My Lords, these are two very important areas—prisons and children—and I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Kirkwood, for introducing these amendments.
I will put some remarks on the record but, given the views that have been expressed around the Chamber regarding children, I will undertake between Committee
and Report, if the Children’s Society and noble Lords were interested and the right reverend Prelate was minded to join us, to arrange for us to meet the Children’s Society, with officials, and really examine this part of the Bill to see whether this is something that we need to look at in more detail. I will put some general remarks on the record but that is a commitment that I am happy to give in this important area.
I begin by acknowledging the problem that new psychoactive substances are causing in prisons, and take this opportunity to reassure noble Lords that a wide range of work is currently under way within the National Offender Management Service, including clear and unequivocal guidance to prison governors and staff about the dangers posed by these substances. There is a widespread prison media campaign, including the use of prison radio, to ensure that all prisoners are aware of the very serious risks associated with using new psychoactive substances. A National Offender Management Service steering group has recently been established to deliver actions on supply reduction; demand reduction; data and research; and messaging and communications.
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There has also been a strong legislative response, with the Serious Crime Act creating a new offence of throwing or projecting an item over a prison perimeter. This new offence was designed in particular to tackle the supply into prisons of new psychoactive substances and will go some way to tackling the availability of these substances on the prison estate. Furthermore, the National Offender Management Service has worked and will continue to work closely with the Home Office on this Bill, which we expect to have a marked effect on tackling the supply and use of new psychoactive substances in prisons.
Amendments 40 and 44 seek to make the supply of a psychoactive substance on prison premises an additional aggravating factor when a court sentences an offender for an offence under Clause 5. Similarly, Amendments 41 and 42, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, seek to extend the circumstances where Clause 6 is to apply. In this instance, the supply of a psychoactive substance on or in the vicinity of accommodation where a looked-after child resides or to a person under the age of 18 would constitute an aggravating factor.
Clause 6 replicates an equivalent provision in Section 4A of the Misuse of Drugs Act, which seeks to provide additional protections to children from the dangers of controlled drugs. In its current form, this clause provides similar protections with regard to new psychoactive substances by creating an aggravated offence which would apply in two circumstances. The first is when someone supplies, or offers to supply, a psychoactive substance,
“in the vicinity of a school premises”,
one hour before or after they are used by a person under the age of 18. The second is when a person causes or permits a child or young person under 18,
“to deliver a psychoactive substance to a third person, or … to deliver a drug-related consideration”—
that is, some form of payment—to himself or herself, or to a third person.
It is right that the courts should look particularly seriously upon an offence under Clause 5 committed in these circumstances and take this into account when sentencing the offender. This is not to say that the court would not also take a dim view of other circumstances where a Clause 5 offence is being committed. The noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Kirkwood, are right to highlight other scenarios where a person convicted of the supply offence ought to be treated more severely compared with other cases.
That said, one challenge presented by the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, is that while an offender supplying drugs would be in no doubt that he or she was operating near a school, the same could not necessarily be said of a residential children’s home or other premises to which Amendment 42 would apply. Such premises may not be clearly identified as a children’s home and could look like any other house in a residential street. Where that is the case, it would arguably be unjust to impose a higher sentence in circumstances where the offender could have no knowledge that the aggravating factor was engaged.