Criminal Justice (International Co-operation) Act 1990 (Amendment) Order 2026
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
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Lord Hanson of Flint
That the draft Order laid before the House on 26 February be approved.
Relevant document: 55th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (special attention drawn to the instrument)
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)
My Lords, in moving this instrument I will speak also to the Controlled Drugs (Drug Precursors) (Amendment and Revocation) Regulations 2026, both of which were laid before the House on 26 February. For ease of discussion, if the House will allow me, I will refer to the first of these two instruments as the regulations and the second as the order.
These instruments are somewhat technical in nature, but they have a bigger picture behind them. Both are intended to tackle the terrible harms caused by illegal drugs. Drug misuse has a profound impact on crime, health and productivity. Nearly half of acquisitive crime and over 50% of homicides are linked to drugs. In 2024, drug misuse deaths in England reached almost 3,500—the highest on record. Drug misuse costs the economy some £20 billion per year. The Government are committed to protecting our communities by reducing drug-related harms.
Drug precursor chemicals—DPCs—are used to make illicit drugs, but some have legitimate industrial uses. Controlling them is a vital way of tackling drug harms. It is important also as a vital string to our bow economically. It is always better to address a problem closer to source, and so it is better to tackle drug supply before a drug has even been made. There are two ways in which we control DPCs. The first is to place controls on their legitimate use, to minimise the chance that substances which were intended for bona fide industrial purposes could be diverted to producing illicit drugs. The regulations we are debating today address this. The second way is to criminalise the deliberate illicit use of DPCs for the purposes of making drugs. The order we are debating today addresses that.
To take the regulations first, currently companies must, in most cases, apply for licences and other authorisations to use DPCs. They must also, in most cases, properly document and label DPC consignments, and they must always tell the National Crime Agency whenever they have reason to believe a DPC may be diverted for illicit use. Those requirements were an EU responsibility before Brexit. Since then, EU rules have continued to apply in Northern Ireland under the Windsor Framework, whereas in Great Britain a similar system applies as assimilated law. These regulations correct some deficiencies in that assimilated law.
First, Ministers currently do not have an effective power to control new DPCs in Great Britain. The list of chemicals subject to control in Great Britain, as it was, has been effectively frozen in time since January 2021. Since then, the EU has controlled 10 new DPCs and 14 related substances. Those controls have therefore applied in Northern Ireland but not in Great Britain, on the other side of the Irish Sea.
The substances are used to produce MDMA, more commonly known as ecstasy, with fentanyl, whose deeply harmful nature is sadly all too familiar and which is particularly in use in America. Substances such as that known as crystal meth and amphetamines are also used. All of those, except amphetamine, are class A drugs, and for good reason. Fentanyl can, among other things, cause people to stop breathing. Ecstasy can lead to serious consequences, particularly for those with heart conditions, blood pressure problems, epilepsy or asthma. It was mentioned 78 times on certificates for death registered in England and Wales in 2024. Methamphetamine, quite apart from its severe health consequences, is linked to violent crime. The regulations will add those 10 DPCs and related substances to the control regime in Great Britain and will allow Ministers to control others in the future.
The second deficiency in the assimilated law is that there is currently no clear statutory mechanism to control the movement of DPCs between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The regulations will now provide one. Such controls are a vital way to prevent the diversion of DPCs to illicit use and to discharge our responsibilities under international law. At the same time, we recognise the importance of enabling trade to flow as smoothly as possible within the UK, and we are therefore waiving the need to pay a fee.
Finally, while the requirements on companies across the UK to label and document transactions involving DPCs and to tell the National Crime Agency of their suspected diversion apply to one set of chemicals, the criminal offences for not doing so apply to a different, smaller set. It cannot be right that there are legal requirements on companies but no sanctions for ignoring them. The regulations will ensure that the offences apply to the same DPCs as do the positive requirements.
I turn to the order. This instrument will extend the list of DPCs that it is a crime to supply or make if the defendant knows or suspects that they will be used to make controlled drugs. The order adds to that list 12 DPCs and 16 related substances that the United Nations controlled between March 2014 and March 2024. These DPCs are also used to produce ecstasy, fentanyl, amphetamine and methamphetamine. This should certainly have been done earlier—I cannot comment on why it was not, as this was under a Government not controlled by my party—but I know that my colleague the Minister for Policing and Crime has taken very seriously a number of criticisms made by noble Lords on the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and acted accordingly.
Finally, in line with usual practice, I draw the attention of the House to the correction slip for the regulations. This corrected two minor typographical errors. One changes a reference from “the Great Britain” to “Great Britain”; the other replaces a reference to the third occasion when a phrase appears on the second occasion. I hope those minor amendments are accepted.
While I am on my feet on the matter of drugs, I take this opportunity to comment on a question I answered from the noble Lord, Lord Storey, on 13 April about nitrous oxide. I stated that in the year September 2024 to September 2025 there were 242 convictions for the supply of nitrous oxide, with 234 sentences to date. In fact, it was October 2024 rather than September 2024 and the 242 convictions and 234 sentences were for possession or supply, mostly possession. It is important to place that small clarification on the record.
In summary, the Government are unwavering in their commitment to tackle illegal drugs, which cause misery and harm across society, and these two instruments will aid us in that critical effort. I beg to move.
Baroness Janke (LD)
My Lords, the basic idea that the list of controlled drug precursor chemicals should be in sync across the UK and with international agreements that we have signed up to is a clear and reasonable one. More complicated is the process by which we have got here. It is also less straightforward whether the Home Office is applying the right lessons from the mistakes involved.
