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Anti-Drug Awareness

I, too, congratulate the Minister on his promotion, but I shall keep my congratulations short, otherwise his head may swell from all the praise that he has received, and I do not want him to disappoint us when he responds. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) on making a compelling case for early intervention. No doubt he could supply figures proving that investment in early-years education has a long-term benefit but, equally, the investment that he described will pay dividends in the longer term. Clearly, he has drawn extensively on his wide experience in Nottingham and of One Nottingham, and he has highlighted the importance of partnership. Partnership—the local authority working with the police, the voluntary sector or the health service locally—is the way to tackle the issue, whether it is drugs or, for instance, obesity, because all local bodies must be involved. We will hear when the Minister responds whether he thinks that the balance between early intervention and rehabilitation is right. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink) on drawing attention to the important role that the voluntary sector has to play in tackling the issue. Clearly, Government and health service resources are limited and likely to become more constrained in the next few years, so as we face difficult financial times, the voluntary sector's role is likely to grow rather than to shrink. I hope that all Members agree that, currently, the approach to tackling drugs and alcohol abuse is not working as effectively as it could. It neither deters people from drug use or excessive alcohol consumption nor ensures effective education and treatment. This is in spite of the fact that, according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, the UK has one of the highest levels of drug use in Europe and one of the most punitive approaches towards drugs. The statistics, some of which the hon. Member for Castle Point referred to, are quite horrendous: half of all 16-year-olds have tried an illegal drug; one third of 16 to 24-year-olds have used an illegal drug in the past year; there are 270,000 problem drug users in the UK; and the average age of heroin users is going down in the UK, as opposed to up in other countries. If anyone is in any doubt about the cost involved, I recommend doing what I have done in the past couple of months, which is to go to my local magistrates court, sit alongside first, the magistrates, to see how they deal with cases, and then, the Crown Prosecution Service prosecutors, to look at the cases before the courts and to make a mental note of how many involved drugs or alcohol. The overwhelming majority of cases that I saw and listened to involved drugs or alcohol as a major component of, or contributor to, the offences under discussion. The Government have taken some positive steps. We welcome their approach in ““Drugs: Protecting Families and Communities””, the 10-year strategy with an action plan to tackle the first three years, and its focus on mainstreaming prevention. That is what we are talking about today: education. We support most of what the Government are doing, as do other organisations. I have just mentioned the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. It described the UK approach positively. It looks across Europe to find how different countries are tackling drugs and welcomes the fact that there is a focus on better education and intervention for young people and families, especially those who are most at risk, which means targeting those who need help the most. It commends programmes such as FRANK. However, on schools—this was a point made earlier by the hon. Member for Nottingham, North—the centre goes on to say:"““Throughout most of the United Kingdom, drug prevention is part of the national curriculum and most schools have a drug education policy and guidelines on dealing with drug incidents.””" One must ask, ““Why not all schools?”” as opposed to ““most”” schools. If some schools are not willing to engage in that process, perhaps there needs to be a statutory requirement so that they do engage. It is also very clear that young people want this education. Recently, I have had discussions with my youth parliament, the Sutton Youth Parliament, which I meet on a regular basis. It is about to conduct a survey of local school pupils to find out what they think about drug and alcohol education, as well as sex education, in schools. I am sure that those pupils will want more information on drugs rather than less and that they will want a consistency of education provided across all schools in the borough, rather than a pick-and-mix approach that leaves some children very vulnerable because they are not receiving the level of education that they need. The rather patchy approach in schools, which the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction has identified, could equally have been highlighted with regard to prisons. The latest annual report by the chief inspector of prisons, which was published in January, examined substance use in prisons. It said:"““Substance use strategies were very variable. Where there was a regular needs analysis, services were well coordinated and comprehensive. Conversely, where there was not, services tended to be fragmented and failed to meet prisoners' needs.””" The report went on to say that the prisons not doing