§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Clelland.]
§ 7 pm
§ Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold)I am grateful for the opportunity to initiate this debate. The background comes from my constituent, who wants to remain anonymous, for obvious reasons. She wrote to me about her two sons, who had both become heroin addicts and who, through sheer strength of personality, have overcome their drug dependency. She wrote:
In January I felt as if I had stepped on a land mine and my entire life was blown apart, I was left in such unspeakable pain that only another person who has endured it could understand the full horror of it. What made it unique was that there was no relief to the agony; no pain killer, operation or treatment could heal the wounds left by the knowledge that my 19 and 16 year old sons were both addicted to heroin!My constituent went on to point out that Gloucestershireisn't an area of social deprivation on an inner city housing estate in Manchester, Bristol or Glasgow. This isn't a single parent family with no positive role model to give guidance to these boys in their formative years. These are not bored disaffected youngsters with no hope and nothing to do, left to wander the streets from an early age. And yet, they became entangled in the pernicious web of evil that surrounds heroin and those who profit from it.When I met her, she informed me how easy it is for youngsters to slip into addiction. The pernicious dealers offer free fixes to start with, until the youngsters become well and truly hooked.After I met my constituent, I started to research the problem in detail. I found an alarming growth in the number of registered drug addicts in rural areas. In Cirencester and the east Cotswolds area which includes Cheltenham and Tewkesbury, there are more than eight new cases a week. In west Gloucestershire, there are more than 12 new cases a week. That is a staggering 1,000 new cases a year in Gloucestershire alone. The Cheltenham drugs clinic currently has 400 cases on its books.
The official statistics show that the number of registered addicts in rural areas has trebled over the past three years. I welcome the Minister of State, Cabinet Office to the debate. On 28 January, he sent me some regional drug misuse data, which showed that the figures for registered new users in Gloucestershire were 28 a year in 1997 and 63 in 1998. In the first six months of 1999, there were 96 cases. That is a huge and tragic increase.
Those figures demonstrate, in the most graphic possible way, that although the drug problem in the urban areas is well known, the mushrooming problem in rural areas is not. There is no room for complacency among the Government, the police or any of the agencies involved.
I wholly applaud the many initiatives taken by the Gloucestershire police to tackle the problem, although there is a long way to go. After all, they are the lowest funded force of any shire county. I welcome their education initiative. They have seconded four officers to liaise with the local education authority to teach citizenship, including the dangers of drug addiction.
Education is the key to alerting our children and parents in rural areas, who may not be as aware as their urban counterparts of the real danger of hard drugs. We need to 1476 demonstrate graphically that there is an enormous difference between so-called soft drugs and addiction to hard drugs, such as opiate derivatives like heroin and crack cocaine. They cause real physical damage and are far more addictive than soft drugs. However, such education must be correctly undertaken by trained teachers and officers. My constituent told me that she had recently been told by a teacher that nicotine was more addictive than heroin.
The link between drugs and crime has been well documented. It is estimated that a half of all crime is drugs related and that a third of the proceeds of crime goes to fund the drugs habit. As I have said, my constituent described the horrific experience that she went through with her sons. She had to have locks fitted on the windows and the doors to keep her own sons in while they were being treated in the withdrawal stage and to keep other addicts out who were desperate to get into her house to share needles and other facilities with her sons. Her sons stole her credit cards, stereo, cash and anything else that they could lay their hands on to fund further raps, as they are known.
At one point, there was even the possibility that my constituent would have to go to court to testify against her own son for theft, and the police were also going to charge him with possession. Fortunately, common sense prevailed and a private arrangement was made with her son to repay the money and a course of drug replacement therapy was agreed on rather than charges being pursued.
My constituent says that credit card fraud was among the worst sources of money for her son. Within an hour of stealing her credit card, he went to four local supermarkets and obtained £50 cash back from each. She therefore has some useful suggestions to make in that respect. She suggests that the banks should insist on photographs on all credit cards and on the use of personal PIN numbers when the cards are used in the shops.
Each case of drug addiction not only wrecks individual lives, but those of families, communities and the rest of us, because of the crime that is generated as a result. Gloucestershire police are involved in excellent initiatives, some of which are pilots for the rest of the country. They include a drugs arrest referral scheme with funding of £30,000 to make a trainer available to advise all those arrested. Gloucestershire police issued 92 drug treatment testing orders in 1999 and claimed a 25 per cent. success rate. They have a drugs referral scheme to ensure that those who are under arrest, on bail or probation or in custody are properly surveilled and can be counselled in the correct manner. Finally, a drugs and alcohol team will bring together all the agencies.
