dealers were arrested inside the club, convicted and sent to prison. Within two weeks, the dealing operation in that club was back in business. The local authority and the police co-operated in relation to licensing in an attempt to deal with the problem. I have used that example to illustrate how structured an industry it is—within a week or two, it totally replaced the network that it had to sell its product. We should never under-estimate just how organised it is.

There are other examples of how drug dealers use otherwise innocent people to rent mobile phones for them, so that they cannot easily be traced; and of how they pay people for a bit of space under some stairs, so that a hold-all can be stored and picked up by someone at a certain time. A lot of money is involved in the industry, and the dealers are willing to spread it around to protect themselves. It is difficult to target them. Co-operation is needed to close down, as far as is possible, people who are dealing at a high level.

At some point in the future, it may be necessary to give some fairly draconian powers to the police and to Customs and Excise to deal with the phenomenon. I shall not make any specific suggestions today. I realise the scale of the problem. If we need fresh approaches to dealing with, for example, money laundering, organised crime, and the way in which violence is often used to underpin the operations, we shall be willing to co-operate, subject to what is contained in the proposals. The closing down of one big operation is more likely to have an effect on the industry than 30 or 40 arrests on the street—important and necessary though they may be.

Finally, like the Leader of the House, I refer to the various treatment programmes—whether they be in prisons such as Downview or in the wider community. It is important to pay tribute to the many and varied programmes that are available, the many organisations that run them and the many ways in which people are helped to come off drugs. However, there is almost an echo of Mao Tse-tung—let a thousand flowers bloom—in this regard.

We have got to the point where almost anyone who says, "I have got a drug rehabilitation programme" is encouraged and welcomed—not necessarily by the Government, but perhaps by local government or by charitable funding. However, we do not seem to evaluate what works and what does not work. I know that the Department of Health does some work in this regard, and I am sure that it will continue. I believe that a major study, at national level, is required so that we can evaluate every kind of programme and see how successful they are.

For example, while I do not condemn the use of methadone, some people are beginning to believe that there must be a cut-off point at which people can be removed from methadone and have no dependency whatsoever. We should constantly evaluate and re-evaluate the success of the programmes. I am sure that that is a point in common among all hon. Members, and I am sure that it will happen.

Mr. Fabricant

Does the hon. Gentleman agree with me that, from time to time, we need to reassess the functions of certain drugs? For example, while I oppose the use of marijuana as a drug, some medical practitioners argue that it is an effective ameliorant for people suffering from multiple sclerosis.

Mr. Howarth

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should ask his hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Battersea, that question. As I understand it—although I am not entirely certain—the Department of Health is funding a research programme into whether there is a medical advantage in the use of cannabis for those suffering from multiple sclerosis. I am not entirely convinced that that medical case has been established. However, if it could be established, I would have no problem with it and I am sure that the Department of Health would not have a problem with it. The argument that the hon. Gentleman is advancing has not been entirely scientifically proven. If and when it is, I would not have any objection to the use of cannabis for medical purposes.

The importance of the debate cannot be understated. I agree with the Leader of the House that no magic wand can be waved. It is important that there is a responsible agreement, wherever possible, between us on a number of key issues. First, it is not acceptable, in any circumstances, for young people to believe that taking drugs is somehow a good thing to do. We would be irresponsible if we advanced that argument, and I am certainly not prepared to do so.

Secondly, we should send out as powerful a message as possible to those who are responsible for this industry that it will not be tolerated, that whatever means are necessary to combat it will be made available, that whatever co-operation between agencies to combat it will be given and, most important of all, that those of us who have a responsibility in the House—and, by extension, those in Government—to oversee these things will not give in.

There is a war against drug abuse and drug dealing—and I think that we can ultimately win that war. So long as we hold on to that view and act accordingly, we will be behaving responsibly and, more importantly, we will be showing the wider community that drug abuse is a bad thing and that those who perpetrate it, support it and organise it are against the wider interests of the community, particularly those of young people.

10.56 am

Mr. Henry Bellingham (North-West Norfolk)

I shall concentrate on the situation in East Anglia and Norfolk, mention my views on the problems in prisons and refer to a specific problem that involves one of my constituents who runs a drug treatment clinic. As the Leader of the House pointed out, the tragedy of drugs is there for everyone to see. There are approximately 35,000 registered addicts—and obviously the effect on crime is horrendous.

I recently met the deputy chief constable of the Norfolk constabulary. I asked him what percentage of crime in Norfolk is in some way drug related, and he said between 60 and 70 per cent. I am sure that a similar percentage would apply to Suffolk, to Lincolnshire and to other shire counties. It is an appalling figure.

As the Leader of the House pointed out, illegal drug use among young people is at its highest recorded level. I welcome the White Paper, particularly its emphasis on mobilising local communities, the guidance given to schools and the enhanced teacher training. A large number of resources are currently going into controlling the drug problem: £346 million goes to enforcement and control, and £61 million to treatment services—perhaps a little more money should be spent on treatment services. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for Health will comment on that in his reply.

I also welcome the Government's action on the criminal law front, particularly the fact that proceeds from the drug trade can now be taken away completely and that there is no possibility of drug dealers and traffickers benefiting from their crimes.

Let us examine the Government's fight against drugs. The Criminal Justice Act 1988 increased the maximum sentence for trafficking from 14 years to life. Labour voted against it. The Criminal Justice Act 1993 introduced measures on the confiscation of profits and Labour voted against them. The recent White Paper on sentencing published by my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary rightly proposes minimum sentences for drug traffickers and dealers, but it has received very little support from the Opposition.

At last year's Conservative party conference, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister launched a new initiative when he said that it was ridiculous that the security services could not be used in the fight against drugs. He promised to take action on that and legislation has been introduced this Session, but once again we have received absolutely no support from the Opposition. They may be long on words and promises, but they are very short on support and definable action in the House in support of Government initiatives. Once again, Labour is saying one thing and doing something completely different.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) mentioned the legalisation of cannabis. I have examined the matter in considerable detail, but although the arguments can be quite compelling, I am also absolutely convinced that the evidence in the other direction is even stronger. The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, Sir Paul Condon, said: This is not simply a moral issue … It is also about the kind of society that we want for our children. I do not want one where it is acceptable to be 'stoned' on drugs, or where we pop into the cannabis shop to get an evening's supply. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House mentioned the example of Holland, where soft drugs are legalised. It can be argued that drug enforcement and action against traffickers is focused on hard drugs, but on the other hand the evidence that the use of soft drugs can lead to hard drugs is completely overwhelming. For the record, let me state categorically that I am opposed to the legalisation of cannabis.

I should like to turn briefly to prisons. The Leader of the House mentioned that he was in Norfolk the other day and visited Wayland prison. There are a number of prisons in Norfolk: Wayland prison, Norwich prison and Whitemoor prison. I visited Whitemoor prison quite recently and I am in close touch with many prison officers in my constituency.

I was surprised by what the hon. Member for Knowsley, North (Mr. Howarth), the shadow spokesperson, as he describes himself, said about prisons and trying to make five prisons drug free. Every single prison should be drug free. On the admission of the hon. Gentleman, if there are five drug-free prisons, there must be about 99 prisons that are not.

I understand the points that the hon. Gentleman made about the difficulty of searching visitors to prisons, but every prison officer I have spoken to in my constituency has made it clear that it is not the prison officers or the prisoners who bring drugs into prisons. Visitors bring drugs into prisons and that should be stopped. If it means having closed visits in most prisons, so be it. If it means that every single meeting between any visitor and any prisoner should be recorded by cameras, so be it.

In Whitemoor, there is now an operations monitoring room where cameras watch every move of every single visitor. Whenever there was a suspicious incident, the previous governor of Whitemoor prison often took the view that, in the interests of keeping the peace, there should be no intervention or disruption even if it meant the passing over of a suspicious package. However, I am pleased to say that the new governor is adopting a much tougher regime. If there is any possibility of anything untoward or suspicious happening, there is an immediate clampdown.

Mr. Spring

Does my hon. Friend agree that the excessive bowing down to the civil rights lobby in the past made it difficult to search visitors and the net effect of that is been an outbreak of drug taking in prisons, which is hugely damaging to society? Does he agree that it is about time that we improved our searching methods in the way that he has suggested?

Mr. Bellingham

My hon. Friend, who represents a constituency very close to mine, is absolutely correct. My discussions with Brody Clarke, the governor of Whitemoor, bear that out 100 per cent.

The latest figures that I have relate to 1994 when there were 6,880 drug busts inside prisons and officers seized nearly 5,000 stashes of cannabis, 300 of heroin, 101 of cocaine and 57 of LSD. Those figures are absolutely horrendous. The Prisoners Resource Service estimates that half all inmates consume drugs at some stage during imprisonment.

The hon. Member for Knowsley, North mentioned urine testing. Mike Trace, a director of the Prisoners Resource Service said that there is a possibility that prisoners will be encouraged to switch from cannabis to drugs that are not revealed by the tests. On the other hand, tough action must be taken. Random testing in prisons was introduced by the Public Order and Criminal Justice Act 1994. It was opposed by the Opposition. We need a combination of random tests, but we also must also have a much tougher policy towards visitors.

Mr. George Howarth

I should correct the hon. Gentleman. The mandatory drug testing of prisoners was introduced in a statutory instrument. I led for the Opposition and we voted for it.

Mr. Bellingham

I am always pleased for the Opposition to correct me when I criticise them, and I stand corrected. However, that does not mean that the Opposition did not vote against virtually every other tough measure that the Government have introduced.

Let me turn briefly to Norfolk, where the challenge of the drugs problem has been picked up by the Norfolk constabulary, which is operating a number of excellent schemes, the local education authority and the probation service. I should like to congratulate the Norfolk constabulary on its efforts. The police are well aware of the problems in Norfolk.

I mentioned the figure given to me by the deputy chief constable relating to the number of crimes that involve drugs in some respect and I hope that what is happening in Norfolk is being reflected elsewhere in the country. A concerted effort is being made by the police, the probation service and the education authority to bring drugs education into schools and local communities. Whenever there is a presentation on home watch, crime prevention or anything else, the Norfolk constabulary makes sure that a key expert is on hand to give a presentation and explain what Norfolk constabulary is doing and how it is working with other agencies and the drug action team. I welcome that action and the resources that are going into it.

One of my constituents who lives in Norfolk for some of the time, runs Fairways, a drug treatment centre in Docklands that was set up four years ago. I have been privileged to visit Dr. Adrian Garfoot, the medical director, James West, the practice manager and Gary Sutton, the drugs field researcher.

The centre opened four years ago. Dr. Garfoot's father, the Rev. John Garfoot, is a minister in Kings Lynn in my constituency. Dr. Garfoot began his career as a general practitioner, but he was so concerned about and committed to people who suffer from drug addiction that he wanted to do more for them. Therefore, he moved from general practice to treating drug addicts on a permanent basis. The clinic has a unique prescribing policy: Dr. Garfoot believes in providing sufficient prescriptions to wean addicts off their habit for street drugs.

Presently 261 patients attend the clinic and they had spent on average £100 per day feeding their habit. About 70 per cent. of the male patients had spent an average of four years in prison. We all know the costs associated with incarceration and the ill health that flows from drug addiction. Many of the patients had been refused treatment by other doctors—that fact was brought home to me when I visited the clinic recently—and many had attended drug dependency units and detoxification centres that had failed to help them. It is a classic example of short-term treatment simply not working.

The clinic aims to try to return such people to the mainstream. It aims, first, to stabilise drug habits through a tight prescribing regimen and, secondly, to rebuild people's lives and try to help them back into the community. An integral part of the programme is the Lost Talents charity, which was set up by Dr. Garfoot. It tries to rebuild the talents and the skills that have been lost during the period of addiction.

In 1994, my constituent Dr. Adrian Garfoot was charged under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 with prescribing in an irresponsible manner. The charges related mainly to the prescribing of amphetamines. The case went before a tribunal, which reached its conclusions in October 1994. However, it is now June 1996 and there has been no ministerial view regarding the tribunal's ruling. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to comment about that delay. My constituent continues his work, day in and day out, treating cases that were considered to be hopeless. He seeks to return his patients to the mainstream community, to give them hope for the future and to help them to rebuild their lives. However, Ministers have not got their act together and reached a decision about the tribunal's conclusions.

Worse still, on 22 May this year there was a raid on the clinic. The conduct of that raid is particularly disturbing. Seven police officers arrived at the clinic and arrested my constituent and his partner. They removed virtually all the documentation and the confidential records held at the centre. It was an extremely unfortunate incident which took place without warning. Examination of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and relevant sections of other Acts reveals that, if my constituent had not been arrested, the police would have had to obtain an order under section 9 of the 1984 Act and a search warrant.

It appears that the police were on a fishing expedition and I wonder whether the drugs inspectorate and people in the Home Office knew what was going on. I find it extraordinary that, before a Minister has made up his mind about a tribunal decision—there is no evidence against my constituent; I would not say that in the House unless I had checked my facts very carefully—seven police officers from No. 3 area intelligence unit at Ilford police station should raid the clinic, creating mayhem and causing much concern among patients.

I am pleased to report that most of the documents have been returned to Dr. Garfoot. However, some material—particularly computer records and bank statements—has not been returned, and obviously my constituent is seeking a full explanation. I wrote to the Home Office Minister about the matter approximately three weeks ago and I have not yet received a reply. I also wrote to the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, but he has not replied to my letter. This is a specific constituency matter and I would be grateful if my hon. Friend could discuss it with his hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Sackville) and arrange for speedy replies to my correspondence. I would also be grateful if my hon. Friend would comment generally about whether a raid of that nature should take place before a Minister has made up his mind about the case.

I am sorry for having been diverted into raising an important constituency issue. Sufficient resources must be allocated to treatment in the fight against drugs and implementation of the Government's drugs strategy. I am convinced, through my experiences with Dr. Garfoot, that the treatment of drug addicts and drug offenders is crucial. That treatment must be combined with a tough policy of action against drug traffickers and dealers and a tough sentencing policy. I support the Government's drugs policy. I hope that it will continue and that it will begin to have an impact on this terrible national problem.

11.15 am

Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark and Bermondsey)

I welcome the debate. I hope that we shall continue to have an annual debate about drugs for as long as it continues to be a huge national issue. It is appropriate that we should return to it a year after the debate that followed the introduction of the Government's report by the Leader of the House.

I hope that hon. Members can contribute to the drugs debate. I said earlier to the Leader of the House by way of intervention that possibly the media make the greatest contribution to that debate. For example, I believe that in the past year the film "Trainspotting" probably made the most dramatic contribution in that regard. It depicted real-life incidents in a breathtaking manner. When I saw the film at the cinema, I remember how the audience collectively drew breath during several scenes. It certainly did not pull any punches.

The film was particularly effective in drawing attention to the high incidence of illegal drug taking in Scotland, which is where the film was based and where its characters came from. Although the debate principally concerns England and Wales—there are no Scottish Members of Parliament in the Chamber today—I do not think that we should fail to mention the fact that hon. Members from Scotland across all political parties are trying to ensure that the debate also takes place in a Scottish context. My hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace), the Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) and the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) went on a train trip around Scotland, taking the drugs message to all communities. Their action is to be commended.

