My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for introducing the debate on this amendment and giving us an opportunity to contemplate in broad terms these two groups of issues: one around the experience of dealing with people with drug problems and the other looking at international comparisons and alternatives, and health and education. This is something that your Lordships’ House does incredibly well: drawing on people who have had practical experience, not just in the police, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, has, but in adjudicating, as my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern has done in difficult areas. Then there were the contributions from the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, and my noble friend Lord Cavendish about their own experiences in trying to assist and work with people coming to terms with addiction. It has been a very thoughtful debate.
I am conscious that I will not be able to cover all the points, but we have a meeting with all interested Peers on 7 July in Committee Room 10A between 4 pm and 5 pm. We will announce it on the all-party Whip—or the business managers will, lest I overegg my powers. It has been set up particularly so that we can hear from Public Health England and about what is happening in education and treatment. I agree wholeheartedly with the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, that that goes very much to the heart of the wider issue we are seeking to address. The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, about updating where the Government and Public Health England are with the wider drug strategy and building recovery programmes might be usefully discussed at that meeting, along with many other issues.
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Let me put some remarks on the record and then come back to some of the specific questions that have been put to me. I acknowledge that drugs policy is a particularly difficult and challenging part of public and social policy. There probably are some countries in the world that do not wrestle with the problem but not many. Certainly everybody in the West, North America, South America, and Africa, and across Europe into Asia, is wrestling with the same challenges. My noble friend Lord Blencathra made the point that we look at other countries and draw conclusions. If there was a silver bullet or something that worked universally, clearly the world, being the way it is, would have unearthed it. Indeed, the UN General Assembly special session on drugs, which meets again next year, tries to harness experience from around the world. There is also the diligent research and work of our own expert panel, as well as examples of particular cultures in particular places where programmes have worked.
In that process, we should not underestimate that people might also take a look at drugs policy in this country and suggest that, across the majority of drugs and age groups, there has been a long-term downward trend in drug use over the last decade. Among 11 to 15 year-olds, drug use has been falling since its peak in 2003. More people are recovering from their dependency now than in 2009-10. The average waiting time to access treatment is down to three days. I pay tribute to the previous Government—the noble Lord, Lord Patel, talked about this at Second Reading—for the programmes which were started then and have been continued. We should not be averse to saying that there have been examples of success in many different jurisdictions, not just in Portugal—although that is an important area that we need to look at.
The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, seeks to remove the possession offence for controlled drugs under the Misuse of Drugs Act. The Government’s position is that liberalisation, through decriminalisation of harmful drugs, is not the answer to the problems we face. This Government have no intention of decriminalising the possession of drugs. It would not eliminate the crime committed by the illicit trade, nor would it address the harms associated with drug dependence and the misery that this can cause to families and communities.
Decriminalisation fails to recognise the complexity of the problem and has insufficient regard for the harms that drugs pose to the individual. It neither addresses the risk factors which lead individuals to misuse drugs and alcohol, nor takes into account the misery, cost and lost opportunities that dependence inflicts on individuals, their families and the wider community. Preventing and reducing drug misuse is a key part of our evidence-based drugs strategy. It is a drugs strategy which produces an annual report and is ongoing across many government departments. We take a broad approach to prevention, combining universal action with targeted action for those most at risk or already misusing drugs.
Drug recovery is at the heart of our current approach, with the key aim to support people to free themselves from drug dependency for good. We have moved our focus beyond the treatment system to include factors
that help people recover from drug dependency and fully integrate back into the community. Amendment 23 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, seeks to give police and local authorities a discretion to require a person to attend a drug treatment programme or drug awareness programme. The Government strongly support local investment in approaches that help to identify drug-using offenders and direct them to treatment at the earliest possible opportunity.
There are a number of examples of this work in action. For example, we are supporting police to use the model of drug testing on arrest to ensure that individuals are identified and referred to the treatment they need. We are supporting NHS England in its rollout of a new standard model of liaison and diversion services that identify and assess those who may have mental health or substance misuse issues—a point eloquently referred to earlier in the debate. There are now 22 liaison and diversion sites set up and running, covering more than 50% of the population. We are working with local areas to identify and respond to their heroin-using population in order to grip and reduce harms caused by heroin and crack cocaine, including drug-related offending and wider social outcomes. Finally, NHS England, Public Health England and the National Offender Management Service are working together to share and develop emerging learning from the north-west prisons “through the gate” substance misuse services early adopter approach.
The police and the courts of course have discretion in the implementation of our drug laws so that an informed and proportionate approach can be taken to an individual caught in possession of controlled drugs. The police have a range of alternatives. These currently include simple cautions, conditional cautions and—in cases of cannabis possession—cannabis warnings and penalty notices for disorder. Although a criminal offence is still committed, these types of out-of-court disposals do not amount to a criminal conviction.
Following a consultation on the current out-of-court disposal framework, the Government announced in November 2014 their intention to simplify the current range of disposals into two tiers: a suspended prosecution based around a conditional caution and a new statutory community resolution. The new framework would require offenders to take action to comply with the new disposals and face meaningful consequences if they fail to do so, rather than simply accept a warning. Both tiers would allow and encourage the police to include rehabilitative measures designed to prevent reoffending, including interventions to tackle drugs misuse and to help address underlying issues that may have contributed to the offending. The new arrangements are being piloted in three police force areas before a decision is taken on whether to roll them out more widely. It is the Government’s firm view that, by delivering on national commitments set out in the drug strategy and in other programmes, and by enabling local partners to take responsibility at a local level, we will enable more individuals to become free of their dependence and contribute to society.
On the idea of giving more local power, it was the Drugs Act, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, that sought to address the issue raised by my noble
friend Lord Blencathra: what actually constitutes personal possession? The Act went into a fine line-by-line definition, a bit similar to what had happened in Portugal, which defined an amount. We then found that this was unworkable for similar types of reasons that we have found for psychoactive substances: once you put down on a bit of paper what the amount is, people naturally start to try to find a way around it. What did we come back to? We came back to saying that the police at the scene should use their own judgment and determine whether drugs are for personal use or whether a person is dealing.
That is why we come back to where we are with this measure; we have said that it is for the police to apply that judgment as to whether the person they intend to stop and search is someone who they feel is likely to be in the production, supply or import or export of psychoactive substances, and whether the substances found would contribute to that, whether they be large or small.
So that is more or less where we have come to. I am sure that the noble Lord will not come round completely to saying that the Government have arrived at something which is a little closer to his innovations in Brixton, and clearly not on the scale proposed in his amendment. However, given our commitment to hold a meeting for all interested Peers, which will provide an opportunity for ongoing discussion, I hope that he will feel able to withdraw the amendment.