As the anti-drugs tsar, Keith Hellawell, recently said at a conference in Gloucestershire:
Drugs misuse is a complex issue which can only be tackled by a partnership approach between statutory and voluntary agencies, at both local and Government levels.I wholeheartedly agree with that, and I am sure that everyone in the House, including the Minister, will also agree.As I have already said, Gloucestershire's police force is the lowest-funded shire police force in any county. Our schools, through the standard spending assessment system, are among the lowest-funded primary and secondary schools in the country. If we are to tackle the problem, we must have proper funding.
1477 Gloucestershire police have informed me today that in the Stroud and Cotswold division in the past six months, there have been 46 warrants for seizure of drugs and 37 for the supply of controlled drugs, while 226 arrests for possession have been made. Although that is excellent news, it shows that the police are prioritising the addicts, who are easy targets, rather than the dealers who are much better organised and altogether more difficult to catch.
Addicts must be encouraged to seek treatment. It is estimated that for every £1 spent on treatment, £3 is saved on crime. My constituent told me that the drug replacement therapy was extremely effective for her two sons. The drug Naltrexone costs £5 per tablet and the course involves one tablet a day for three to six months. Although the initial dose can be funded by the Gloucestershire drugs clinic in Cheltenham, it can fund only that. The rest of the course has to be funded by general practitioners. Again, we come up against the funding problem, because Gloucestershire GPs, particularly in the Cotswolds, have had their budgets hit harder than almost anywhere in the country and we are losing GPs as a result. It would be a tragedy and a scandal if the funding were not always available for such drugs replacement therapy.
A far greater effort needs to be applied on a national basis by all the agencies involved, including Customs and Excise, the police and the armed forces, to stop pernicious hard drugs entering the country.
I propose a four-point plan to help stem the huge, increasing tide of drugs in rural areas. First, we need improved co-ordination to produce better education in schools, colleges and the media in rural areas. Secondly, we should re-target police priorities towards pursuing the drug dealers rather than the soft drug addicts. Thirdly, there should be an increased effort by all the agencies involved, so preventing many hard drugs from entering the country. Fourthly, there must be better funding for the treatment of hard drug addicts.
This is a huge and increasing problem in rural areas. If we do not nip it in the bud now, it will become so big that it will be much more difficult to treat later. I know that this is the second Adjournment debate on drugs that the Minister has had to attend today, but if he and the Government's drugs co-ordinator, Keith Hellawell, can bring together all Departments and agencies so that the biggest threat faced by society in rural areas can be tackled head-on and effectively reduced, this debate will have been worth while. I look forward with interest to his reply.
§ The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr. Ian McCartney)I thank the hon. Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) both for what he said and for the manner in which he said it. I can honestly say that this is the first time that I shall have been able to have a dialogue on this issue across the Dispatch Box with someone who has been non-partisan and who has put forward proposals—which I hope, as I respond, the hon. Gentleman will realise are part of the central Government strategy.
First, let me make the hon. Gentleman an offer. I know what his constituent's family are going through. Every day, and certainly after every speech that I make in the House, I get significant numbers of letters from desperate 1478 people whose children have died or who fear that their children will die or that they are involved in drugs, and who do not know how to cope with the problem. If the hon. Gentleman would like to come and see me, along with his constituents, in confidence and in private, he is welcome to do so. I also invite the hon. Gentleman to meet me and the drugs team at the Department, and let me go through the points that he has made to satisfy him that we are already dealing with them in our strategy. I genuinely want an all-party consensus on this issue. Everybody in this country, irrespective of their political views, is in danger of this evil touching them, their family or their community. We desperately need a consensus about the way forward.
I hope that the Government's 10-year strategy is a consensus about the way forward on a whole range of issues. We need to create a healthy, confident society, increasingly free from the harm caused by the misuse of drugs. We will best achieve that by encouraging young people to resist taking drugs in the first place so that they can realise their full potential; by helping communities to protect themselves from drug-related, anti-social and criminal behaviour; and by providing treatment to help everyone involved to overcome their drug addiction.
That is a difficult process because addiction is a recurring, chronic illness. Many people go forward and reach the second or third phase, but some just cannot make it despite their efforts. Love is not always enough. We need to try to ensure that we have a co-ordinated approach in each and every community where people are suffering. They should be able to come forward with confidence, and we should ensure that when they do, services are available to assist them and meet their individual needs.
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to talk about stifling the availability of drugs in Britain. One in 12 12-year-olds, one in three 14-year olds and nearly half of all 16-year-olds have tried drugs at least once. That is the age group into which the hon. Gentleman's constituents' children fall. It is estimated that a third of all property crime is related to drugs. In some areas, a quarter of all offenders arrested have tested positive for heroin, and one in 10 have tested positive for crack cocaine. More than half of the homeless are regular drug users.