One could cite many figures in this debate, but I shall be selective and refer to only two documents—both of which I welcome. I refer first to the updated document from the Standing Conference on Drug Abuse which, as the hon. Member for Knowsley, North (Mr. Howarth) said, was prepared as a briefing for hon. Members. The organisation is based in my constituency and I pay tribute to its work. Secondly, I draw attention to the excellent report produced recently by the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology. I pay tribute to that body, to our colleagues who serve on it and to the staff who work with them. They do the most excellent work. I regret that I was not able to find time to serve on that body when I was asked to do so.

That body produced a report in May this year, which I commend to hon. Members and to the wider community. The report on cannabis, Ecstasy, amphetamines and LSD is an up-to-date and accurate scientific analysis of the current situation. I shall cite several statistics from that report and from SCODA's document, which I hope will put the issue into context.

As the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham) said, illegal drug abuse among young people is currently at its highest recorded level. The report says that between one third and one half of 16-year-olds have experimented with illegal drugs. According to the report, lifetime experience of drugs is more than one in four of the adult population; perhaps as many as 7 million people in this country have tried cannabis at some point in their lives, while between 250,000 and 800,000 young people may have tried Ecstasy; and about one in five young people use drugs on a regular monthly basis. Equally important is the last statistic on its list. Drug taking, of course, is not just one way—many people stop of their own volition. In one survey, of the 32 per cent. of 17 and 18-year-olds who had tried an illegal drug, 10 per cent. no longer took it.

We should recognise that the statistic for those who stop drug taking is just as important—and certainly more encouraging—as the one for those who start to take drugs. According to the POST report, there may have been 50 to 100 acute deaths over the past five years as a result of taking Ecstasy. I shall quote, for the purpose of being absolutely accurate: Those seeking to down-play the risk could compare it with the risks of being killed in a traffic accident (of a similar magnitude)". It is, of course, more difficult to opt out of traffic-related accidents than it is to opt out of taking Ecstasy, where people opt in by taking it. The report continues: Others would compare a tolerance of 20 deaths a year with society's reluctance to accept even slightly enhanced risks in other fields—whether contraceptive pills or beef. We must get the balance right, as the Leader of the House has carefully tried to do in all his public statements, and ensure that we neither over-exaggerate nor underplay the risks.

Mr. Flynn

I share the hon. Gentleman's admiration for that report, but I must point out that the official figure—which the Department has given me after several questions—for the number of deaths in the past five years in Great Britain, in which Ecstasy was mentioned as one of the poisons involved, is 54. The number of deaths in which Ecstasy was the only drug mentioned and therefore was the cause was 34.

Mr. Hughes

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. The figures that he gives are not inconsistent with what the report says and what I have said.

The hon. Member for North-West Norfolk quoted his county's statistics for drug-related crime. The latest figure that I have is that, nationally, about two thirds of crime is drug related. That is a huge figure, and it does not include crimes such as taking drugs or being convicted of supply. I am talking about burglaries, car thefts and so on.

The last set of statistics—again, I am trying neither to up-play them nor to down-play them—come from the SCODA report, which says that 32 per cent. of adults cite social deprivation as the main cause of problem drug use; boredom, 28 per cent.; peer pressure, 24 per cent.; and personal or family problems, 20 per cent. Only 2 per cent. saw criminal tendencies as a root cause. That is important. It is not an activity of criminals. It is not an activity of people who, psychologically, have a criminal tendency.

The Home Office "British Crime Survey 1996" highlighted that unemployment and poor housing are major factors associated with opiate use in the 20 to 29 age group. I have two more figures. Thirty-nine per cent. of people using drugs in public places are homeless. That survey was from the north-west of England, but it is three years out of date. According to the Department of Health's figures for last year, 75 per cent. of the drug users using drugs services had been unemployed in the two years before treatment, so we must be realistic about the skew in terms of people who in some way are socially disadvantaged.

One of the saddest aspects of modern crime is that crimes are often committed by young people and young adults on other people, particularly the elderly. The Met and other police forces have rightly tried to target crimes of violence against the person, such as street robbery. Many of those crimes are drug related. People on drugs do not behave in the way that they would if they were not on drugs. Their behaviour is sometimes entirely unacceptable. If they behave like animals, the sooner we realise that they should be dealt with severely, the better.

Sadly, this country is awash with legal and illegal drugs. My colleagues sometimes have a go at me for being a health spokesman who has probably used the health service less than anybody else, and who would not take a drug if he could avoid it from one year to the next, whether it is aspirin or anything else. Let me put the issue into context. There are far too many drugs in use. Far too many are prescribed by doctors who see them as an easy way out. Far too many are in general use in the health service, because they have been sold as a quick remedy. Far too many are improperly used. I include legal, harmful drugs—predominantly tobacco, alcohol and, I suppose, caffeine, although I am less certain about caffeine and its implications.

I hope that, as a nation, we shall resolve to reduce the amount of drugs that are in use. Of course, some drugs, such as penicillin, are vital, but many people are given drugs simply to keep them quiet, and non-drug-related remedies are often much better.

Dr. Charles Goodson-Wickes (Wimbledon)

indicated assent.

Mr. Hughes

I see the hon. Gentleman, who is a general practitioner, nodding. I am grateful for his silent assent.

Common to the promotion of many legal drugs by the drug companies; to the promotion of tobacco and alcohol; and to the promotion of illegal drugs, is profit. There is a hell of a lot of money to be made out of drugs. If we recognise that, we shall realise more clearly what is going on.

In that context, the Government are still entirely inconsistent about tobacco—that is the only criticism that I shall make of the Government today. Tobacco-related diseases kill 100,000 people a year. Yet we allow tobacco to be advertised. Whether we should turn back the clock and make it illegal is a different question, but it is bad that we allow it to be promoted. It is totally unacceptable and obscene that we allowed the Archbishop Michael Ramsay secondary school in my borough to take £250,000 from British American Tobacco as part of the package to become a city technology college. I know that the governors say that they could not get the money from anywhere else. I know that they anguished over it. I respect them. But to drive secondary schools in the inner city to take money from BAT-allied activity—money that came from the profit of tobacco largely sold abroad—is entirely unacceptable. I hope that someone outside who has £250,000—there are plenty of them in this country—will hear this debate and offer the school the money, so that it does not have to take the money from BAT. It would willingly take it from someone else.

The tragedy is that, accordingly to "The Health of the Nation" figures, the incidence of smoking among young people is on the increase, particularly among young women. I cannot understand how a young person can be expected to hear from a teacher, "Smoking is bad for you," while the school gets its money from the profits of smoking. To turn round a quotation that I think the Leader of the House gave, the only safe cigarette—I know that he smokes, so I am not having a personal go at him—is no cigarette. The only safe tobacco is no tobacco. If people choose to take those risks, fair enough, but in the end it is not helpful and it costs the health service a lot of money.

The people who profit from drugs are not in it because of any particular interest in them. They are the same people who, in the 1960s, did the armed robberies, in the 1970s made their money out of pornography, and who now realise that the easiest way to make their money is from drugs. If we banned alcohol, they would make a profit out of alcohol. So we need have no illusions about who they are.

As Mr. Hellawell, the Leader of the House, the hon. Member for Knowsley, North and all the commentators say, this is a difficult problem and there is no easy answer. There is no magic answer to the problems of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the pill, drugs to deal with malaria or baby milk. Those are all matters of science, and science develops. We keep getting more and different information. None of us deludes ourselves about that, and that is why the POST report and the report of the task force chaired by Rev. John Polkinghorne were so good and why SCODA does such good work.

I will not make a big thing of it—it is no big deal to me—but I must put into context why the Liberal Democrats took the view that there should be a royal commission to consider such issues. It was because science and the evidence change, as do the international consequences. That does not mean to say, however, that as a party we endorse the legalisation or decriminalisation of cannabis or any other drug. In a motion that stated that there should be tougher penalties for offenders and strengthened resources for Customs and Excise, we also took the view that the issue should be studied objectively.

The task force is an interesting recent model. It reported last month, and its strength was in its independence. It reflected all professions and walks of life, which is what gave it credibility. I would be happy for the public health commission to do that job—a body that does that job for food and drugs in general. If there were a royal commission to give us the information regularly, we the politicians could decide.

I would require the burden of proof to be in favour of decriminalisation before I supported it, and at the moment neither my colleagues nor I are persuaded, but such a commission would provide that sort of information.

Mr. Spring

I must point out an inconsistency. There is a clear link between cannabis and cancer. That link has become increasingly clear in a number of studies, particularly in the United States, and the hon. Gentleman will know that cannabis contains 70 per cent. More carcinogens than tobacco. Despite that link and the fact that it is so destructive of life—there is evidence of that among habitual marijuana smokers in California—and although the hon. Gentleman is virulently opposed to tobacco advertising, he is taking what is essentially a cop-out view by moving the problem on to a royal commission.

Mr. Hughes

I accept what the hon. Gentleman says about the cancer link. The House of Commons report last month made that abundantly clear. The medical and scientific evidence against cannabis is growing. I think that that is what an independent commission or task force would be saying, and I do not think that such a body would recommend legalisation, as the burden of evidence is moving against it. I believe, however, that we need a body that is not politically led or driven. That is why the Government got into such a mess and are still in such a mess over BSE—politics became enmeshed with science.

Mr. Newton

I am becoming increasingly puzzled by the line that the hon. Gentleman is taking. I agree with the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman that the biggest difficulty with setting up a royal commission is that it would send a signal that something needed to be changed and that the Government were looking for someone to tell them what changes to make. We do not think that that is the case, any more than the Opposition Front-Bench team does.

My point—before I go out of order, Madam Deputy Speaker—is that I do not understand what such a body would do that could not be done by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which was set up under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.

Mr. Hughes

I accept the validity of that point. The body could do exactly the same job on the limited issue of the misuse of drugs, but could also consider the wider issues—not merely illegal drugs and misuse, which is the relatively limited brief of the advisory council, but the safety of food and drugs, as the American Food and Drug Administration does. I believe that the Leader of the Opposition made a similar commitment on food in his speech in Harrogate yesterday.

I do not think that there is a lot between us. I am arguing that there should be a body to consider such matters, away from Government and politicians. The issue will not go away. Let me make it absolutely clear. The fact that, as a party, we believe that such a body should look into those matters does not mean that we believe that the answer is either yes or no. I am with the hon. Member for Knowsley, North and the Leader of the House when they say that they do not want to give signals that suggest that drug taking is—

Mr. George Howarth

That is what doing that would do.

Mr. Hughes

No, it would not. Setting up a constitutional body of the type that exists in the United States, Sweden and other countries does not mean that it would give us a different answer. It would simply review the evidence on a regular basis and give Parliament the opportunity to decide what to do. For the moment, I am not persuaded that the law ought to be changed, and that is my party's position.

Mr. Howarth

I realise that the hon. Gentleman has a difficult position to defend, but if one established a royal commission to carry out the functions that he described, that would be admitting at the very least the possibility that, if it concluded that cannabis should be legalised or decriminalised, that conclusion would be acceptable. I am not prepared to sign up to that proposition and nor is the Leader of the House. I gather that the hon. Gentleman is hoping that, if the body were established, it would not come up with that conclusion. To be honest, there are a lot of inconsistencies in what he is saying.

Mr. Hughes

Those who read the report of the debate can make their own judgment. I do not think that there are inconsistencies. There are committees on broadcasting standards and on all sorts of other areas of public life. They act independently and give advice. I do not know why we are so nervous on this issue. There are different academic, scientific and medical views.

Mr. Flynn

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Hughes

No.

Mr. Flynn

My vote is in the balance.

Mr. Hughes

I know that the hon. Gentleman is a constituent of mine, but if I have not won his vote by now, I shall probably not win it by the next election.

Does criminalising and prosecuting producers and sellers imply that users should be dealt with in the same way? Does one benefit from calling the users criminals? Does one benefit from calling prostitutes criminals? Those are real questions. One has to be honest, and it is not necessarily helpful to put people into different categories.

Finally, as is recognised on both sides of the House, education is the way forward, particularly that of young people at school. More than anything else, I must commend the section of the POST report that makes what we need to do so clear. It states: Children learn most about drugs from Television, next most important are friends", with school education coming third. It points out that youth culture, such as advertising and magazines, is the way to get through to children. As has been said, we cannot win by saying that drugs are dangerous, because young people want to take risks, so that argument is not a winner.

The Health Education Authority got it absolutely right in its drugs campaign last year, by dealing with the health implications. Sixty-one per cent. of drug users say that worries about health are the biggest reason to stop using drugs. The HEA publicity: The most dangerous thing about drugs is what you don't know about them. is the way to win the argument. That is a very effective campaign.

I have been playing around with other slogans. The best that I could come up with—I apologise for the plagiarism—was, "Ask not whether you should do drugs, ask rather what drugs could do to you." That is the issue. It is a question of giving young people the education, so that they can decide.

I hope that we can build up the resources and effectiveness of the Health Education Authority, which did a good job under the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler) when AIDS and HIV were thought to be a big risk; we have become complacent about those problems and we need to build up that campaign again. We need effective campaigning on television and big posters using simple advertisements that do not say no to drugs but ask the sort of questions that young people can ask themselves. By way of a postscript, I believe that the dance industry has suffered. There could be a supplementary poster that said, "Raves yes, drugs no." Not everyone who goes dancing at weekends wants or uses drugs. It is a proper recreational activity from which drugs do not necessarily follow.

It is clear that social policy is relevant. The more that young people have jobs and training, and feel valued and wanted, the less they will need to find escape. I strongly support the Prime Minister's initiative to maximise opportunities for sport and recreation. The more healthy activity that young people can take part in, the better. That includes dance, a popular and worthwhile activity for people of all ages.

I represent a constituency as urban as that of the hon. Member for Knowsley, North, and he was right that the bane of the lives of many council estate residents—and I represent more of them than any other English Member—is the groups of young people who say that they are bored and have nothing to do. They are not necessarily into drugs, but they may get into them. They then become anti-social, threatening and difficult to control. They need sport and recreational opportunities to take the football, basketball and hanging around away from the middle of estates. I ask that we add to the money that we give the youth service and not only that given to big sports projects, but that given to Sports Council-funded projects in urban estates. I am about to put in such a bid for my area. We need to win the battle at the grass-roots, not nationally.

Customs and Excise needs to be supported. There have been moments when it has not felt supported. Its headquarters is in my constituency, though it has not briefed me for the debate. As the hon. Member for Knowsley, North said, as with many other matters, whatever we do nationally, it is difficult to influence the worldwide pattern because of international trends. We need effective Customs and Excise activity.

The police and the prisons need our support. I agree with the aim of making prisons drug-free. Prison is not very effective in dealing with drugs. The Americans have learned that locking people up is more expensive than dealing with them outside prison. Prison allows drugs to be spread around. I have two propositions. First, the Leader of the House and the Home Office should consider recycling the drug profits seized under the powers that the Government put through Parliament into dealing with drugs, by linking them to drug rehabilitation or education.

Secondly, the Government should examine the idea of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile), who leads for us on home affairs, for drug courts. That again involves American experience. They would take drugs crime out of the common court system—47 per cent. of drugs issues go to court rather than being dealt with elsewhere by cautions or suspended or deferred sentences. If such cases could be dealt with more imaginatively and effectively, we would make progress.

