PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Draft Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) Order 2024 - 24 January 2024 (Commons/General Committees)

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) Order 2024.

It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairman-ship, Mr Hollobone.

This draft order, laid before Parliament on 27 November last year, proposes amendments to schedule 2 to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 to control or ban 15 substances as class A drugs, four substances as class B drugs, and one substance as a class C drug under the Act.

Members will have seen the ruinous effect of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids elsewhere in the world, particularly in the United States where they devastate lives and communities. As part of the Government’s continuing efforts to mitigate the threat of synthetic opioids in the UK, this legislation will control 15 additional synthetic opioids as class A drugs under the 1971 Act. This will include 14 nitazenes, some of which are even more potent than fentanyl, as class A drugs under the 1971 Act, following recommendations from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs in its report of 18 July 2022 and addenda of 19 December 2022 and 6 October 2023. I want to put on the record my thanks to Professor Owen Bowden-Jones, who chairs the ACMD, and all the members for the work that they have done in this area and in others.

Three of the synthetic opioids, isotonitazene, metoni-tazene and brorphine—I can see the shadow Minister smiling; I look forward to his pronunciations later—were controlled under schedule 1 to the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs 1961, to which the UK is a signatory. Following this, the Government commissioned the ACMD for its advice on the appropriate classification and we are now following that advice.

The ACMD looked at some other substances as well. Cumyl-PeGaClone, a synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonist—SCRA—was added to schedule 2 to the United Nations convention on psychotropic substances in April 2021. That will be controlled as a class B drug under the Act. Many SCRAs are currently class B under a generic definition in the 1971 Act. However, owing to the structure of that particular substance, it falls outside that definition, which is why we are adding it here.

Also to be controlled as class B drugs under the 1971 Act by the order are three stimulants—diphenidine, ephenidine and methoxyphenidine. Again, this follows international control of diphenidine under schedule 2 to the UN convention that I have mentioned already. That happened in 2021, after which the Government commissioned the ACMD. In its report of 25 May last year the AMCD noted the involvement of those substances in a number of drug-related deaths worldwide and recommended that we control them, which we are now doing.

Finally, remimazolam, a benzodiazepine, will be controlled as a class C drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act. Remimazolam is the active ingredient in a product given marketing authorisation by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, but the ACMD recommended in December 2022 that it should be controlled as a class C drug because of the potential harms that it can cause.

According to the ACMD’s advice, all of the substances are psychoactive and therefore may be subject to the offences under the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016, which contains various offences for the production, supply, possession with intent to supply, and import or export of a psychoactive substance. The control of those substances under the 1971 Act will make it an offence to possess them and imposes higher penalties and stronger enforcement provisions for the supply and production offences.

Although many are caught under the PSA, the sanctions, including for possession, are now much stronger. Those who supply or produce a class A drug could face up to life imprisonment, an unlimited fine, or both. Meanwhile, those found in unlawful possession of a class A drug could face up to seven years in prison, an unlimited fine or both. Members of the Committee will see that the controls, under the 1971 Act, are much stronger.

One of the substances I have mentioned, remimazolam, has known medicinal value and has been given a marketing authorisation by the MHRA. It will therefore be placed in part 1 of schedule 4 to the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001 by a statutory instrument made under the negative procedure to make sure it can be used for legitimate medicinal purposes. The other 19 substances will be placed in schedule 1 to the 2001 regulations by that same negative SI owing to their lack of known medicinal value. Those substances, excluding remimazolam, will therefore be added to part 1 of schedule 1 to the Misuse of Drugs (Designation) (England, Wales and Scotland) Order 2015. Controlled drugs are designated when the Secretary of State believes it is in the public interest for production, supply and possession to be wholly unlawful or unlawful except for research or special purposes, or for medicinal use of the drug to be unlawful, except under specific licence.

The drugs we are scheduling today under the 1971 Act all have potential to cause enormous harm. We know that synthetic opioids are powerfully addictive. They are very potent; often far more than heroin, for example. We have seen the devastation synthetic opioids have caused in the USA and are determined to avoid the same thing happening here in the United Kingdom. Therefore, the measures we take today in the order are just part of the work the UK Government are doing to protect our citizens against the harm that synthetic opioids can cause. On that basis, I commend the order to the Committee.