The problems that we face are therefore extremely difficult, and we must face them as a society together. No single organisation, party, person or view has the answer. We need to co-operate with each other. That is why I am pleased that, up till now, all the political parties have given their support to the Government's strategy, along with the voluntary sector, the business community, community groups throughout the country and the police. I hope that we can return to that position of consensus.
We have allocated to Gloucestershire £105,000 under the arrest referral scheme, to which the hon. Gentleman has referred. That will help the police to identify and help drug misusers to gain access to treatment. It is vital to deliver new treatment services and to support schemes to reduce drugs-related offending; drugs education schemes; and preventive strategies. We must also put money into research to find solutions that work—there are many ideas, but we need ones that work and that relate to the individuals and the communities concerned. That is why I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman mentioned drug action teams and the drug treatment and testing order pilots that the Government have introduced.
1479 We need to have a drugs education strategy in schools and throughout communities. Every child has to develop an awareness of drugs and acquire the skills needed to handle a drugs-ridden society. Children must develop a sense of their own self-worth to be able to deal with peer pressure. They should know where to go if there is a problem in their family or their community, or among their friends. Teachers, educationists, parents, students and children must all acquire that awareness and understanding.
The Government's strategy contains many measures—I could speak for 20 minutes if you would allow me, Mr. Deputy Speaker. However, it is more useful if I write to the hon. Gentleman and send a copy to those hon. Members who have stayed for this debate. Then, in discussions with the hon. Gentleman, we can go though each point of the strategy, so that he can satisfy himself as to whether we are getting it right. I believe that we are getting it right by working with people.
It is important that the Government set themselves tough targets. Targets are not set for their own sake, but to enable us to judge whether our strategy is achieving what we intend it to achieve. Setting targets on tackling drugs misuse is difficult, but we should not shy away from the task. We have set ourselves targets such as reducing the number of young people using heroin and cocaine by a quarter by 2005, and by 50 per cent. by 2008; and reducing the rate of reoffending by drugs-misusing offenders by 50 per cent. by 2008.
We want to increase the number of people accessing treatment services by two thirds by 2005 and by 100 per cent. by 2008, thereby building up the capacity and the professional knowledge and skills of those who work in the community, taking referrals for drugs treatment. We want to reduce the availability of heroin and cocaine among young people by one quarter by 2005, and by 50 per cent. by 2008. We want to achieve all that against the background of addiction being a chronic, recurring illness.
The hon. Gentleman raised the question of seizing assets. I am the sponsor of a performance and innovation unit project dealing with the pursuit and seizure of criminals' assets. I shall report to the Prime Minister in the spring. We are absolutely determined to ensure that crime does not pay, to reduce crime and the fear of crime, and to raise morale among the public and law enforcement agencies.
We are also absolutely determined to equip ourselves to do irreparable damage to criminals' business activities and their businesses. Catching and jailing them is not enough; we have to damage the whole network, or it will continue after we put them in jail. We have to get to the heart of the structure. We can make our message clear to dealers by targeting both big-time and small-time dealers. We must catch, prosecute and jail the big dealers in particular, but we must also ensure that we have the weapons at our disposal to smash their business empires. If we do not, the machine will continue with others at its head.
All of those vital measures are interrelated in the overall strategy. The strategy has been running for only two years; we have another eight years to go. There is no 1480 complacency—absolutely none. We must make sure that each year significant improvements are made, step by step.
Drug education in schools is a crucial element. That is why it is so important that in the national curriculum, at key stage 1, five to seven-year-olds know about the role of drugs as medicines. At key stage 2, seven to 11-year-olds are taught that tobacco, alcohol and other drugs have harmful effects. At key stage 3, 11 to 14-year-olds learn that the abuse of alcohol, solvents, tobacco and other drugs affects health, that the body's natural defence may be enhanced by immunisation and medicines, and how smoking affects lung structure and gas exchange. At key stage 4, youngsters of 14 to 16—the age of the hon. Gentleman's constituents' children—learn about the effects of solvents, tobacco, alcohol and other drugs on their body's functions.
Throughout the long-term strategy and at each stage in the development of our children, we must give them the knowledge and skills necessary to cope with drug-related issues in their society.
§ Mr. Clifton-BrownI am grateful to the Minister for giving way. His response has been positive and helpful, and I welcome the invitation that he extended to me.
I read the education initiative that the right hon. Gentleman has just outlined, and I was slightly concerned, as it seems to equate heroin addiction with alcohol, smoking and solvents, which are in an entirely different league of addiction and physical damage. That is not helpful. Will he examine the education programme, speak to his colleagues in the Department for Education and Employment and see whether it can be modified?