the needs analysis"““surprisingly, had none””—" that is, no programmes—"““or had programmes that did not meet the needs of the whole population.””" The report also said:"““Many prisons had insufficient resources for counselling, referral, assessment and throughcare… teams””." Finally, it said:"““We came across only one example of an integrated alcohol strategy, developed in partnership with the community, which was on the Isle of Wight.””" Clearly, education provision in prisons is patchy at the moment, and the Government need to address that. I believe that the 10-year strategy is trying to improve the level of provision, and I hope that the strategy will ensure that there is much more consistency in the education and support available in prisons. We support other initiatives that are being promoted, including the national tackling drugs week. I wonder if the Minister is in a position to say whether any assessment has been carried out of the effectiveness of that campaign and how many partnerships were participating in it. Furthermore, can he demonstrate that it is an initiative that is making a very positive contribution, perhaps in raising the profile of best practice in tackling drugs? I have already referred to FRANK, the Government's national drug awareness campaign. Since its launch, FRANK has had some significant successes. For example, it has responded to 740,000 telephone calls and just under 50,000 e-mails, and its website has received a considerable number of hits. Again, however, although the raw statistics are impressive, I would like to hear from the Minister whether any comparisons have been made between FRANK and other types of information systems, to establish whether we are achieving best value in relation to those systems and delivering the best possible communication and information services for people who wish to access information about drugs, whether they are young people themselves or, indeed, their parents. From a Liberal Democrat point of view, I would like to make a couple more points about where we think there is perhaps a need for greater focus. Certainly we would like the Government's policy to be evidence-based. We disagree with the Government about their attitude to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. It is a body with experts in a range of fields who are examining the issue of drugs, hopefully in an impartial, independent and professional way. Those experts are coming up with conclusions that we think it would be appropriate for the Government to take on board, but in fact the Government are being selective about which of those conclusions they take on board and which ones they dismiss. It is wrong for a Government not to ensure that the actions they are taking are very much evidence-based, and the evidence that that body has put forward—for instance in relation to cannabis and what it thinks the classification of cannabis should be—is quite clear. Drug misuse is very much a public health issue. The focus should be on education, as the hon. Member for Nottingham, North said. However, if the education process has not worked or if it is too late in the day for education, rehabilitation is required. The police resources that we have available to bring to bear on this issue should be focused very much on dealers and organised crime. The law must be credible and it must be tough. I must use this opportunity to raise what is perhaps a parochial issue, although I suspect that there are many Members—if not among those who are here today, then among Members elsewhere in the House—who are affected by it, and it is that of head shops. For those Members who are not in the know, those are shops that sell drugs paraphernalia, and there a number of them up and down the country. There is one in my constituency, although I understand it is going to shut temporarily so that it can sell fireworks instead. I am not saying that selling fireworks is an improvement, but in any case it will revert to being a head shop. There is clearly a huge inconsistency when cannabis is illegal—we can argue about the classification of it, but it is an illegal drug—but there are shops that are in the business of promoting and selling the materials that people need to consume it. From an educational point of view, I am very worried that we are saying to the children who go to the primary school just around the corner from that shop or those who go to the secondary school just down the road from it, ““Drugs are something you should avoid”” and ““Drugs are bad”” and so on, but they can then walk round the corner and see a shop—or they can see into it, because the door is always left open—and, because there is nothing illegal about what the shop is doing, they can then go in. There is no age limit on entering that shop, so a 10-year-old can go in and could buy anything on display. There is thus a huge inconsistency and it risks undoing all the good educational work in this sphere: we say drugs are bad, but people can go around the corner and see a shop that is selling what they need to enable them to consume drugs. That inconsistency must be cleared up. I have had a meeting with Tim Hollis, the chief constable who is leading on this issue, and I will seek a meeting with the Home Office official who is dealing with the legal side—the legislation to establish whether it is possible, either under existing legislation or, if necessary, through new legislation, to address this matter.