The controlled drugs SI would give the Government the power to align the lists of drug precursor chemicals between Great Britain and Northern Ireland in future. Given the problems of delay that have brought us here today, with it taking five years since the end of the implementation period for this SI to come forward, can the Minister set out whether the department has set any targets or guidelines for how quickly it will move in future to use such powers? The Home Office has said that work on this SI started in 2024 and that this is one of its “legislative priorities”, yet we have the SI in Parliament only in 2026. Even if we start the clock after the 2024 general election, that is still the best part of two years to serve up an SI that was already delayed and running late. Is the Minister happy with that sort of turnaround time, and is anything being done to speed up the secondary legislation process in the Home Office?
The criminal justice SI involves even longer delays and a failure to act for at least a decade to update domestic law in the light of international agreements, in an area—criminal justice—that has consistently been a priority of different Home Secretaries and Governments. It has been a decade full of tough rhetoric about crime and requests for new legislation from the Home Office, yet also one of failure to keep on top of what should be pretty basic administrative tasks: having a proper legislation log, handover notes and processes for staff, and keeping a list of drugs up to date. Yet we know that was not the case. The Minister and the Home Secretary can reasonably point out that they were not in post for most of that decade, and in correspondence with the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee the relevant Minister has set out remedial steps, which is welcome.
What this leaves, though, are two concerns. First, there is the very basic nature of the mistakes: the absence of a proper legislation log and the absence of proper handover processes, particularly in a department where staff churn is a regular and even frequent occurrence. Over the years when these basic measures were missing, a variety of different staff would have churned through posts and in some way should have been aware of or responsible for such issues. That these problems persisted for so long suggests a systemic flaw in the management processes or quality in the department. Moreover, as the Home Office has, according to its correspondence with the SLSC, decided not to track down which staff were involved, it is quite possible that people who made mistakes did not know and still do not know, and need to learn from them. Those who have moved on to other roles may well be making the same mistakes elsewhere.
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for setting out these two draft instruments, which together update the framework governing drug precursor chemicals. On these Benches, we support the objectives of these measures. Drug precursors play a critical role in the illicit manufacture of controlled substances, and it is right that the law keeps pace with international developments and the evolving methods of criminal networks. Strengthening controls and closing loopholes is therefore both necessary and welcome.
The draft statutory instruments will bring the UK into closer alignment with its obligations under the 1988 UN convention by updating the list of substances that it is a criminal offence to supply or manufacture where there is knowledge or suspicion of illicit use. They also seek to address deficiencies in the current regime by aligning the list of controlled substances with those subject to criminal sanctions.
While the substance of these changes is sensible and, as the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has observed, not in itself controversial, the context in which they arise warrants some reflection. The committee has pointed to delays in updating domestic legislation to reflect changes to international obligations and to the time taken to resolve discrepancies between Great Britain and Northern Ireland following the end of the implementation period. There are also concerns about the clarity of the statutory basis for certain authorisations and fees. Although these issues are now being addressed, they underline the importance of ensuring that regulatory frameworks remain up to date, coherent and legally robust. The House is entitled to expect that such matters are identified and acted upon in a timely and consistent way.
In conclusion, we support these instruments and the improvements they make to the enforcement framework. I am grateful to the Minister for bringing these draft instruments to the House today, and I look forward to his response.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I am grateful for the comments that have been made and I understand the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s concerns. I hope that the noble Baroness will forgive me if I say that the Government came into office in July 2024 and, as soon as we identified the challenges posed in terms of orders not having been implemented previously, we took action to try to bring this back into some sort of order. There have been, self-evidently, challenges in relation to a number of issues. I cannot ultimately comment on what happened under previous Governments, but I can confirm that we took action on this issue as soon as it was identified.
I can also confirm to the noble Baroness that officials have reviewed electronic records to seek to understand why the Act was not updated earlier. Those records did not indicate the reason for these omissions. That is a fault that we are looking to review. It may be that, since the UN controlled no DPCs between 2000 and 2014, awareness of the need to update the Act when it started doing so was lost within the department. To help mitigate against that in future, we have now created a log of drugs legislation to ensure this does not happen again. Through the order we are debating today, we are trying to put those omissions right.
As the Minister for Policing and Crime set out in her letter to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee on 23 March, the Government understand the committee’s concerns about record-keeping, which has likely contributed to the delay in including the 12 DPCs and the 16 other elements in the Criminal Justice (International Co-operation) Act 1990. As a result, as I have said, drugs legislation logs have been created. The Government consider that the gap in knowledge is unlikely to have had wider implications across the Home Office, but I can assure noble Lords that the Minister for Policing and Crime has raised this issue with the Permanent Secretary. She has asked him to ascertain what Home Office legislation is dependent on or affected by international obligations and how we monitor those international obligations to ensure that any changes are reflected in UK law.
In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, I know that charging and the authorisation of fees being paid was an important issue. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee looked at the issue of plans for fees which were previously charged. I am happy to confirm today that we will be offering refunds to those who have been affected. The total sum is only around £3,000, but it is still an important issue. We will be looking at how we can manage that in due course and I will certainly be examining that with my colleagues in future.
We are where we are. The Government have tried to make some changes with both these instruments brought forward today to ensure that there is a United Kingdom approach and those regulations are now in order. I commend both to the House.
Motion agreed.