This is a valuable debate, which I hope that we can have every year. I commend the Leader of the House and his Cabinet Sub-Committee. I hope that we can get the maximum agreement. I am grateful that we almost managed to get through without silly party political games. There are differences of view, but they are less important than the general desire to get the message across. Hindus say that we are created with bodies capable of working without artificial stimulants. The fewer drugs we use, the better.

11.43 am

Dr. Charles Goodson-Wickes (Wimbledon)

The hon. Gentleman finished with two interesting points. Knowing the tortuous business of the hypothecation of funds, I shall be interested in the Government's reaction to the recycling of funds derived from drug crimes.

It would have been all too easy for the cynics to condemn the publication of "Tackling Drugs Together" as mere posturing: the sort of document that many Departments would put their names to, after which precious little would be done. The reverse has been the case. Once again, the Government have pioneered a brave and far-sighted initiative for which they have received minimal recognition and thanks outside the House. I was fascinated by the arguments put forward so coherently by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, and I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Knowsley, North (Mr. Howarth) for the balanced way in which he endorsed my right hon. Friend's sensible proposals, which are being tackled on a cross-party basis.

In my constituency, the police, acting in close co-operation with the drug action team, could hardly have adopted the Government's policies with greater enthusiasm. Their success has been endorsed and encouraged by visits in the past few weeks by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, as co-ordinator of Government policy, and by my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary. They have seen at first hand the added value of agencies talking and working together: the police, health authorities, schools, the probation service and the voluntary sector. For once, the whole picture is being seen in the round and the best strategies have been followed.

There have been three major themes: enforcement, education and treatment. Enforcement, as we know, has concentrated on tackling dealing and trafficking. Education has involved parents, teachers and governors and has extended, I am delighted to say, into licensed premises—the pubs and clubs. Treatment has broken away from the old cycle of the criminal system circulating offenders round and round so that counselling and referral to caring authorities happens sooner rather than later.

In the wider context, I suspect that we and our successors will be discussing the best way of tackling the menace of drug abuse for many years to come. The constant need to educate and warn young people of the threats that drugs pose to their health, livelihoods and happiness will never change. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House referred to the youth awareness scheme that he witnessed in Merton.

At this stage of our battle against the increasing trend of drug use, it is profoundly misguided to float the idea of legalisation of some drugs or, to use the current euphemism, decriminalisation. How on earth can the bodies brought together by the Government's efforts send out a clear and coherent message if they are undermined by arguments, beguiling though they may be academically, from certain quarters of Westminster and the media?

Mr. Flynn

The Dutch Government claim in a letter to me that their policies have reduced soft drug use among Dutch people and reduced the number of hard drug addicts. Can the hon. Gentleman give any examples of the policies that he has described resulting in a decrease in drug use?

Dr. Goodson-Wickes

I link the hon. Gentleman's question to the position of the editor of the British Medical Journal, which is not an organ that I would normally criticise. His editorial of 23 December last year is headed, "The War on Drugs: Prohibition is not working; some legislation will help". I suggest that the hon. Gentleman and I discuss this during a health debate, but I put on record that I wholly reject that editorial and all it stands for. I endorse what my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said earlier to my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland).

Mr. Flynn

rose—

Dr. Goodson-Wickes

I shall not give way again yet.

The education of potential consumers and the victims of drugs will never be the whole answer. The production of crops, their processing and distribution of the resultant drugs will continue as long as there are markets anywhere in the world. In the past few months, I have found it increasingly depressing to visit countries that grow coca and poppies, where I have heard about well-meaning, fashionable but flawed schemes of crop substitution. It is all very well to spray vast areas of Pakistan or Peru to kill the crops on which workers on that land depend, usually at subsistence level, and then to try to persuade them to grow other products with the help of subsidies or otherwise. The truth is that the more one asks about the financial viability of those substitute crops, the less firm evidence one gets of any sustained as opposed to short-term success.

I never cease to be amazed at the adaptability of agricultural practices. In many parts of south America, for example, the most likely example of crop substitution—the ultimate irony—is poppies for coca plants. That is paradoxical in the extreme and hardly the intent of the Drug Enforcement Agency and other well-meaning organisations. How very convenient that, as the demand for cocaine decreases in the United States, heroin is now more readily available on its doorstep instead of coming virtually exclusively from Asia.

I visited Lagos a few weeks ago. In the 1980s, the Nigerians were renowned for spearheading and employing high-risk-taking couriers, the so-called swallowers and stuffers. They have now set up their own sophisticated distribution organisations, with increased emphasis on maritime routes rather than air routes. Those new organisations stretch almost from the fields of Bolivia to the streets of Europe. A few years ago, who would have thought that one of the most profitable routes would be from Sao Paulo in Brazil to Moscow, of all places. Consider what opportunities lead from that.

The collapse of the Soviet empire has provided drug traders with enormous opportunities. Lorries can now pass westwards across Europe, unfettered by tiresome border controls and security checks. As if they wished to give them a fair wind, some of our continental partners set up Schengen-land, a licence for easy smuggling, if ever there was one. One of the great issues of the next few years will be ever-increasing economic migration in western Europe. Any parallel movement of drugs could hardly be more unwelcome and dangerous. I trust that the Government will continue to resist with great vigour any lowering of our historic and geographical frontiers, which act as some defence against those unwelcome trends.

I congratulate the Government on all their unsung work in various parts of the world, ranging from international co-operation in security operations in south America to tracking controlled deliveries around the world. That work is aimed at combating the drugs menace. I urge my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary to ensure that at the current intergovernmental conference, despite all the distractions and contentious issues of which we are all aware, the fight against drugs is not neglected and is given the prominence that it so badly needs, for the good of all our citizens.

11.53 am

Mr. Paul Flynn (Newport, West)

The great heresy of our age and of our generation is the belief that all the problems of boredom, pain, discomfort and grief can be answered by the use of drugs. Humankind has continued for thousands of years without their use, but we have accepted the great heresy implicit in the use of not just the illegal drugs mentioned today, but all drugs.

Dr. Goodson-Wickes

I find that a most extraordinary statement. As the hon. Gentleman knows I am a physician and for thousands of years drugs have been used for medicinal purposes. To begin his thesis with such a statement is a rather bad start to his speech.

Mr. Flynn

The hon. Gentleman speaks for Upjohn, the pharmaceutical company, which provides part of his income, as he has rightly declared.

Let me cite the example of a drug that has been used for 5,000 years, a drug that was used by the people who built the pyramids. They discovered, by experiment, that it helped their eye problems. It has only been in the past 30 years that scientists have discovered that that drug in its natural form—not in its chemical form—reduces the pressure on the inner eye and thus gives great relief to the sufferers of glaucoma. That drug is cannabis and yet its use is forbidden to those who suffer not just from glaucoma but from multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy and the nausea associated with chemotherapy. The House has decided that that should be so.

During our previous debate on this subject, I brought with me to the House three such notorious criminals. One was Carol Howard, who gave cannabis to her daughter Sara. I should stress that that is spelt without an "h"—the Welsh way—because her mother was rather upset to see the anglicised version in Hansard. Sara, aged 28, was dying from a rare form of cancer and the only drug that gave her any relief from the nausea caused by chemotherapy was cannabis. I accept that there were plenty of other drugs available on the national health service, but they turned her into a zombie, whereas cannabis allowed her to express her thoughts freely in her dying days. Her mother rightly gave that drug to her, as any of us would have done, but she was exposed and could have been thrown into gaol and fined £2,500.

One of the other criminals was a lady suffering from multiple sclerosis who found that the only relief for her terrible problems came from cannabis. The other lady was in her 60s and suffering from cerebral palsy. She finds that cannabis gives her great relief. She grows it in her garage and keeps her spliffs in a silver cigarette box near to a picture of Queen Victoria, who used cannabis every month of her adult life to ease her menstrual cramps.

We are now in the silly position of telling young people that there are two sorts of drugs. There are those that are bad, wicked and do a great deal of harm, and others that are somehow acceptable and legal, although harmful. That is not true. We have opened a great gulf between our generation and young people. There is as much truth in what we are telling them about drugs as in the myths that we and previous generations were told about masturbation and blindness, and stories about the tooth fairy and Father Christmas. We are lying to young people and we are not doing any good in reducing the amount of drugs that they take.

I speak as a chemist, and the only drug that I take is a glass of wine or a pint of beer. All hon. Members know that I am a lifelong sufferer from arthritis, but I have not used any medicinal drug for 25 years. I hope to end my days without using any such drugs because, as my own Member of Parliament, the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) has said, we take far too many of them.

What we have said about Ecstasy is misleading and must be corrected. We should know the truth about it. Ecstasy deaths are a peculiarly British problem. There may have been isolated deaths in other countries, but no other country has witnessed as many deaths as we have. If we wish to understand why Ecstasy deaths occur, we should look at the results of post-mortems. I advise any young person to steer clear of Ecstasy and never to use it. It marinates the brain in serotonin and it destroys receptors in the brain for a long period, although they will be corrected. If people use it, they are carrying out a dangerous experiment with their brain.

A month ago, I spoke to an audience of some 500 young people in London and I said those very things. Of that audience, 98 per cent. put up their hands and said that they had used Ecstasy. They will continue that because of the culture behind it and the fact that they like the companionship in the use of Ecstasy, which many people have spoken about movingly.

What is the truth about Ecstasy's dangers? We do not know the long-term danger. It is a chemical drug that has been around only for a short time in our experience, but deaths have occurred for two reasons. The first deaths occurred because of over-heating. The post-mortem results were the same as post-mortem results on death by heat stroke. There was damage to the liver and so on.

The drug also destroys the body's natural defence mechanisms. People do not worry about the heat. They behave in repetitive ways and, because of that, they ignore the normal signals. More recent deaths, however, have happened because of water, as has been mentioned in the debate. Sadly, the deaths occurred after advice that I would give my own children. I have two teenagers, who do not take drugs. I know that because it is not part of their peer group. Other people in the town do and I give them the same advice. If their child had a problem with Ecstasy, all parents would give him or her water.

Sadly, children have been killed by water because Ecstasy prevents the kidneys from working in the normal way, discharging excess water from the body. If they are not dancing in a hot place or if they are not sweating, they do not lose the water. If they take too much water, however, the brain swells and they die. Tragically, that has happened in a number of recent cases.

Mr. Simon Hughes

Does the hon. Gentleman agree—I assume that he does—that one of the ways in which we can have the least adverse short-term effects for people who go to clubs and who might be tempted to get into the habit of using drugs is to have a licensing system for clubs that requires them to have proper ventilation and water supply, as some local authorities have begun to do?

Mr. Flynn

We must accept that. That is my theme: harm reduction. We are fooling ourselves if any of us believe that we will stop illegal or legal drug use. The best that we can achieve, as politicians, is to ensure the least harmful results from drugs. There should be chill-out rooms. People should not take the drug alone. They should take water, but no more than a pint an hour.

We all feel the same about the case over which there was so much publicity and we all want to say to that family how much we sympathise with them and want to give them a hug. There is no worse bereavement than the untimely death of a young healthy child. That grief will live with the families for ever. It is not, however, the only death involved. That death would have been avoidable, with proper, timely medical advice and if people realised the danger of taking water.

I quoted earlier the figure of 54 deaths in which Ecstasy was mentioned as a possible cause. One was a recent death involving a young girl—also the daughter of a policeman—who took one and a half Ecstasy tablets and between 20 to 30 co-proxamol tablets, which would have killed her four times over. She also took an unknown quantity of alcohol.

There is no question that that girl died from the co-proxamol tablets. She took three times the lethal dose. The "Today" programme said that the death was due to Ecstasy, which was unlikely. The case would be included in the 54 deaths.

Thirty-four people have died from Ecstasy use alone. There has been only one death in Holland. In most countries there have been no deaths. This is a particularly British problem because of the way in which the rave culture has developed in overheated rooms without ventilation or chill-out areas. We will not reduce those deaths by telling people not to take Ecstasy. They will not listen to us. What we say to them is distorted. We will do it by asking them to take proper precautions. Nor will they take any notice of what we are saying about many other drugs.

The best thing we can say about prisons today is that we have one gaol out of the hundred plus in this country which is almost drug free. We can have a programme that achieves five drug-free prisons. Gaols are closed communities with great walls outside and with people being searched on their way in and every gaol in Britain is awash with illegal drug use. It is endemic in almost every prison. Prisoners can choose which drugs to have. They have a range to pick from. If we fail to control drug use in prisons, how on earth can we succeed in reducing it or controlling it in clubs and schools?

As the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey said, driving the use of drugs is not the fact that it is enjoyable or wicked, but profit. The black market is making money out of drugs. All the way from the fields in Colombia to the school gate, someone gets a cut in the pyramid selling of drugs. As my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North said, market forces are behind it. Our aim should be to collapse the drug black market, to accept that drug use is inevitable, and to find out how best to control it.

I have never advocated decriminalising any drugs except cannabis for medical use, but, at the end of the royal commission, we will see not paradise on earth or a drug-free Britain, drugs distributed by doctors in a proper way or by businesses that can be vigorously controlled. It is not a perfect system. The way in which alcohol is distributed is far from perfect. We should have more limits on the sale of alcohol, but we will not stop drugs getting into the hands of people who are most affected by them.

There are two vulnerable groups. I heard a Minister say that, if we decriminalise drugs, school children can get hold of them. Where is he living? Hardly one school child in this country cannot get hold of drugs. If it happens under a different regime and a licensed seller of drugs was found to be giving a drug to children or to another vulnerable group—such as schizophrenics or people suffering from mental illness—he would lose his licence. There is a good chance of reducing harm under that system.

The Leader of the House gave a selective quote about Holland, but the view of the Dutch Government is different. The view of a right-wing think tank published by the Institute of Economic Affairs was different. It said that the Dutch experience had resulted in two important changes. One was the reduction in the use of soft drugs, cannabis and Ecstasy among young people, principally because it becomes boring and it is not glamorous, sexy, thrilling or illegal. That is what happens when it becomes a legal activity. The other change was to separate young people who were taking soft drugs from the hard drug market.

In this country, anyone who has to use drugs will have to cross the boundary of legality into the world of illegality. They will be exposed not just to soft drug, but hard drug pushers. That is where the danger lies.

Mr. Spring

Let me tell the hon. Gentleman just a bit more about the place that he so greatly admires—Holland. The net result is that cannabis is infinitely stronger than 20 or 30 years ago. There are now variants of cannabis that cause hallucinations and psychiatric disorders. It is all produced in Amsterdam, which, as a result of this absurd liberal policy, is the place for exporting problems throughout Europe. It is a disgrace.

Mr. Flynn

The hon. Gentleman is wrong, but I will not take him up on the details of where cannabis is produced. There is skunk cannabis now, which is much more potent than the other types. It does produce hallucinations. [Interruption.] Let us consider the evidence. I am not suggesting that anyone should take cannabis. People should avoid it, as they should avoid all drugs—that is my constant theme—but let us consider the relative harm that it does.

Those people who are using cannabis in Holland now are not using hard drugs. The average age of the hard drug user has increased to the late twenties from the early twenties.

Mr. Spring

indicated dissent.

Mr. Flynn

Well, consider the decisions of the Dutch Government. Ask the Dutch embassy to provide information; it is happy to do so. It says passionately that the policy has worked for Holland, but of course it is not perfect. The problem is that Holland, acting on its own, is attracting abusers of drugs from all countries.

