Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

My Lords, the noble Lord will know that reform of the Misuse of Drugs Act is not in the Bill as a proposal, and I am not really in a position to be able to respond to him on his amendment today. Clearly, however, if there was a need to reform the Act itself, the Government would always be receptive to hearing the views that are being put forward on that, so while I have noted what he said about overall reform of the Act we would naturally need to have advice from wider quarters as well. I hope he will accept that I have heard and noted what he has said on that. As for this amendment and its aim to retain the existing statutory nature of specified areas of expertise in the ACMD’s membership under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, the Government take a view that placing one area of expertise on a greater footing than others brings into question the need for the latter. Our proposals therefore place all ACMD members on an equal footing. We want to make the best use of our independent experts, the ACMD, in this challenging area of government policy. The scientific community was consulted about our proposal, which will give the ACMD's membership the flexibility to adapt to the modern challenges of the drug landscape. We have the full support of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, with which we have developed a broader non-statutory list of expertise from which the ACMD’s membership will be predominantly drawn. This list is contained in the draft working protocol that was laid in the House Library on 1 April. It includes all six groups of expertise that are currently statutory. The working protocol also sets out the future involvement of the ACMD in recruiting new members and the process by which we will secure the relevant expertise that is needed. It may be interest the House to know that we have received broad support for the change and our intent is to have non-statutory lists of expertise from the Academy of Medical Sciences, the British Academy, the British Society of Criminology, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, the British Pharmacological Society and the Royal Society of Medicine, and the Science and Technology Committees of both Houses were also consulted. The committee of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, welcomed the added flexibility to the ACMD’s membership. The Government and the ACMD are prepared to be held to account on the terms of the protocol, so a final version will be laid in the Libraries of both Houses. I am not sure whether the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has had an opportunity to study that protocol and its proposals, but I hope that he will have taken reassurance from the wide scientific body that has supported the Government in these measures. On that basis, I ask him to withdraw the amendment.