Thank you, Mr Hollobone. I do not intend to detain the Committee until 4 pm—although colleagues are encouraging me, so who knows—but I have a few points I want to go through with the Minister.

I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation. I will start by saying that we support the changes. We all recognise the devastating impact mentioned by the Minister that synthetic opioids have had on communities in the United States. That epidemic has seen incidences of overdoses rise dramatically, lots of lives lost, families torn apart and entire communities riven with the problems associated with their use. It is good news that we have not experienced the crisis in that way, but sometimes we are just behind rather than having avoided such challenges, and so we need to be vigilant in acting where necessary to ensure that the law keeps pace with developments.

I associate myself with the Minister’s comments regarding the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and its fine work, both generally and in this regard. We are grateful for that work; it is helpful. However, might the Minister take the opportunity in summing up to say, beyond his conversations with the ACMD, what the Government’s views are of the picture of the development of new synthetic opioids and the prevalence of their use in the UK? We will have to monitor that. It is right to put them in their classifications, but there will still be an illicit market for them, and knowing what we can do about the intelligence would be of interest to the Committee.

I turn to an important point about drug treatment services. It is right that we have classifications for synthetic opioids, all of which, and particularly class A, have profound possible legal sanctions. It is right that those who manufacture, trade and profit from synthetic opioids face significant penalties because of the devastation they wreak. Can the Minister talk a little about drug treatment services and whether there will be a need to develop services in concert with those penalties to pick up need as a result of the development of the use of synthetic opioids? The Minister and I are currently engaged in the Criminal Justice Bill and we talked a little about drug treatment services last week or the week before—time merges into one on such Bills—and the figure for drug treatment services is still about half of what it was a decade ago while drug deaths have doubled. What assessment has the Department made of that?

On a final point, when this order was debated in the other place, the Government spokesperson referred to the Government’s drugs strategy and the increased availability of naloxone nasal spray, a life-saving heroin antidote. The Government have committed to updating legislation to enable greater access to take-home treatment for people who either are themselves or are close to someone at risk of possible death by overdose. I have tabled a new clause to the Criminal Justice Bill on this matter, which we will probably debate on Tuesday. It is based on the Home Affairs Committee’s recommendation that police officers in England and Wales carry naloxone. In Scotland, they already do. I believe the Government only partially accepted the recommendation. Given the recognition in this order of the importance of opioids and the risk of controlled substances, is it not now time to revisit that recommendation, to save lives and mitigate some of the harm that can be caused?

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Hollobone. I apologise for my tardiness—as colleagues explained, I inadvertently got stuck in a lift trying to get to Committee today and I missed the beginning of the Minister’s statement.

I am pretty sceptical about these orders adding more dangerous drugs to the already quite long list of dangerous drugs and about the effect that will have. Adding drugs to a list certainly does not prevent or deter people from taking them. The analysis of the risk at paragraph 79 in the impact assessment from the Home Office states:

“The analysis does not consider any deterrence effect in which indivduals stop misusing the controlled drugs as a result of the intervention. This is not included due to a lack of evidence on the likelihood of a deterrence following drug control both across all controlled drugs and the specific drugs controlled in this legislation.”

I would be interested to hear from the Minister why he thinks that adding these drugs to the list will stop people taking drugs. The very nature of drugs is that they are quite moreish, and people tend to keep taking them. That is the history of the Misuse of Drugs Act.

I also reinforce the findings of the Home Affairs Committee report, which asked the Government, among other things, to look again at the Misuse of Drugs Act, which is a very outdated and largely ineffective piece of legislation. I very much agree with that point.

The hon. Member for Nottingham North mentioned the significance of naloxone in tackling opioids and in reversing the effects of opioid overdoses. That has been used to great effect in Scotland. It is carried by the police, and I and my office staff have been trained in how to administer it, not just the nasal form but the injectable one. It is available in Scotland for people to have training on. The Scottish drugs agencies help to make sure that people can get that training in the community, which is really important, given that drug addiction and overdoses are, sadly, still too prevalent. I would encourage all Members to take up the opportunity if it is available to them, because it is important to be able to make that intervention and to save lives where we can. I will not oppose the order, but I certainly remain sceptical about the effect that it will actually have.