Let us put this in context. How many people does cannabis kill? Will the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Spring) tell me how many people have died from the use of skunk cannabis? The figure is easy to remember—zero. No one has been poisoned by cannabis abuse. It is almost impossible to be. It is a substance that has been used for 3,000 years at least, it is less poisonous than aspirin, and it leaves people in a benign state. I could give the figures for the other drugs. Heroin kills—

Mr. Spring

I dispute entirely what the hon. Gentleman is saying, because I have spoken to drugs professionals and their emphatic view is that those young people who may be prone to schizophrenia or similar mental disorders, who take a strong cannabis-like drug like skunk, can be driven into more extreme cases of mental disorder and possible suicide.

Mr. Flynn

I do not dispute that. I am only giving the figures that the Government provide. Of course all drugs are harmful. The number of people per year killed by cannabis is zero; by Ecstasy, seven; and by heroin, 100. The Government figure for paracetamol is 200; interestingly, the latest Library figure is 580. For all medicinal drugs, the figure is 2,500; for alcohol, up to 40,000; and for cigarettes, 100,000.

I know that those figures are crude because different numbers take each drug, but they show us the hypocrisy behind what we are saying. When we say to young people, "You have this drug that binds you together as a community in your rave culture," and we preach to them, as was said this morning from the Front Bench, that our message is that drug use is bad, and we say it possibly from one of the 15 bars in the House, with a cigarette in one hand, a glass of whisky in the other and a couple of paracetamol in our pocket for our headaches, it is right that they turn to us and say, "Hypocrite!" All drug use is bad—it is all damaging—but because, as a generation, we have accepted certain drugs of abuse ourselves, our view of what is happening with young people becomes distorted.

We have got ourselves into a hopeless mess with the prison system. Two defendants from Gwent faced court charges and were found guilty, for the second and third time, of very serious offences and their barristers, in different courts, on different days, with different defendants, eight months apart, put up the defence, "This person cannot be sent to gaol because, if he is, he might fall into the habits that he did last time of becoming a heroin addict." In both cases, the courts decided that that person should not go to gaol, and they got away with lighter sentences in the community.

What an extraordinary indictment it is that drug abusers get away without gaol sentences because we cannot control drug use in prisons. The answer that was given from the Front Bench this morning is not the answer. There is a great deal of tolerance of cannabis use in prisons, and the reason is that when people are on the "wacky baccy" they are quiet, passive and easy to handle. If they are on alcohol, they are violent and abusive.

A case that made me angry recently was that of three soldiers who had served heroically in Bosnia as part of a human shield and had been decorated for it. They were in Chepstow, in Gwent, when a search was made and some cannabis was discovered, and they were dismissed from the Army. I asked some questions about how the Army had reacted to these cases and how many soldiers had been thrown out as a result of drug abuse cases. Extraordinarily, in one year, 458 people serving in the three armed forces were dismissed for involvement with drugs, mostly soft drugs. How many were dismissed for alcohol use? The figure was 13 in that period.

We all know the reality of service life. I know the reality of my father's experience because he served in the—

Lady Olga Maitland

The hon. Gentleman somewhat goaded me into asking him this question when he referred to soldiers being dismissed for taking drugs. Does not he understand that, in the armed forces, one must have an utterly disciplined force or people would be incapable of carrying out their duties? Surely he is not saying that he would tolerate serving soldiers going out on their duties high on drugs?

Mr. Flynn

I would say that it is a disciplined force and that the persons involved deserve to be disciplined. They deserve the slap across the knuckles; they deserve whatever punishment may be meted out. I doubt whether they deserve exactly the same sentence from the Army as the three soldiers who beat to death a defenceless Danish girl with a spade in Cyprus.

Lady Olga Maitland

There is no parallel between the Cyprus sentences and drugs.

Mr. Flynn

That was what the Army's sentence was. There were other sentences available.

Let us reflect on that case. Those three soldiers had been drinking wine or beer that night. The result was that they ended up lecherous and violent and attacked that poor girl and took her life from her. Let us put it another way. If they had been among the three soldiers in my constituency who had been on cannabis, they would have been, not in a violent or lecherous mood, but in a benign, passive mood as many of the prisoners are in this country, and that girl's life would have been spared because they would not have been in that mood. That is a case that one can contemplate about the way in which the Army treats people.

The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) talks about a disciplined force. I remember my father telling me vivid stories about the first world war, where only two things were in supply in special abundance—alcohol and cigarettes. The troops were short of food of all types, but they had an infinite amount of alcohol and cigarettes. So many of those soldiers who came back suffered from alcohol problems all their life, including an uncle of mine, and my father died of lung cancer at the age of 43, not coincidentally.

Our society is now soft on the major problems that those drugs cause. We have a Minister who is not present at the moment. He complained because I intervened on him so often, but I anticipated that he might well not be here for much of my speech, because there are people in the House, of all parties, who use this awful drug called cigarettes. I speak with some sympathy, as an ex-addict, and I use the term rightly because nicotine is the most addictive of all drugs.

Dr. Goodson-Wickes

indicated dissent.

Mr. Flynn

I will refer the hon. Gentleman to a table published in The Guardian some months ago and the British Medical Journal articles, which show that tobacco is the most addictive drug.

Let us consider the harm done by the pharmaceutical drugs. I wonder whether the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Dr. Goodson-Wickes) read New Scientist three weeks ago, which gave an account of the causes of a simple problem that most people have—headaches. It suggested that the main cause of headaches was painkillers taken to cure headaches. That is an entirely respectable scientific opinion—that we are conditioned to take drugs in large quantities to great excess.

I rejoiced yesterday when Asda Group plc was told that its campaign to make some drugs, principally paracetamol, available at cut price in its supermarkets had been frustrated because the Independent Television Commission had decided to forbid its advertisement being shown on television. There are murmurs coming from Conservative Members. Let us consider paracetamol and the minimum accepted number of deaths—250 a year. It is normally young girls between the ages of 15 and 18 who die of that drug, often at a time in their lives when they have taken two or three tablets as a pain killer. The pain does not go away, so they take two or three more; the pain still does not go away, so they take a handful and irreversible damage is done.

In Pontefract a group of people involved in health decided to send a 12-year-old girl to buy a specific drug. It asked her to buy 50 tablets. She visited, not just chemists, but supermarkets and garages. She had no difficulty buying 50 tablets—a fatal dose that would have been enough to kill her three or four times over—but had difficulty in not buying 100 because several of the outlets tried to persuade her to buy 100.

So many drugs are killers and are now freely available. If one believes the Government, paracetamol kills twice as many people every year as heroin, if one believes the Library, it kills about six times as many people. I have long advocated that that medicinal drug should be available only on prescription. The Government will not adopt that policy and, as recently as one month ago, they refused to do so again. That illustrates the confusion about drugs that exists in the House.

Why does not prohibition work? It never has worked. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have made speeches that were full of the schemes, including education schemes, and activities that exist and that they want to introduce. I do not question their sincerity today and their feeling that they want to take the right action. I asked the hon. Member for Wimbledon, but he failed to answer, to tell me of occasions when such schemes had worked and had led to a reduction in drug use. There are plenty of activities and schemes.

I had similar correspondence with the Minister of State for Education and Employment. He said that the answer lay in education. I asked him to supply me with details of any education on illegal drugs anywhere in the world that had ever resulted in a reduction in drug use.

Mr. Spring

The hon. Gentleman is making an extraordinary point. If people prevent themselves from falling ill through eating sensibly or not drinking excessively, there is no way in which one can determine the number of heart attacks or strokes that would otherwise have occurred—that is the nature of prevention.

Canada has been operating a national strategy for a number of years. The Canadians feel that, during that time, as a result of the emphasis that they have placed on prevention, they have been able demonstrably to measure the decrease in the consumption of illegal drugs.

Mr. Flynn

The hon. Gentleman's evidence is pretty weak. He says that the Canadians believe that they can demonstrably measure. I do not know those figures, but I have challenged the Government to produce figures and they have not produced any in a long time.

I can provide examples—the major example involves what occurred in America in the 1950s—of drug education causing harm. In the 1950s the Americans decided to confine illegal drug abuse to major cities. Their answer was to send teams of anti-drug campaigners out into the plains; those teams consisted of mostly long-haired, ex-drug users with guitars. They went round the schools in America singing attractive songs about not taking drugs. The young people saw those ex-drug users as role models—as people who had gone through the system and come out the other side. As a result, the young people found that they had a way of challenging their parents' generation and a means of expressing their wish to flirt with risk—as all young people do. Drug misuse by those young people followed the campaign as surely as night follows day.

Hon. Members on both sides of the House have said that we have wonderful campaigns—I agree that they are far better than imprisonment. But cannot the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds see that what is mocking today's speeches—as it mocked last year's debate on the subject and will mock next year's—is the fact that drug use is greater now than it has ever been. It was greater last year than the year before that and it will be even greater next year. Everything that we do does not work—the British Medical Journal is absolutely right: prohibition is not working.

I asked my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North (Mr. Howarth) about cigarettes. We all know the evils of cigarettes—anyone who has smoked cigarettes knows, from the effect on their bodies, what that does to them. The statistics show that 100,000 people a year die from cigarettes. We know the problems caused by alcohol—3 per cent. of cancers are caused by alcohol. We can consider the differences between the effects of different activities: seven deaths a year are caused by Ecstasy; there are eight deaths from alcohol every two hours, but we carry on using it and we try to control it. If my hon. Friend believes in prohibition—if he thinks that it is working and it is the way to tackle all drug use—why not prohibit cigarettes? We all know what would happen. There would be a repeat of what happened in America: when alcohol was prohibited for 13 years, the statistics showed reductions in consumption in the early stages because alcohol was not available, but within a short time, there were 20,000 speakeasies in Chicago alone. The result was increased drunkenness, increased amounts of adulterated, poisonous alcohol, increased deaths from alcohol and increased problems because of its unknown strength and quality. That is precisely the current position with illegal drugs.

Mr. Fabricant

What is the hon. Gentleman arguing? Is he saying that the condition of all drugs, both illegal and legal, is the same? He is saying, is he not, that tobacco smoking is just as dangerous as the use of other drugs—I agree with him on that. Is he saying that, as he believes that there is no effective way of stopping people taking drugs and that prohibition of drugs does not work, he would legalise all drugs? Is that what he is saying?

Mr. Flynn

I am not saying that. I am saying—as I have always said, although some people claim that I have asked for the legalisation of drugs—that I want a royal commission. To broaden the debate, may I say that by the time that it comes into force it will be a people's commission. As things are at the moment, public opinion is so steeped in prejudice and ignorance on the subject that that is not a practical proposition. I am asking for us to return to the position that we were in in 1971, when cannabis was prescribed for the use of certain illnesses—that is the sort of legalisation for which I am asking.

I believe that we will come to a decision in the future—probably early in the next century, when we will have a clear view of the dangers of all drugs and will put them into some sort of hierarchy of danger. We will limit their sales and control their use in order to reduce their harm.

We have problems now with prohibition. The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds gave us part of the case for prohibition. I point out to him that there is one doctor in this country who has been prescribing heroin. He did not treat heroin addicts with methadone which—this may surprise the hon. Gentleman—has killed more people than heroin; the medicine is worse than the problem itself. He treated them by prescribing heroin. His patients could get heroin from the health service immediately, which decriminalised them. They did not have to steal £100 to £300 a week to feed the habit, so crime went down. They did not feel that crime was the only answer. Many of the 200 to 300 people in that doctor's care rehabilitated themselves because they were not under pressure as they had been before. They knew where the drug was coming from and many of them went back to work.

Unfortunately, the doctor's clinic has now been closed and the patients have gone back to prostitution and theft. They have had to go back on the streets to buy heroin of uncertain quality and strength. Sixteen of them are now dead. Those are the two possibilities. Either heroin is obtainable through a black market system, which is deadly and increases crime and death, or it is available through a system of regulation in which the strength and purity of the product can be known and in which people can live relatively normal lives and have a real chance of rehabilitation.

Hon. Members on both sides are saying that they believe in prohibition. My argument is that prohibition does not work—[Interruption.] Is the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds trying to intervene?

Mr. Spring

I am waiting for the hon. Gentleman to finish.

Mr. Flynn

I am surprised that no one wants to intervene on this point. I can tell the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds, who seems to be angry about the matter, that I am concluding the introduction to my remarks. I hoped that the Leader of the House would return. I am sure that he has gone to have a quick fix from one of his cigarettes; he is a smoker. I say that with some—[Interruption.] Hon. Members should see that tobacco use is an addiction, that nicotine is a drug and that it is the most deadly one we have to face. Not only do we throw people into gaol for using cannabis, which is a relatively harmless drug, but we spend £100 million trying to persuade people to use tobacco.

Conservative Members may well recall that during the election campaign, Imperial Tobacco gave poster sites to the Conservative party. The company told me in a letter that it did that because the Conservative party was the only one that did not intend to impose a ban on tobacco advertising. The Conservative party colludes with the drug pushers of nicotine while it condemns others.

A drug worker in Cardiff told me recently, pointing to the absurdity of the present situation, that a father came with some concern to the drug abuse clinic. He complained that his young son was spending his Saturday nights reading poetry and smoking a cannabis joint. His father wanted him to go out every Saturday night, as he did, and to do the macho thing of drinking 15 pints. There is a great deal of difference between those alternatives.

In our previous debate, the Under-Secretary of State for Health said that one of the derivatives of cannabis should be made available as a medicine. Naboline and Dronabinol are now available; they are very similar. The path that we are going down is dangerous. We know that cannabis is a highly complex substance consisting of at least 65 main elements. We do not know what the reactions between those elements are and it may be that one derivative neutralises another. It is dangerous to go down the path of extracting chemical products rather than using a natural substance that has been around for a long time.

I appeal to the Minister to look again at all the people who are now breaking the law for themselves or for their relatives because taking cannabis is the only way in which they can find relief from painful illnesses. We know that the reason for opposition to cannabis is not entirely medical. We know that the Government and the official Opposition realise that there are great harvests of votes to be gained from quarrying the great cliffs of ignorance and prejudice in society, although not among young people. I am afraid that that is the view of both sides.

Mr. George Howarth

I do not think that those remarks are worthy of my hon. Friend.

Mr. Flynn

I refer my hon. Friend to what happened some time ago in a by-election. One candidate shared my views. He wanted an intelligent debate on cannabis and all other drug use and wanted a royal commission to consider practical methods of harm reduction. Unfortunately, my party denounced that person and presented our candidate differently. The decision of the electorate meant that the Liberal Democrat candidate was elected after he had been found in possession of an intelligent idea and the Labour candidate was rejected for implausible sanctity on the subject of drugs.

The House, made up as it is of politicians of a certain generation, should be warned that a whole electorate of young people outside have far more experience than any of us have of the use of recreational drugs of choice. Those young people have become alienated from the political process. They realise that what we say about drugs is not true and when they stop believing us on that subject, they stop believing us on many others.

I share all the genuine and sincere anxiety that has been expressed in the House about the thousands of deaths that occur every year as a result of drug misuse. Our policies are not rational at the moment. We must examine successful cases and we must not continue to repeat the failures of the past. Wars on drugs have gone on all this century in every country. Virtually none of them has produced a reduction in drugs. For goodness sake, let us have an open, rational debate about reducing the harm caused by all drugs, legal and illegal.