§ Mr. McCartneyFor 10 years as a volunteer, I went into schools to do classroom work with young people on self-esteem and issues related to abuse. It is crucial that they have an understanding of all the factors that can cause them harm. Young people must understand the dangers, be able to assess the risks, and have the knowledge to make a choice not to become involved. Simply saying to them, "Don't do it" does not work. We must provide them with skills, knowledge and access to information. As a volunteer involved in such issues over a long period, I can say that the results are positive.
The Government are embarking on a major research programme in schools. I will send the hon. Gentleman a note about the programme and what we hope to achieve. He is right to say that education must play a major part in tackling the drugs problem. Drugs misuse is as much an education issue as it is a social evil. At each stage of the curriculum, we must get right the content and the training of teachers, so that those who are responsible for the delivery of the curriculum have a clear understanding.
A few years ago we did a survey among primary schoolchildren in my area, in Wigan. It was amazing that nine and 10-year-olds had more knowledge than the adults in the school about the drugs that were available on the streets. That is because of peers talking to brothers, sisters and cousins, and listening to the networks in the communities where they live. In one sense, that is frightening, but strategies can be put in place to deal with it.
1481 Young people are aware, but sometimes they are not sufficiently aware of the dangers. It is therefore important that the curriculum presents a balanced approach to all the dangers that children and young people face in their development.
In trying to defend communities against the activities of drug barons, we must encourage the community to become involved with the police and others. In that way we will help the community to rid itself of the scourge of drugs. I was pleased to attend a meeting a few days ago with the Prime Minister, Mr. Keith Hellawell and the Metropolitan police, who have started the "Rat on a Rat" campaign.
During the first two weeks of the campaign, the hotline took 2,000 calls and more than 700 drug dealers and users have been arrested. A single anonymous call from an elderly lady led to a bust taking place and the discovery of a £1 million drugs factory. That was the result of one woman watching and thinking, "Something isn't right. I'll use the 'Rat on a Rat' hotline." the consequence was a massive victory for the police and the community. It is important to involve the community, empower people and show them that they are not alone in a community where drugs have become a normal part of life. It does not have to be that way; it should not be that way. People should not be isolated in their communities. We owe each community the support of getting drug dealers off people's backs and away from their families.
We are also discussing with Childline the management of a potential schools hotline. We appreciate that that needs sensitive handling, but the possibility exists of providing an additional boost to schoolchildren's understanding about the issues that surround drugs.
We are currently recruiting 300 new drug treatment workers. That will help to expand the capacity of the treatment sector. I do not have the figures for Gloucestershire tonight, but when we talk, I shall tell the hon. Member for Cotswold whether any of the new recruits will work in his area. Gloucestershire is part of the programme, and it is receiving resources.
Early evidence from the pilot drug treatment and testing orders showed that the average number of crimes committed by offenders had fallen by 90 per cent. Getting offenders tested and into treatment has a significant effect. We must maintain the effect so that they do not go backwards. They must have support mechanisms in their communities. Housing, jobs and social care can all present problems. Sometimes those young people have split from their families; sometimes they are isolated and have lost their friends through their habit. We are considering complex issues and complicated young people, who have difficult problems. However, getting them into treatment 1482 assists matters greatly. It helps their self-esteem and reduces the harmful activities of taking drugs and committing crimes to feed their habit.
We are the first Government to have an agreed comprehensive strategy. There are good signs, but we are in a war. Three thousand young people die a year; each death is a personal family loss.
Five months ago today, I had to go to Glasgow city mortuary to identify my son. When I did that, I knew that all hope was lost. During all the years of problems in the family when we tried to support my son, there was always hope while he was alive. While young people are alive, there is always a chance that the support can help them. I believe that that is wonderful, and I hope that the constituents of the hon. Member for Cotswold can sustain the progress and they have made and see their children mature into adults and fulfil their dreams and aspirations.
Hugh left us some words, which I would like to read:
Tragically, we cannot relive or save Hugh's life, but we can save many other victims in this dirty, sordid drugs war.
- "From someone who knows:
- The damage the needle does
- It wrecks lives and
- Families, so think
- Before you stick it
- Into that vein of
- Yours, just think."
It is up to all of us to unite and win this war. I hope that the discussion tonight contributes to achieving that. We owe it to the families whose lives have been blighted and will never be put together again. There is no way of putting lives together when that happens. We owe it to the children who are no longer with them. We must sometimes think of every one of them—their faces and voices, their hopes and aspirations. In the end, the drugs war is about protecting children, and letting all of them have the opportunity to grow up in a society that respects, supports, loves and protects them, and where they can grow into adulthood and see their dreams and aspirations come true.
There is nothing more difficult to deal with than a child dying, and dying in the circumstances that we have discussed. I hope that our debate will convince people that the Government are absolutely committed to trying to ensure that we can, over time, overcome the difficulties and win the battle. If we do not, many other young people's lives will be destroyed. We must not allow that to happen.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Seven o'clock.