Let me briefly respond to the points that have been made. I welcome the support for the order from both the shadow Minister and the SNP spokesperson, who have said that they will not oppose it. On the shadow Minister’s questions regarding the use of synthetic opioids, it is a real concern. We have seen what has happened in the USA. We have not seen widespread problems in the UK; we have seen some issues, but nothing like the scale in the US, and we would like to keep it that way. How will we do that? One way is through very careful monitoring—for example, by looking at post-mortem toxicology reports. Wastewater analysis is another way. We are also significantly increasing surveillance at the border to detect any attempts to import either synthetic opioids or their precursor chemicals.

My right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings asked about enforcement, and he is quite right to say that the law is only as good as the enforcement that accompanies it. We have had a number of conversations with the police to make sure that they are aware of the systemic threat that synthetic opioids pose, particularly nitazenes, including those being banned today. I specifically discussed this issue with Richard Lewis, who is the chief constable of Dyfed-Powys police and the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead on drugs, to make sure that he is fully appraised of the risk that synthetic opioids pose, particularly nitazenes. I can assure my right hon. Friend that I will continue to press the police to make sure that they enforce hard against these drugs.

We need to have a zero-tolerance approach to all forms of illegal drugs, and synthetic opioids are at the top of that list because of the harm they cause. I therefore respectfully disagree with the hon. Member for Glasgow Central on her suggestion that banning drugs has no effect or is a foolish undertaking. Where drugs are highly addictive, devastate lives and cause people to die, it is right that Parliament legislates to ban them. I am sure we will debate this issue at greater length at another time, but we have seen some American cities essentially decriminalise drugs and public drug consumption. They have then seen an explosion in drug consumption, particularly of synthetic opioids, but of other drugs as well. In fact, some of those same cities, which are very often run by extreme liberal administrations, have now begun to think again and look at reversing some of the liberalisation that they instituted because they have seen the effect it has had.

On the point about synthetic opioids, many charities are concerned about the impact that the stymieing of the flow of drugs from Afghanistan may have on the development of synthetic opioids in Europe, because they do not need to be transported; they can be made right here. That is a risk factor should the supply of heroin into the UK be stopped as a result of the action taken in Afghanistan. What assessment has the Minister made of that risk?

We have assessed the risk. We are aware of the new Taliban policy to ban opium production in Afghanistan and the consequent likely reduction in the heroin supply into western Europe and North America. It will take a while to filter through the supply chain—it will not have an immediate effect—but we are aware of the problem. The hon. Lady identifies one of the risks, which is why staying ahead of synthetic opioid importation through surveillance, border control and a zero-tolerance law enforcement approach is particularly important—more so than it would ordinarily be because of the substitution risk that she rightly refers to.

My right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings asked about the ACMD’s remit. The Home Office is able to commission the ACMD to look at various matters. Whenever a matter of concern arises, we commission ACMD to look at it, and monkey dust is an example of that. A number of colleagues, including my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) and for Newcastle-under-Lyme, raised that issue, and we commissioned the ACMD to take a look at it. We can take action whenever a new harmful illegal substance pops up.

The final question relates to treatment. Although members of the Committee will discern from my comments that I believe in having a strong—indeed, a zero-tolerance—approach to enforcement, treatment is also important. Naloxone should be used as routinely as possible because, as Members know, it combats the effect of opioid overdose. It is successful and effective at doing that, but treatment is also important for getting people off drugs. We have invested £532 million over three years in creating 55,000 extra treatment places, and we are tracking the uptake of those places. I am encouraging the police to refer addicted people into treatment in addition to prosecuting criminals, and I am encouraging the courts to do the same thing. A combination of strong enforcement and referrals to treatment can keep our society free from drugs, and today’s order is an important part, but only a part, of that fight.

Question put and agreed to.