12.36 pm

Mr. Richard Spring (Bury St. Edmunds)

All those who heard the speech by my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council will have been impressed by the extraordinary way in which he has taken on his brief and moved forward the agenda for tackling drug abuse in this country. He has done so with characteristic modesty and self-effacement, but I salute him for his accomplishments today on behalf of all of those who have taken an interest in the subject. The subject has also been taken on by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and his approach has worked extremely well in moving forward the agenda.

I also wish to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Mr. Rathbone) because he sought to highlight the real dangers of drugs misuse for many years before it became such a central focus of interest in Parliament, through the central drugs co-ordination unit. I salute him for his unsung work over the years.

My right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council referred to the fact that a real attempt is being made throughout the United Kingdom to tackle the growing, difficult and intractable problem of drugs misuse. My right hon. Friend might be interested to learn that the Northern Ireland Select Committee is examining the question of drugs misuse in the Province, which has become an especial problem, not only because of the significant drug problems in Dublin, but because of the terrorists' activities and their desire to make money.

We know that a structure has been put in place, and I wish, by way of example, to refer to our experience in Suffolk and to examine whether the White Paper has had the intended impact in local communities. How, for example, are the drug action teams in the various parts of England working in practice?

The hon. Member for Knowsley, North (Mr. Howarth) made some interesting and salient observations. I may not have made myself clear earlier, but I am strongly opposed to any kind of decriminalisation. It is sad, however, that the hon. Gentleman's salient comments were not heard by more of his colleagues. It is regrettable that, apart from the hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn), no other Labour Members of Parliament are present in the Chamber, especially as we are debating what is probably the most crucial social problem of our time.

The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) talked about the prevalence of drug use. The use of cannabis was mentioned in the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology report, which was released in May. It stated: Cannabis is more likely to be used frequently, with 9 per cent. of all cannabis users reporting daily use, and 14 per cent. taking it several times a week. The health implications, particularly for cancer, are alarming. It continued: With Ecstasy, LSD and amphetamines users, very few take these drugs daily. but 20 per cent. take them more than monthly. That is an alarming statistic. The report continued: Of those who have tried cannabis, I in 10 develop some form of psychological dependence syndrome. This is not some sort of safe drug. It continued: Significant numbers are reporting experience with more than one illegal drug". It is not true that there is not some sort of a changeover between different kinds of drugs.

Mr. Flynn

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Spring

No, not at this stage—I shall give way later. Despite some of the sensible observations of the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey, I thought that there was a bit of parliamentary snake oil activity on his part. We know that the Liberal Democrats effectively called for the decriminalisation of cannabis at their 1994 conference. They came out with this fudge—they did not know what to do, so they talked about a royal commission. It has now moved along because of the effect of the national strategy and it is now supposedly a more all-encompassing agency. It is a fudge, and all hon. Members recognise it for what it is.

I refer to criminality. The Department of Health task force review on services to drug misusers pointed out that the 1,110 drug misusers included in the national treatment outcome research study committed 70,000 crimes, costing victims £34 million, in the two years before they had treatment—that is five crimes per person per week. We have heard that something like 70 per cent. of youth crime is directly or indirectly linked to drugs.

Even if we put aside the health and moral issues surrounding drugs, we can see that their impact on society includes attacks on people and an upsurge in burglary. A free national helpline was set up and it received 192,755 calls in its first year—that underlines the concern of parents and others in the community about drugs.

My personal odyssey in learning about drugs misuse started in my constituency only a few months after I became a Member of Parliament. I was approached by the general practitioners in Newmarket who were concerned about drugs misuse, particularly that of amphetamines. They felt that the key elements of the local community were not working together effectively—they included the police, social services, the probation service, general practitioners and others. They felt that I, as a Member of Parliament, could play some sort of role.

I created a drugs task force in Newmarket. What has happened since the evolution of the drugs task force is interesting. We have sought to prevent drugs misuse in part by taking on three youth outreach workers who go into the town at night to talk to young people about any subject, including their problems. I have accompanied those outreach workers, who are an impressive group of people. They are extremely approachable.

To answer the point raised by the hon. Member for Newport, West, of course we cannot measure the effect in that small community of having those three youth outreach workers in terms of preventing people from taking drugs, but it certainly seems to be a sensible way of handling the problem. All the feedback that I have heard from the outreach workers suggests that young people with real problems find them approachable and can talk to them. As a result, some may have decided not to get involved in drugs.

Sadly, however, drugs misuse continues to grow. Despite some important and helpful moves in the Newmarket community, there has been a growing incidence of heroin addiction. A similar task force has been set up in the main town in my constituency, Bury St. Edmunds. How we can imaginatively address the interests of young people in trying to lead their lives without experimenting with drugs is a source of great concern. We have decided to have a drugs awareness week, including a drugs-free rave. Having written to the local branches of Tesco and Marks and Spencer, I would like to thank them for the money that they have donated to enable us to go ahead with our drugs awareness week. I hope and believe that it will be successful.

The two drugs task forces, assisted by the two district councils, jointly employ a substance misuse training officer who talks to parents, teachers, clubs and societies about the dangers of drugs, the warning signs and all the help that is increasingly available because of the strategy that my right hon. Friend unveiled last year.

I believe that the local community effort in my constituency is strong. Of course it is at the heart of our national strategy—working through local communities and adapting to their needs.

As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said, the 105th drug action team reported on 31 December and each plan of action has been adjusted to different circumstances. In my constituency, under the leadership of the Suffolk health authority and its chairman, Joanna Spicer, we now have a manager to examine drugs-related issues and the overall commitment for the county of Suffolk. He came from East Sussex Drugs Advisory Council in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Mr. Rathbone), which is a great role model for the rest of the country, and we are lucky to have him in place. He discovered that the three service agencies in the county were barely talking to each other. There was no hostility, but because they were in different geographical locations, they were not co-operating effectively.

We are trying to make sure that services are co-ordinated and that joint functioning of the strategy works effectively right across the board, so that local arrangements reflect the national strategy. We certainly do not want a glorified national strategy that does not operate at grass-roots level.

What is happening in my area is clearly occurring across the country: existing groups are co-operating for the good of those who are affected by the drugs problem. I am pleased to see that the groups involved in the areas of drugs prevention, rehabilitation and enforcement in Suffolk are working together closely.

Mr. Flynn

Does advice include persuading young people not to drink the high-alcohol cordial products that are now available? How will the hon. Gentleman measure the success of those schemes?

Mr. Spring

The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point which was drawn to my attention by the youth outreach workers to whom I referred. I accept that there is a link between alcohol and drugs misuse. I accept also that in many parts of the country alcohol abuse is probably a more significant problem than drug abuse. While not wishing to minimise the dangers of alcohol, I stress that today we are discussing the drugs issue and the horrific impact that drugs can have on people's lives.

If a constabulary decides to conduct an anti-drugs operation and carries out raids on houses or pubs, that may have an effect on the prescribed, legal drug supply. If the supply of illegal drugs dries up, those who were addicts or near addicts may go to national health service organisations to obtain drugs legally. By working with the police, those services will know about police activity in advance and thus be ready to deal with the consequences. That did not occur previously. The drugs strategy is important as it tries to persuade people to work together, under the aegis of drugs action teams, in the areas of prevention, rehabilitation and enforcement.

I stress another important aspect of the strategy and I refer again to my experience in Suffolk. I pay tribute to Robin and Lilias Sheepshanks who founded ADFAM (Suffolk) in 1987. They have worked extremely hard to build up that charity through their commitment to young people. They support drug addicts and their families, they offer drugs and bereavement counselling and provide training and education. Their task has been all the more difficult as they have sought funding largely through donations. I hope that organisations such as that will increasingly come under the umbrella of the overall drugs strategy.

We should never forget that drug users have families. Anguished parents do not know what to do: they often cannot accept that their children take drugs and they then suffer the guilt and the concern that follow that realisation. It is crucial to provide support for those families, and that is what is happening in Suffolk.

Drugs destroy lives. It is absurd to make a distinction, as some would, between so-called "soft" drugs and "hard" drugs. As I said before, powerful variants of cannabis have been produced that can cause hallucinations and lead to psychiatric disorders and suicide. Therefore, it is vital from a health point of view that we prevent young people from taking drugs in the first place. All the evidence—particularly from the United States—points to the fact that, although people may try hard to rehabilitate addicts, the success rate is not high. Therefore, prevention is at the heart of the matter.

I hope that more random testing will take place in the private sector. It is already becoming a feature of life in this country—it is certainly happening in the United States—that employers are unwilling to take people on if they are shown to be taking drugs. Nothing would be a greater incentive to young people leaving university to know that their future careers may be put in jeopardy if a test shows that they are involved in taking drugs. I hope that random testing increasingly becomes part and parcel of the private sector's way of doing things.

What has been set in place is absolutely crucial for the future stability of our society. Drugs have become a real cancer in our midst. We are genuinely seeking a strategy based on local community partnerships, on prevention. rehabilitation and enforcement, working together to find a way through.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary—I know that he has a strong personal commitment to this, as I have heard him speak on the subject. and I know how much he is appreciated by professionals in the area of drugs misuse—for the clear commitment that he is giving to fighting the menace of drugs in our society.

It is good that we had almost a cross-party view on this subject and that we have been able to look at the problem dispassionately a year on. I hope that we shall be able to do this each year in future. I hope that, by all the means at our disposal, we will be able in a few years' time to say that the tide is turning demonstrably. Britain is setting an example that is unique in Europe. I believe that there is no other way forward than the route that we are taking to try to address this problem in our society.

12.56 pm

Mr. Edward Leigh (Gainsborough and Horncastle)

I am pleased that the hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) spoke today. Much of his speech was interesting and provided useful grit and argument for our debate, as there is sometimes a danger in these debates that we all agree with each other. The hon. Member for Knowsley, North (Mr. Howarth), who spoke for the Opposition, said that he wanted to be consensual. There is a danger that we will drown in a warm bath of schemes, treacle, White Papers and so on and that we will congratulate ourselves, saying that we are doing terribly well. But outside, apparently, we are losing the battle. Last year the police seized a record amount of drugs—55.5 tonnes, including 1 tonne of heroin and 0.5 tonne of Ecstasy. I did not agree with everything that the hon. Gentleman said, but he was right to say what he did.

It is a pity that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms Short) could not be here—I am not making a political speech, as I rather admire her—as she courageously holds a point of view that many people share, in all political parties: the way to solve the problem is to legalise so-called "soft" drugs. Some of the arguments adduced by the hon. Member for Newport, West have been quite interesting in that regard, but I do not agree with him. I listened carefully to what he said, and have read carefully what has been written in favour of legalising soft drugs, but I just do not think that the case for legalising soft drugs has been made. The Holland experience is extremely worrying. We have heard about the tendency towards more dangerous forms of cannabis. The effect that it has on other countries, particularly our own, is highly regrettable. Indeed, it underlines the need for strong border controls, and the danger of a single market, where we surrender our ability to keep out drugs from a country that has such a liberal and dangerous policy.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Spring) made the point that a major attraction of so-called soft drugs is their illegal nature. If one legalises them, one simply passes that attraction on to harder drugs and so it goes on.

Mr. Flynn

indicated dissent.

Mr. Leigh

The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but that point must at least be arguable. I am not sure that we can take the risk. I do not think that we should do so.

The analogy with alcohol and cigarettes is not entirely accurate. Alcohol abuse does kill, but one cannot equate spirits with the strongest drugs. The path into hard drug abuse is much more dangerous and, therefore, the hon. Members for Newport, West and for Ladywood and those like them, have not made a case for legalising soft drugs.

Mr. Flynn

I shall give another statistic that I did not give in my speech. In the most recent year for which we have figures, more people were killed by alcohol poisoning—drinking more than three quarters of a pint of whisky—than from taking heroin. The figures were 158 compared with 100. So, alcohol can be equated with such drugs as a poison.

Mr. Leigh

Of course. We all know that people abuse alcohol and kill themselves but virtually everyone in this country drinks alcohol and most people do not kill themselves by doing so. Indeed, the Government tell us that a small amount of alcohol is good for us—21 units a week. That is quite a large amount and I find it incredible, but that is the scientific advice.

I do not accept the arguments that the United States tried to prohibit alcohol in the 1920s and look what it did, that because we prohibit drugs we create a criminal culture, and that the way to solve the problem is to decriminalise drugs. That is an interesting point of view, but the case is not proven and it is too dangerous a path.

Despite all that, we are losing the battle. I represent Lincolnshire, which is not a particularly urban area. The Lincolnshire police tell me that 70 per cent. of children will have been offered drugs by the time that they leave school. I do not know about my hon. Friends and Opposition Members, but I was never offered drugs while I was at school and I do not remember my friends being offered them. I see my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) and the hon. Member for Knowsley, North shaking their heads—I do not think that they were offered drugs at school.

When my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House introduced the debate, he said that it was a matter for congratulation that 50 per cent. of children turned down the opportunity. If 50 per cent. turn it down, 50 per cent. are taking it and that should be deeply disturbing to us. We should be asking ourselves what on earth we are going to do. Indeed, is there anything that we can do? In Lincolnshire—a rural area—there were 425 arrests in 1991, but that had risen to nearly 1,200 last year. There was a matching rise for drug seizures—from 350 in 1991, to 1,400 last year. The problem is reaching out from the major towns to all the smaller towns and villages. What are we going to do about it?

I congratulate the Government on doing all that they can. I have no magic solution. The White Paper, "Tackling Drugs Together", is excellent. I see no alternative but to continue to make all drugs illegal, to apprehend dealers and convict them and to remind people that dealing in hard drugs can attract a maximum life sentence. We must continually increase that level of deterrence, which is what we are doing and what the Government announced in the White Paper, "Protecting the Public". There is now a minimum sentence of seven years for dealing in hard drugs.

Perhaps we should go further and make it clear that anyone convicted of dealing in hard drugs will automatically go to prison. I suspect that the courts ensure that most of them do, but deterrence has an effect. We have heard about the Drug Trafficking Act 1994, which ensures that dealers do not gain from their trade and that is all to the good, but how far are we prepared to go? Can deterrence solve the problem? Clearly it cannot.

Are we prepared to go as far as the Prime Minister of Singapore? It is a pity that he is not in on this debate. He could add a different perspective from that of the hon. Member for Ladywood. He believes that the way to solve the problem is to hang all dealers. Clearly, we are not prepared to do that—there is no way that we will go that far. Has hanging solved the problem in Singapore? I suspect that it may have gone some way to solving it, but it clearly has not dealt with it entirely; nor has it dealt with it in Malaysia or Thailand. I welcome what the Government are trying to do by way of deterrence. I have no better solution, but it will not work on its own.

We have heard a lot about education. We are doing a lot of it in Lincolnshire. There is grant for education support and training funding, which allows training to be given to teachers with responsibility for drug education projects. There is something called DIPSE, drug import primary school education. In Lincolnshire we are taking education into primary schools, so great is the problem. We are teaching children of nine and 10 about it. My children have had police come to their school to tell them about it. We are doing our best on education. None of it seem to make any difference.

