I shall be brief, but we have an amendment in this group, which states:
“Regulations under this section providing for medical research activity to be excluded from the application of the offences under this Act shall be laid before each House of Parliament within one week of sections 4 to 10 coming into effect”.
Something that has been referred to already is the letter that was received from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. One point made in that letter was that the Bill could,
“seriously inhibit medical and scientific research on psychoactive substances”.
We have had the response from the Government in a letter to me, in which they referred to the views of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. I take it that that includes the views of the advisory council on
the Bill’s potentially seriously inhibiting medical and scientific research on these substances. The Government’s letter said:
“So that we can properly consider the ACMD’s advice, we now propose to defer tabling Government amendments on these issues until the Commons stages”.
On the basis that that is still the position—and I hope that the Minister will be able to confirm that the Government are still looking at the matter of the impact on research with a view to tabling amendments in the Commons—that would certainly suffice with regard to our Amendment 23, if the Minister can give that assurance.