Is there a solution? The hon. Member for Newport, West asked the unanswerable question. We are losing the battle. There have always been drugs in society, but why is our society so prone to them? Is our society breaking down? In 19th century China, drugs such as opium were prevalent. Society there was breaking down because of famine, war and invasion, but we do not suffer from those.

I want to take a different approach from that of other hon. Members. I do not think that we can congratulate ourselves and say that by producing a White Paper, increasing sentences or legalising drugs we will solve the problem. We need to ask what is wrong with society. Perhaps we live in a society where too much is available. We live in a supermarket society where all the best food, drink and travel are available to everyone. Every pleasure is available to everyone, especially to young people. They continually ask for more. We live in a me-only society. Writers such as Solzhenitsyn have correctly identified that as a modern disease of the west. He thinks that the west is decadent and, ultimately, self-destructive.

My message is obvious and simple but no one has mentioned it in this debate. No Government, whether Conservative or Labour, can ever solve the problem. Only society can regenerate itself. There is no point in middle-aged politicians lecturing young people about taking drugs. If we attempt to do so, we have the opposite effect to what we intend. They are not interested in us telling them that Ecstasy is dangerous. Part of the fun of it is to fight against us. I do not mean Conservative Members but all hon. Members, who represent the establishment to young people.

We will gradually solve the problem only by encouraging younger role models. In the United States, they have got to grips with the problem, not by having policemen or politicians go round schools, but only by using younger role models strumming their guitars trying to convince kids of the dangers of drugs. One of the most moving and impressive speeches that I have I heard in this building was not made in the Chamber but in the Speaker's quarters at a Christian group meeting a few months ago.

We were addressed by a young man who had gone through everything, including drugs and prison. He had become a Christian and a youth leader and he was trying to convince young people of the dangers of taking drugs. I shall always remember his final words. He was speaking to about 30 Members of Parliament and 30 peers, distinguished people in their own way. He said, "I am not a politician; I do not know anything about politics but I have been at the bottom of the heap, in the mire and the filth. I have been in prison, I have taken the drugs and when it comes to legalising drugs, I say just don't do it." That is my message to the House today.

1.8 pm

Mr. Tim Rathbone (Lewes)

First, I apologise to the House, as I have apologised to Madam Speaker, to yourself, Mr. Deputy Speaker and to the Lord President of the Council for my late arrival. Unfortunately, I was unable to get here until 11.30 am and I beg your indulgence. I should also like to extend that apology to the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Knowsley, North (Mr. Howarth), because I missed his speech as well as that of my right hon. Friend.

This is an appropriate time to have a debate on drugs because next Wednesday, 26 June, is United Nations international day against drug abuse and illicit trafficking. In common with other hon. Members, I therefore welcome the debate.

It is also good to hear again this morning the cross-party support for the Government's strategy "Tackling Drugs Together". That strategy sets out national plans for local implementation. I accent local implementation because no plan, programme or propaganda will be successful nationally unless it is in tune with local requirements, which vary between different parts of the country and between country and town.

I welcome in particular the greater emphasis in the strategy document and in the activities of the past year on reducing demand through increased prevention and better treatment. I congratulate the Lord President on his efforts over the years and on the way in which he has provided the catalyst within the Government for all the relevant Departments. I should also like to congratulate him on the work of his central drugs co-ordination unit. I congratulate Sue Street, who ran it so well until just a few months ago, when she went on to greater things—she is now trying to knock some sense and better administration into the nation's fire services. I should also like to include the Under-Secretary of State in my congratulations—he has made his own dramatic contribution.

I should like to comment favourably on and praise the Government for the greater attention paid to health education in schools. I shall return to that, because I believe that it needs some tweaking, but without that effort, we shall never overcome the dire straits in our schools, which were referred to so ably by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh).

I congratulate the Government on the lead that they are giving and on the increased co-operation that they have offered in the international forums where drugs are discussed. I must draw the attention of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to comments that I made in a speech last night, when we were discussing the European Union. I believe that the policy of non-co-operation with the EU, when extended to embrace non-co-operation on such matters as the extension of the powers and abilities of Europol, is mistaken. Britain has given a marvellous lead to Europe, and through it to the rest of the world, in improving international police co-ordination, yet that has been subsumed by a momentary, albeit serious, difficulty concerning beef sales in Europe. We have therefore been unable to press forward with the plans that we have hitherto advocated.

All those programmes and plans will have no effect in our country unless we have better co-ordination of effort and co-operation at a local level. I should like to mention specific projects, in particular my local Sussex drug action teams, which grew from the first drug action team that was established in Brighton by the Home Office. That marvellous initiative has been so successful because it grew out of the work already done by the East Sussex Drugs Advisory Council. To answer the point already made by other hon. Members, I am glad to report that that council has widened its remit to embrace alcohol and has been renamed the Alcohol and Drugs Council for East Sussex. In that context, it is interesting to note that the Welsh strategy for tackling drugs also embraces alcohol. The Government should consider that when taking forward the prison strategy.

At local level in East Sussex and elsewhere, as has been illustrated by hon. Members, there is better co-operation between all agencies, including the police and voluntary organisations. Better information is being supplied through, for instance, in Sussex, the drugs advisory and information service. We have better confidential open lines to the police, through which people can feed information about drug peddling, trafficking, pushing and problems. That is being encouraged by the local press—The Argus in Sussex has done a marvellous job in that regard—and by local commercial activities. I commend Iceland frozen food shops for their work to encourage activities in schools.

I received an interesting letter only yesterday morning from Rosalind Turner, a young lady who has worked in the East Sussex Drugs Advisory Council. She won a Winston Churchill fellowship to study drug education and prevention in Australia. She drew many helpful conclusions from her study and pointed out that the main difference in the approach in schools between the United Kingdom and Australia is that, in Australia, the subject is compulsory in the curriculum as health education; it is not part just of biology. It is only by giving the subject a higher priority in our curriculum that we shall remove ignorance, which causes the problem. We should not lecture young people, but we should better inform them so that they are better able to meet the temptations that come their way.

The London Drug Policy Forum is an initiative of the City of London and has been going for years. It is led by Mr. Peter Rigby, who has done a magnificent job, not only in co-ordinating all the diverse activities of Greater London boroughs, but in leading for Great Britain in the international efforts, under the title "Cities Against Drugs". We should be grateful to him and to the Corporation of London for what they have done, which is not well known outside the City, but should be better known. I lift my hat in his direction.

Mr. Newton

In my speech, I did not attempt to list all the people who deserve much credit in this sector, but I wish to endorse my hon. Friend's remarks about Peter Rigby and his work on behalf of the Corporation of London.

Mr. Rathbone

I am grateful. I shall make certain that Peter Rigby is aware of that endorsement.

I should like to take advantage of the debate to comment on the way in which the "Tackling Drugs Together" strategy operates. Inevitably, my comments are critical, but I hope that they are positive. On the amount of resources that are being made available, in 1993–94, approximately £350 million was spent on enforcement and control, compared with only £61 million on treatment services in the same period. If we are to reduce the pool of drug misusers and so reduce demand for drugs, we must increase the amount of money available for better treatment.

My second point, linked to the first, has often been made by myself and others. I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench will approach the Treasury once again to persuade it to change its policy on the application of the funds seized from drug dealers under the new rules, and use those funds directly to help the nation's efforts to tackle the problems of drug misuse.

When seizures come about as a result of intelligence or other activities carried out by other nations abroad, those nations almost always impose a requirement that those moneys be applied to the problems of drug misuse. Absurdly, when those seizures come about in this country as a result of our own efforts, the Treasury gets its hands on those moneys and they go into the pool of general taxation, and the activities of improving the tackling of drug misuse do not benefit.

Thirdly, I ask, as was asked earlier: how do we better measure the effectiveness of everything that is going on? The effectiveness of the drug treatment programme has been reviewed in the past 18 months by the Department of Health task force, but I know of no plans for similar reviews of the outcomes stemming from education, prevention, enforcement and control. There is one exception: there will be measurements of the effectiveness of compulsory drug testing in prisons, which is an important but minor segment of overall activity.

There are still long treatment waiting lists for drug services. The Department of Health task force reports waiting lists of up to eight weeks, but there is anxiety locally that those waiting times are increasing. I hope that more funds can be made available and more activities put in hand to meet that requirement. Currently, local and health authorities are obliged to ration access to rehabilitation and treatment programmes to a worrying extent.

The Government should devote attention to establishing drug courts, as has been said in this and previous debates. Such courts are enormously successful in the United States. The movement is led by judges themselves. It developed from frustration with the costly and overcrowded prison system and its inability to treat people who entered it for drug misuse. Although not all judges like the drug courts, especially because it has changed the relationship between the judge, the court and the miscreant, so that the judge's role is one of an active participant, it is noticeable that, not only do they reduce the amount of recidivism among the people brought before them, but For every $1 spent on the Drug Court, $7 is saved in the criminal justice system. That is not only a social benefit, but a budgetary one.

I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench will bring pressure on the Home Office to institute trials of such courts, which could so easily be included in our magisterial and court system.

Greater emphasis is being placed on the subject in our current health education programmes in schools, but it is not being given high enough priority within the curriculum. Even if the Government decided to give it higher priority, I doubt whether it could be accommodated under the present allocation to the function, which currently works out at about £250 per school. If we are serious about getting to grips with the drugs problem—which starts and sometimes, thank goodness, finishes among young people—we must devote greater funds to dealing with it. As part of that activity, we can do more to promote sports as a drug abuse prevention tool. Sport is important for girls and boys at school: it burns their energy, attracts their enthusiasm, takes up their time and builds team effort. All those factors are important additions to the Government's activities in tackling drug abuse.

As considerable attention has been given to the subject of legalisation—particularly by the hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn), but also by the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) and some of my hon. Friends—I should mention it. There is, in many corners, a desire to debate the arguments for and against the legalisation of illicit drugs as part and parcel of the international response to the growing health and social problems of drug misuse, illicit trafficking and, particularly, the crime associated with it.

All European Governments, including Holland, and most Governments throughout the world, continue to value prohibition as a cornerstone of their efforts in tackling drug misuse. The deterrent effect of prohibition should not be underestimated. The hon. Member for Newport, West mentioned the Netherlands and the laxer rather than sterner attitude adopted there. The Amsterdam authorities have become increasingly worried about the ready availability of cannabis in their city. They are putting far stricter rules on the coffee houses through which drugs can be obtained and they are tremendously concerned about how their laxer rules on cannabis have turned Amsterdam into a drug centre for the whole of Europe. It has become a place where people go to get not only cannabis, but the far harder, more serious drugs. Those drugs can be contained with treatment among Dutch people in the Netherlands, but visitors from countries such as Great Britain, Germany, France and Belgium return to their countries and carry on their habit. That is extremely worrying to everyone, including the Netherlands Government.

It is felt that legalisation would lead to increased drug misuse, therefore increasing the mental and physical suffering that accompanies it, just as it accompanies the misuse of tobacco and alcohol. I agree with, and endorse, that view. It is felt that the crime and social problems associated with misuse and trafficking will not be eradicated by legalisation, merely legitimised—I endorse that. It is felt that any possible improvements to be gained from legalisation are, at best, ambiguous and that its implementation, in the light of its virtual irreversibility, cannot be justified. I endorse that position and urge the Government to adhere to it.

Government action, political leadership, international co-operation—particularly in relation to criminal intelligence gathering and law enforcement—and improved methods of health education and treatment, are the most positive ways to tackle and overcome the awful problem of drug misuse. I urge the Government to strengthen their endeavours and to bend even greater energies to the problem in the future than they have before—particularly recently. I endorse what they are doing. But unless we do more, more quickly, we shall not solve the problem for future generations, or for this country or the world.

1.29 pm

Mr. Simon Coombs (Swindon)

I commend the work done by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House and I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister whose initiative it was. It has been followed through splendidly by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House.

Much progress has been made, but the fact that there is no reason for any of us to be in the least complacent has emerged clearly in the debate. When we discuss the problem of drugs in this country, we are dealing with a minority, as is so often the case when the House debates social and other problems. After all, it is only a minority of people who seek to exploit other human beings by pushing, trafficking and dealing in drugs. It is still, thank heavens, only a minority of our fellow citizens who use drugs. However, minorities can cause great damage and harm, not only to themselves, but to the body politic. A great deal of time and money is taken up in trying to deal with this appalling problem.

It is clear that the Government are serious about tackling the problem of drugs. In that context, I very much welcome what has been said today by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House and by other Conservative Members about their refusal to contemplate for a moment the possibility of legalisation. I also welcome the remarks by the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Knowsley, North (Mr. Howarth), who said that it was also the Opposition's policy to say a clear and resounding no to any question of legalisation.

The hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn), who is not here at the moment, talked about the medicinal uses of cannabis. I point out to him that 30 years or so ago, it was a known fact that one of the highest levels of heroin addiction was found among GPs—people who thought that they knew what they were doing and that they could handle a dangerous drug such as heroin, but who found themselves addicted. There is always a siren voice saying, "Yes, we can cope with drugs." In the end, it is nearly always the drugs that master us and not the other way round.

The two main strands in the debate have been the availability of drugs and education, and I shall say a brief word on each. I seek an assurance from the Home Office, which has a role in the matter, that it sends out a strong enough signal at airports and sea ports warning against smuggling drugs into this country. On the last three occasions on which I have returned to this country from abroad by aeroplane to Heathrow, I have walked through the green channel—innocently and rightly, I assure the House—and nobody has been on duty even to give me the look in the eye that is designed to catch out the person who has something to hide. Do we recognise the value of that element of deterrence in persuading rather stupid people not to act as couriers for those who lie behind drug trafficking?

It is absolutely right that the Government have had no truck with the Schengen agreement, which has opened up the borders of a number of our fellow nations in the European Union. I had a lengthy discussion with a Dutch Member of the European Parliament a few weeks ago about the different attitude taken by some of those countries. She said, "We do not bother with border controls. If we have any reason to think that somebody may be about to misbehave, we can always stop them on the ring road at Antwerp." That was said in the context of terrorism rather than drugs, but the same point applies. We do not do it like that. No one would thank the House for suggesting that we should stop people on the M25 because we suspected them of being terrorists or drug smugglers. We stop them at the border. My question is whether the determination that we have shown in resisting Schengen is reflected by the determination with which we physically police our borders at airports and sea ports.

Much has been said already today about reducing the demand for drugs, but the avenues of approach to drug taking are still in place, especially for young people and children. Alcohol is still available and cigarettes are still all too easily available, as are solvents and glue. We all know that those are the avenues of approach to more dangerous drugs as children get older. I do not belong to that group of people who believe in an inevitable link between soft and hard drugs, but it is likely that those who live in a culture in which one form or another of abuse is common will be the targets for those who seek to push the hard drugs from which the real money is to be made. The only way to prevent dangerous hard drugs from being freely in use in this country is to reduce steadily and inevitably the availability of those other substances that may create the urge to experiment or to raise the level of enjoyment that some people find in drugs.

We all know that children may start on cigarettes or alcohol as form of protest—their parents warn them but they do it anyway—or as a means of conformity, because everybody else in their peer group does it and they feel left out if they do not join in. We are dealing with those two aspects of human nature—the desire to rebel or to conform—and most of us, most of the time, will do one or the other. Human nature is such that we will never remove the possibility of drug taking at some level in our society.

We have a serious drugs problem in 1996, not because human nature has changed dramatically or because society has broken down or because more people are unemployed and have nothing to do, but because there are more, easily available, drugs in this country. As long as that remains the case, we will have a drugs problem. Education is fine as far as it goes and I am not suggesting that we should discontinue what we are doing, but only when we can suppress the availability of drugs, of all kinds, to minimum levels will we crack the problem. The original temptation took place in the garden of Eden. It happened to be only an apple, but we all know the consequences. As long as human nature remains the same, and I think it will, temptation will lead people into trouble.

I shall say a quick word about my constituency. In Swindon we have an excellent branch of Parents against Drugs, which brings the real problems that the community still has with drugs to the attention of law enforcement organisations, people such as myself and the local council. I pay tribute to the local organisation Druglink, and its leader Andy Malinowski, for the work that it does with limited resources, much of which it has to find through its own hard work when it could be concentrating on the job for which it was originally set up. I hope that the lottery will produce more resources for small organisations and charities such as Druglink, which do excellent work.

Parents in my constituency draw to my attention the fact that drug pushers are still active at school gates, in shopping centres and in nightclubs in Swindon. The local police do their best and I pay tribute to the work that they do, but they are hamstrung by the need to get evidence to obtain convictions. It is not easy for them or for the courts—and the problem continues.

I support the plea of my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh) to anyone who might be listening: never consider the possibility of legalisation. I have never taken the kinds of drugs that have been the topic of the debate. I saw the film "Trainspotting" a few weeks ago—if hon. Members have not seen it, they should force themselves to have a look. Some people have suggested that it glorifies drug taking; it does nothing of the sort—it shows very clearly how life can be destroyed, not just literally but in terms of any quality of life, by taking drugs.

I could go on to say something about alcohol and tobacco—the hon. Member for Newport, West led us in that direction. I believe that alcohol is damaging to people, to families and to communities. I regard it as the basis of much crime and of much anti-social behaviour. We should be tougher on people drinking in public places. The fact that football hooligans drink in pubs on their way to matches continues to depress us, as the evidence at a court hearing yesterday clearly demonstrated.

Smoking is a form of anti-social behaviour. It generates selfishness and litter in public places. Even with the "Health of the Nation" targets, which we are making good progress towards, it remains a serious problem. I could have said a great deal more about those two issues, but I wish to give my hon. Friends an opportunity to participate in the debate.

In summary, we still have a great deal to do to crack the problem of drugs. We are heading in the right direction. With commitment on all sides—which has been evidenced in the debate—we may, in time, create a situation in this country where drugs are so difficult to get hold of that the problem is reduced.

1.40 pm

Mr. Robert G. Hughes (Harrow, West)

I apologise to hon. Members for not being present in the House for the whole of the debate, and I will have to leave shortly after my speech to go to my constituency—I believe that that is the nature of Friday debates. I praise the speech of the hon. Member for Knowsley, North (Mr. Howarth). He made an extremely able speech from the Labour party Front Bench, which was particularly difficult because only one Back-Bench Member is behind him, and he does not necessarily agree with what he said. I thought that he made a sensible analysis.

The way in which the Government and Labour Front Bench speeches meshed together does not mean that we are using empty words, because this is a problem that we cannot cope with. I think that it indicates a sensible analysis and close examination of the problem. The hon. Member for Knowsley, North spoke about his experiences as a Front-Bench spokesman visiting prisons. The problems experienced in his constituency are mirrored in mine—even though it is a different type of constituency. People who are listening to the debate should not think that the Front Benches are agreeing because there is nothing else that they can do—they are agreeing because that is where their analysis brings them to.

Much has been said about the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms Short). I do not criticise her view—she is entitled to it—although I fundamentally disagree with it. I think that she is wrong when she suggests that everyone would take her view if they had the guts to say so. The hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) shares her view, and he is entitled to. However, the majority of hon. Members do not share that view: not because we do not have the guts, but because we just take a different view—there is more than one point of view in the debate.

Drugs create a problem for the whole of society. They pose a potential nightmare for every parent: how do they know whether drugs are being offered to their children? How do they know in what circumstances that might happen? How do they know how their child might respond?

One of the central questions today has involved the complex issue of legalisation or decriminalisation. If we strip away all the emotion, it comes down to one question: will it help or will it hinder? To put it another way, would it reduce or exacerbate the problems? My firmly held view is that decriminalising or legalising drugs would be dangerous and irresponsible. It would encourage young people to believe that cannabis was okay. It would be an open door that could be pushed further.

Of course I understand that young people will not listen to lectures from people in suits. They will not listen to Members of Parliament. They think that we are out of date and out of touch, and from their point of view we are. However, that does not mean that they are deaf to everything that we say. Anyone with children knows that they want to know where the limits are. They want to know what is acceptable and then to push the boundary further. If we set the boundary a good deal further than it is at present, they will want to push it and then we will have opened a dangerous door indeed.

Frankly, legalisation or decriminalisation would be a fillip to the scum who profit from the sale of drugs to young people as it would be seen as an encouragement to their evil trade.

Mr. Flynn

Will the hon. Gentleman please look at the facts? In Holland, the evil people who deal in drugs on the black market, the totally irresponsible criminals, have been put out of business and have been replaced by regulated business men who can be controlled properly.

Mr. Hughes

If the hon. Gentleman thinks that the Dutch Government and campaigners are satisfied that legalisation has solved the drugs problem in Holland, he should think again. Perhaps he should look at the facts. Everybody understands what has happened in Holland. Of course one could claim that, in a narrow sense, it has solved the problem, but if the hon. Gentleman thinks that it has discouraged young people from taking drugs, he is wrong. I disagree fundamentally with him. It is a misguided view that drug legalisation will help solve the drugs problem. It certainly has not achieved that in Holland.

In respect of health risks and crime, any relaxation of the drugs laws would be a disaster. If drugs were legalised or decriminalised, the inevitable result would be an increase in the number of drug addicts. Children and young people would be most at risk. Sir Paul Condon, who takes a serious view of what is happening in the metropolis, said: This is not simply a moral issue … It is also about the kind of society we want for our children. I do not want one where it is acceptable to be 'stoned' on drugs or where we pop into the cannabis shop to get the evening's supply. He knows what he is talking about and the House should listen to him.

The Government are to be congratulated on the realistic, practical and flexible way in which they are tackling the problem. It is characteristic of the careful and thoughtful approach that we expect from my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to such sensitive issues, as he has shown throughout Government and on the various issues that he has addressed.

I want to say a few words about enforcement. A prison sentence served by a drug trafficker no longer wipes out the debt. That is important. People should know that just because they go to prison, they will not keep the ill-gotten gains of their trade. It is now an offence to fail to report knowledge or suspicion of drug money laundering or knowingly to possess, use or acquire the proceeds of drugs trafficking. People should know that if they are associated in any way with that trade, they will be caught and punished.

Most persistent dealers in hard drugs are sent to prison, but the average sentence for a third offence is only four and half years and they are automatically released after serving only two and two thirds years. The Government White Paper "Protecting the Public" proposed the introduction of a stiff minimum mandatory sentence of seven years for those who are convicted of drug trafficking offences on three separate occasions. I hope that the measure will enjoy cross-party support when it comes to the Floor of the House as that would be in keeping with the spirit of the debate and of the remarks of the hon. Member for Knowsley, North.

The debate today has concentrated on drugs education. That is an important area. We know that drugs kill and that much work is being done in schools, with both local and central Government encouragement. The fact that drugs pose a fatal health risk—including the risk of contracting AIDS—must be brought home to all young people. Abstinence from drug taking is the only risk-free option.

Some people will continue to take drugs, regardless of the risk. Information and facilities—such as the provision of drinking water at rave parties—should be available for such people in order to reduce the risks and save lives. The Government are assisting the families of drug addicts by providing advice, counselling and support. Obviously, drug users must ultimately be weaned off drugs and the Department of Health task force must examine the effectiveness of drug treatment services.

Like all hon. Members, I believe that drugs are a menace to society and that the fight against them must be pursued rigorously on a cross-party basis. Effective action on drugs means reducing the supply of drugs, the demand for drugs and the health risks of drugs. We must form a united front and say that legalising drugs means legitimising drugs, with disastrous results and more drug abuse. I am very pleased that that approach has been soundly rejected today by hon. Members on both sides of the House.

1.52 pm

Lady Olga Maitland (Sutton and Cheam)

May I be the last in a long list of hon. Members to add my congratulations to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House on introducing the campaign against drugs. He has pursued his task with a verve and a dedication that amounts to what I can only describe as a moral crusade. I think that that is why the campaign has been so successful. Due to his actions, the Government strategy invests about £500 million per year in combating the drugs problem. That is undoubtedly having an effect nationwide and it has achieved considerable success in Sutton and Cheam.

Mr. Flynn

rose—

Lady Olga Maitland

I shall not give way as time is short. A young man came into my surgery the other day. He was 25 and high on heroin and he told a tale of woe and tragedy. He was abused as a child and his parents were separated. He turned to crime and became the victim of blackmail. In short, the life of this articulate and essentially bright young man had been wrecked very early on.

It is interesting to consider why some young people are so vulnerable to drug abuse. I have my own views on that subject: I believe that, on the whole, those from stable families are less vulnerable to drug taking. However, I refer hon. Members to a report compiled by the University of Leicester, entitled "Drugs and Crime: A Study Amongst Young People In Leicester". The report found that young people from stable, two-parent households were less likely to take drugs, while those from households with a single female parent or with a mother and step-father or boyfriend were at the highest risk. As adults, we have a responsibility to young people. Unfortunately, the selfishness in society is wreaking havoc on the life chances of the young.

Drugs affect the life chances of the young in so many ways. I wish that we could put more effort into warning the young of the health dangers of taking drugs. I know that a campaign is being put out by the Department of Health on this, but how many young people realise that cannabis can cause cancer of the mouth and throat, that it can destroy their attention, and that it affects their memory? More than that, a young mother can affect her unborn child to a terrifying extent. Her baby could be born with defects. It could have an increased risk of leukaemia. We really must get the message across clearly not just that cigarette smoking can harm an unborn child but that taking drugs could as well.

We have covered a wide range of different topics on drugs. I shall devote just a few moments to the problems of solvent abuse. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister hinted to the Health Select Committee only yesterday that he hoped to be able to publish some good news about how the mortality rate for solvent abuse will go down, or is going down. Not a moment too soon are we making progress, but I urge him, however good the figures, not to rest there. Let us keep up a determined effort to combat solvent abuse.

I introduced a ten-minute Bill on solvent abuse a while ago and I continue to monitor progress in that field. One of the most terrifying things about solvents is that a young person can take one sniff and they are out. Out of this world—dead. It is a cruel, harsh way to go, and it is done through sheer ignorance. What is so tragic is that the figures show—I hope that they are going down—that two children die every week from solvent abuse. Even more damage themselves. The reason why they are so vulnerable is that solvents are so cheap. They are available. They are in every household.

Mr. Flynn

And they are legal.

Lady Olga Maitland

They are indeed legal, which is a great problem.

The trouble is that, in every household, one could find as many as 30 different products that contain solvents, which could harm people if used in the wrong way. It is not just an inner-city problem. Solvent abuse can happen in the leafiest, nicest suburb in this country, as indeed it does in my constituency. In Sutton, we have a remarkable drug advisory programme called the youth awareness programme, which has already been mentioned today. The director of that programme is a dynamic man called Stephen Baird. I pay public tribute to his efforts, because as a result of his work we are making real inroads into drug abuse in Sutton, particularly into solvent abuse. It was through him that I met some young people who had been taking solvents. What is so frightening is the ease with which they take them and the fact that they do it unnoticed. Many of them told me that, as a result of experimenting with solvents—it could be just sniffing a Tipp-Ex pen—they go on to other drugs, including cannabis. The story can get infinitely worse.

Some people say, "Nonsense. Many people just stop at that level." But if one person goes on to take another drug, that is one person too many. There are a couple of areas to which I hope the Minister will pay careful attention in terms of solvent abuse. Although I congratulate British aerosol manufacturers on taking a lead in issuing guidelines about solvents, I hope that the Government might consider making those guidelines statutory. That has always been on hold and we have not progressed it.

The industry must be encouraged to use non-solvent-based products. Why not give grants for research into substitutes? Above all, retailers must be educated about solvent-based products. It has been discovered that 43 per cent. of shopkeepers do not know which products can put young people at risk. Retailers must be taught how to question a child and to refuse to sell products to children who turn up at the counter with a dozen aerosol cans or a big supply of plastic bags.

We should make solvents tough to obtain if they can be used for illicit purposes. I hope that we can also ban all sales of butane gas lighter refills to those aged under 16. I realise that that puts a heavy onus on shopkeepers, but banning sales of certain products to those under 16 is not new. My private Member's Bill—the Offensive Weapons Bill—to ban the sale of knives to children under the age of 16 is passing through the House. Such a ban is perfectly possible.

I realise that time is running short, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I must congratulate the Government on their endeavours to bring drug education to schools, which is important. Teachers have been unable to cope with drug education for the good reason that they are not on drugs and they are not familiar with that field. The training programmes are helpful. Teachers in schools in my constituency say they need still more support, however, and I hope that the Government will take that into account.

The youth awareness programme has gone to all the schools in Sutton and has been very effective. The programme is working and young people are responding. The feedback shows that young people are showing much greater awareness and knowledge of drugs at a very young age—at seven, eight and nine years old. They get that understanding from older brothers and sisters, relatives or the world outside. The programme is important.

Finally, I pay tribute to the work being done in prisons. There are two prisons on the edge of my constituency—Downview and High Down. Downview deserves all the plaudits. I pay a special tribute to the prison governor, David Lancaster, who is the man who pushed the drug rehabilitation to continue. He began by allowing the Addictive Diseases Trust to set up a small unit. It began with one corridor becoming drug free, then one wing and now almost the whole prison is drug free. He finds that mandatory testing for drugs has produced excellent results. Only 6 per cent. of prisoners now fail a drugs test, whereas the national average is 37 or 38 per cent.

The experiences and lessons of Downview are undoubtedly to be followed elsewhere. I very much hope that more effort and resources will be put into prisons. I hope that we will realise that for every £1, £100 or £1,000 put into rehabilitation for prisoners, one less person is liable to reoffend on coming out of gaol.

This has been an important debate and it has focused on young people. I want to add my voice to the chorus telling the young, "Don't do it. Turn your face away from the temptation or you will wreck your lives."

2.3 pm

Mr. John McFall (Dumbarton)

I am delighted to be here to give the Scottish perspective on the drugs problem. I recall the phrase, "If you remember the 1960s, you weren't there." I do remember the 1960s, which shows my conformity or lack of adventure. That phrase shows that drugs have been with us for quite a time.

Drugs know no borders. Two short years ago, I was in the Huagua valley in Peru watching people collect drugs and I realised that the drugs would end up on the streets of Edinburgh, Birmingham and London. There is an international perspective. I welcome the coalescence of the views of Government and Opposition on the problem.

In Scotland, the number of drugs crimes has increased since the Government came to power from 1,000 to 20,000—an increase of 1,500 per cent. The Government have engaged in discussions with the Opposition parties in Scotland to bring into life the Scotland Against Drugs campaign, which I shall mention later. The scale of the problem in Scotland, as in England and Wales, is a cause for the utmost concern.

A recent World Health Organisation study in Glasgow, which was jointly funded by the Medical Research Council, showed that Glasgow, not untypically for our major cities, has an estimated 10,000 injecting drug users. A study by the Greater Glasgow health board estimated that some 12,000 Glasgow patients are considered by their GPs to be misusing drugs. Scottish society views the problem of drug misuse not as a free-standing issue but as a continuing, socially destructive problem that cuts across the social and economic spectrum in Scotland. That is the reason for the coalescence of views.

A good example was the Licensing (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill, which came before the House a few months ago. It was designed to deal with raves in Scotland. It received its Second Reading in Glasgow in the Scottish Grand Committee on Monday 18 December. That was a poignant occasion, because on the previous Tuesday in Strathclyde, the 100th drug fatality had taken place: a young boy of 21 called Mark Hutcheson, who lived in Old Kilpatrick on the border of my constituency. He did not die at a rave but at home in his brother's arms, trying to rid himself of the craving for temazepam and Ecstasy. Another death, another family and community left devastated.

Drugs deflower our youth. The raves Bill was prompted by the three deaths at the Hangar 13 nightclub in Ayr. The Grand Committee took evidence from people in Glasgow, Inverness and Ayr. The professionals and people on the ground had conflicting views. There was no one, simple message. That is a lesson for politicians. The "Just say no" campaign is no good in itself because the problem is multifaceted. I remember the Department of Health's "Heroin screws you up" campaign of 10 years ago. That was launched on a wave of hopeful publicity only for retreat in disarray to follow when research revealed that the central figure—a cartoon character who starts off wholesome, affluent and confident only to sink into the trough of hopeless drug addiction despite his repeated claims that he can handle it—had the unintentional effect of turning young people on.

We have learnt in those 10 years. The raves Bill recommended chill-out areas in nightclubs, not because we condone drugs but because of the reality. In recommending them, we realised that there is a fine line between encouraging drugs and encouraging people not to take them. Given the scale of the problem, the risk is worth taking.

I also commend the Government on the co-operation they extended during our consideration of the raves Bill. It is a three-clause Bill, but having taken evidence, we realised that clause 1, the main clause, was defective. The Minister of State, myself and others reconsidered the Bill and tabled a new clause so that the Bill can help local authorities to deal with the problem. That Bill is an example of the parties working in tandem in the hope of formulating something worth while.

The Scotland Against Drugs campaign has eschewed the just say no philosophy. It is important to note that it involves no preaching or moral crusade. Young people see their friends taking Ecstasy and they think that it is safe, but it is not. We must get across its unpredictability.

Research has been conducted by the John Hopkins university in America on the effects of Ecstasy on rats and monkeys. It found that the neurons in the brain that produce the chemical serotonin, which helps to regulate mood, appetite, sleep and other functions, are affected by Ecstasy. It provides indirect evidence to suggest that one Ecstasy tablet damages the brain cells that produce that chemical. The key question for the researchers was whether the brain recovers from the effects of the Ecstasy tablet and they found that that of monkeys and rats did not recover.

It is clear that a young person can take one Ecstasy tablet, just like Leah Betts, and find, sadly, that it is one tablet too much. Our campaign is focusing on that unpredictability. We recognise young people's life style and we do not want to spoil it, but do they realise the implications of taking Ecstasy? The good research undertaken on cigarettes has meant that the health education message has got across, which has had a good effect on the country. The drugs campaign could have the same effect.

Mr. Flynn

I am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend, but we are sending out a dangerously false message. I, too, quoted the research that has been conducted on the effects of Ecstasy on neurons of the brain. It is wrong to say that Leah Betts died from Ecstasy. If she had taken Ecstasy on its own she would have been okay; if she had taken water on its own she would have been okay. It was the combination of the two that killed her. We are giving out the wrong message if we say to young people that they can take water as an antidote to Ecstasy. If they drink more than one pint of water an hour, combined with Ecstasy, it is a fatal dose.

Mr. McFall

I realise that Leah Betts drank too much water, but that proves the unpredictability of Ecstasy and the need for us to deal with the reality. My hon. Friend's comments may have intellectual, academic, lecture room validity, but they are shattered on the streets and in today's environment. In this debate we are trying to deal with the reality.

My hon. Friend also spoke about the Dutch policy on soft drugs. I take as my bible the 1994 Scottish Select Committee report, which I commend, on soft drugs and the Dutch policy. Members of that Committee visited Amsterdam and other cities, and they concluded: We are totally opposed to any experimentation with the Dutch approach to cannabis in Scotland. No large scale study of cannabis use has been carried out in the Netherlands and it is not therefore possible to draw any conclusions as to whether separating the supply of soft drugs from that of hard drugs … has had any effect on either cannabis use or on the decline in recruitment to heroin use. The successes which are claimed for the Dutch experiment could equally be accounted for by the success of education programmes and changes in youth fashions. At a time when Scotland faces a massive drug problem we believe that any move to decriminalise cannabis would send the wrong signal to young people. That is the message that we wish to send out from our debate. That is why the Scotland Against Drugs campaign involves many people, including those in the media. The Evening Times of Glasgow has launched a campaign on which I congratulate it. We now have our own badge and logo. The campaign also involves sports personalities and young people to whom young people can relate. They do not relate to grey-haired, middle-aged politicians going around Scotland lecturing them. I have four children and trying to do that with them would fail. If it would fail for me and my kids, it would fail for the rest of society, so we engage people with whom young people can communicate and who are role models. The campaign has undertaken that.

Scottish Television hopes to undertake an initiative in November. It is electronically linking every secondary school in Scotland, engaging each school in a debate, putting questions and receiving instant answers electronically, so that young people have the opportunity to tell the rest of society what the position is and to debate among themselves.

The Scotland Against Drugs campaign is a broad spectrum, ranging from people who advocate harm reduction to those who advocate elimination. That is a fraught position; in the past, drugs campaigners have been split. That is where the weakness has been, so the campaign aims to keep them together.

Mr. David Bryce is a member of the Secretary of State's campaign committee—I recommended him personally. He is in charge of the Calton Athletic recovery group. I agree with the comments on the film "Trainspotting". Far from glamorising drugs, it shows what deprivation and paucity there is for people involved in drugs. The end of the film states that Calton Athletic will receive some of the film's profits.

David Bryce and his colleagues go about the country spreading their message. They aim to deglamorise something that does have an attraction for young people. The campaigners' street credibility is high because they themselves are former users. Their workshop presentation has a catchy title—Cannabis to Chaos. It is important for us to remember that title. There is a linear progression. David Bryce said: You have to admit that there is a fun element, but it doesn't last long. We explain about how the body builds up tolerances. We explain the effects on the family. We give them something to think about—about how others around them are getting hurt. By the time we finish they know about the real life of the user, the damage to their family, theft, prison, the police, HIV and hepatitis C. That message is being spread today on Glasgow's streets. The Labour Front-Bench team and, I am sure, the Government endorse it.

On Monday, I introduced an Adjournment debate on suicides in Cornton Vale prison. Report after report has clearly shown the link between the incidence of drug taking and unemployment and deprivation. In our drug policies, we should have a twin-track approach. We should have the all-party approach on harm reduction and recognise the social dimension.

The debate was about Angela Bollan, a young girl aged 19, who was drug dependent. She ended up on remand in Cornton Vale prison for women in Scotland. She wrote to her parents the day before, seemingly bubbly, saying that she would like to see them in a few days' time. Sadly, she did not make it.

At her funeral in Alexandria, the Rev. Ian Millar gave a commentary on her and young children. He said: many hundreds of good and decent children are thrown on to the scrapheap of unemployment. The future to them seems devoid of any worth and meaning. Is it any wonder that many seek alternatives which might lift the gloom even if only for a moment. I see a metamorphosis before my eyes. That catastrophic change which occurs when the bright and smiling youngsters of the primary school realise that their hopes and dreams of early years cannot be fulfilled. Despite the positive efforts of the school to promote their self-esteem, cynicism enters their soul and they give up on the system. We do not wish that cynicism to enter young people's souls any more. That is why the Opposition are delighted to share with the Government in this debate and to put that message across. The main message is that we cannot do it alone. We will do it only together as a society. That is the message from the House of Commons today.

2.18 pm

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. John Bowis)

In the spirit of the last remark by the hon. Member for Dumbarton (Mr. McFall), I thank everyone who has taken part in the debate, whatever their views.

The debate notes the first anniversary of "Tackling Drugs Together". Tributes were rightly paid to the Prime Minister, who launched it, and to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, who drove it through and knocked heads together when necessary, who has ensured that we have 105 drug action teams throughout the country, with programmes of action, and who is ensuring that we go on into the second and third year—indeed the 10th year and beyond. Tributes were rightly paid to my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Mr. Rathbone), with his all-party group and the work that it does. I join in both those tributes.

I acknowledge the speeches of both Opposition spokesmen. Throughout the House, we acknowledge the work that has been done by the many agencies. I wish to highlight the tremendous work of the voluntary sector. We are all united in our determination to help young people, in particular, to avoid getting hooked on drugs, to say no—which is the message that we give them—to understand why they must say no, and to help everyone to help them to say no. That is because, as we have heard in the debate and often previously, there are far too many examples in our society of young people who have not said no—sometimes young children—and that is a tragedy.

We also know that all the agencies must work together to cut the supply of and demand for drugs. Cutting the supply has often been mentioned in relation to police and customs work. The law and order side of tackling drugs is fundamental here and abroad, and we will continue to work with our national and international agencies and contacts on that.

If we cut only the supply, however, all we do is to increase the price on the market and on the streets; and, if the price increases, so does the demand to become involved in crime to pay for the habit. We must cut the demand at the same time as the supply.

Today, we bear in mind especially the trains that have hit the buffers. I think of the two sets of buffers that have been struck by two trains in particular—two families that have been destroyed.

The first is Leah Betts and her brave and courageous family. I salute the work that her parents have continued to do since their daughter's death, and the videotape whose production and circulation they have encouraged. It was a loving, close-knit family—no one would have thought that it had any of the problems that might have led Leah into drugs. Her parents suddenly found one day that their daughter was on the verge of death, and she went on to die, as a result of taking Ecstasy.

It does not matter whether it was the Ecstasy tablet, the water or the lack of salt; we know that that daughter died, she is not there now and we must learn lessons from that. That is the message from that family, and that is the message for all families: do not let your daughters or your sons think that they can safely take Ecstasy or any other so-called soft drug, because that did happen.

Tragically, we also know that the message of a death does not necessarily get through to young people. I well remember, on the day of Leah Betts' death, appearing on "Newsnight" with a group of people, including a young girl who was misusing drugs. That programme had communicated the message of what had happened and all the dangers. The girl was asked if she understood that message, and she said yes, but when asked if she would change her habit she said no—"It couldn't happen to me."

Of course it could happen to her, but death is less likely than health harm, so the health harm messages that have been highlighted by colleagues on both sides of the House are the paramount messages for us to get through, using the right people—not the grey hairs in suits—and the media that young people accept and understand. Then we may be able to help them to be aware of the risks to their physical and mental health, and so persuade them to say no when those temptations are placed before them.

The other train hitting a buffer is that of a family whose son I recall meeting in a drug rehabilitation residential centre. That young man had been through hell: he had gone down into a deep black hole; he had lost his health, his friends, his relationships, his family, his job, all his prospects and his self-respect. He was gradually being helped out of that hole by the dedicated team of professionals. When I stupidly asked him, "Do you think that you are getting on top of the problem?" He said, "No, and if I ever think that, I've lost. I have lifetime's struggle ahead of me to get off drugs." He was being realistic and, if someone has got to that stage, we should salute him. The House should unite to try to provide rehabilitation services to help people like that young man to climb out of such holes.

The subject of legalisation has frequently come up in today's debate. I am happy that the majority of hon. Members are united behind the message that there can be no legalisation. We do not accept the Ladywood message and I cannot accept the Newport message. Even the Liberals' royal commission is not a proposition that we can accept—for the reasons given by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Spring). Those reasons include the health effects of, and cancers caused by, cannabis. As the Labour-Front Bench team has also made clear, we would send a message to young people who seek to say no and are succeeding in doing so. What sort of message would we convey to those young people who are succeeding in saying no if today we said that we were thinking of legalising the substances after all?

Mr. Flynn

Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Bowis

No. The hon. Gentleman has already taken up plenty of column inches and I must press on to answer the points raised, one of which, involving cannabis in medication, he raised. That is a serious issue and, as the hon. Gentleman knows, my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary has, for many years, licensed a number of researchers to possess cannabis for the purposes of research and therapeutic uses. If the evidence shows that there are benefits and a pharmaceutical company wishes to manufacture the drug, in principle, it can be used. It would, however, have to undergo the proper procedures for the approval of medicines.

The subject of treatment and its effectiveness has been raised many times. I am happy to say that the Polkinghorn report shows that treatment works. We have been able to continue the work of the long-term national treatment outcome research study, which will bring a great deal of help to those who are planning those services. We shall be issuing guidance to purchasers of services in the summer as well as looking at the clinical guidance.

The balance of resources has been mentioned in the debate. Of course, we always have to keep an eye on the relative costs of our activity. But of the £526 million spent in 1993–94, while £209 million was spent on police and customs enforcement, £165 million was spent on treatment, rehabilitation, prevention and education. The balance may not be as out of kilter as some people think. The bulk of the additional £34 million in the current year is spent on education, publicity and treatment, including treatment in prisons.

We must concentrate on helping young people, which is what so much of our work involves. The figures are worrying, but the hopeful sign is that, although a great many young people have experimented with drugs, in the past year the Health Education Authority's survey of 11 to 35-year-olds showed that, in the previous week, 7 per cent. had used cannabis, 1 per cent. had used speed and other drugs had been used by still fewer children.

It is not an epidemic—we can accept the challenge and help young people to come off drugs through effective advertising. We have done much in terms of radio broadcasting and through our 0800 776600 helpline, which in its first year has already taken 200,000 calls. We have achieved much through the diversion work, including work to encourage young people to find other interests, such as music, sport and fashion.

A good span of issues has been covered in the debate. We need concerted and determined action to tackle all aspects of the problem, stretching from the global to the individual. Globally, we must pursue and prosecute rigorously the organisers, the traffickers, the couriers and the money launderers; on a European level, we must pool knowledge, expertise and experience; at national level, we must define and finance a robust and concerted policy framework; at local level, we must pull together all the players who can make an impact in the communities that they serve; at family level, we need to support parents who are helping their children to resist the temptations of drugs.

We are not merely talking about personally rejecting drugs, turning a blind eye or casually accepting drugs as someone else's problem and some other family's tragedy. It is about making it plain that, whatever the short-term high and whatever the style gurus say, drugs damage individuals, families, communities and countries. We must confront the problem of drug misuse and make it clear that it is intolerable and not worth it. It is about not only explaining rationally the risks with which the individual misuser is toying, but making clear the wider impact, such as feeding local crime and providing a market for greedy opportunists whose curriculum vitae may include gun running, money laundering and terrorism.

Individual Ecstasy misusers may regard their drug taking as a bit of harmless fun, but the truth is that their decision to take the drug not only places their health at risk, but places them at the end of a chain of supply which is steeped in criminality and violence. It is the sum of those individual—

It being half-past Two o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.