Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Mann Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

Reviewing identity documents such as passports as part of an application is obviously an important part of maintaining a robust immigration system. Travel documents are retained for the duration of the decision-making process, but if the applicant wishes to travel while the application is being considered, dependent on the route through which they have applied, we will of course return their passport to them. If the applicant needs a passport for ID purposes, we can send certified copies that they are able to use.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Amber Rudd)]

I wish to update the House briefly on the Government’s decision to launch a consultation on new laws on corrosive substances, knives and guns. All forms of violent crime are completely unacceptable and devastate lives, families and communities. That is why I have launched a consultation on offensive and dangerous weapons, with proposals to ban the sale of the most harmful corrosive substances to under-18s, and to introduce minimum prison sentences for those who repeatedly carry corrosives without good reason. The consultation also includes new measures to prevent under-18s from getting around age restrictions by buying knives online, and proposals to ban offensive weapons such as zombie knives from being kept privately.

I want to send a powerful message that the cowards who burn with acid or cut with knives will not escape the full force of the law. I am clear that, by threatening someone with a knife or by plotting an acid attack, the only life you will be ruining is your own.

[John Mann]

Zombies are running wild in our communities. Sometimes those zombies are naked, their minds addled by a psychoactive street substance called Mamba. When will this House have a vote on making the possession of Mamba illegal?

[Amber Rudd]

I share the hon. Gentleman’s concerns about Mamba and the growth of other elements of drugs. That is why we have introduced a new drugs strategy, to try to help people exit. It involves making sure that local authorities work closely with police, housing and other stakeholder support areas. It is not just about banning, which is important, but about helping people to get off it and to get out and start to live their lives without it.

Drugs Policy

Lord Mann Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. What I would be prepared to do is write to her setting out the range of powers that already exist. I know from my constituency that the police are not always aware of all the civil powers they have, in addition to the criminal powers, to tackle some of the antisocial behaviour associated with persistent drug use. I understand and recognise the challenge she is portraying. The troubled families programme is designed in part to help those families where a drug user has substance misuse problems and, in so doing, help the children living in those households.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

We have already had more mentions in the first 10 minutes of the police than we have police officers in Bassetlaw. Will the Minister confirm that we remain the only country in the world, other than the United States, where the Government lead for drugs is in criminal justice, as opposed to health? If the approach is evidence-based, why is that the case?

[Sarah Newton]

I am sure there are many more police officers in Bassetlaw than there are Members in this Chamber this afternoon. I am proud that our drugs strategy is world-leading, and is recognised to be so, because we take this cross-government approach. This is not a simple issue. Tackling substance abuse and preventing people from taking drugs is not a simple thing to do, which is why we take this whole-government, joined-up approach. Our colleagues from the Department of Health are firmly involved in our activity, as is almost every Department.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Newton]

I just do not accept the premise of what the hon. Lady is saying. We do not take it in the way that she describes. We see this very much as a partnership or a joined-up whole Government approach. Of course health and recovery is at the centre of our strategy. It is not a fair interpretation to say that this is led by justice. It is about a joined-up whole system approach. Recovery remains a vital part of the Government’s approach.

[John Mann]

Will the Minister give way?

[Sarah Newton]

I will make a bit more progress. We are absolutely determined to improve support for those dependent on drugs by raising the quality of treatment, and to improve outcomes by ensuring that people get the right interventions for their needs. That means ensuring that they can access the full range of services to help them rebuild their life, which may include mental health, housing, employment and training services, and a lot of support for a stable family life, free from crime. I am pleased that we will appoint a national recovery champion, who will drive progress by visiting different parts of the country to identify good practice and ensure local collaboration. We will also encourage partnership working and transparency by developing a new set of outcome measures to give local areas further support through Public Health England.

For the first time, we are setting out global action. We are already taking a global lead on our psychoactive substance work, encouraging data exchange to give us a richer picture of international trends, and bringing in global bans on the most harmful new psychoactive substances. We will continue our work through the United Nations. We have a balanced, evidence-based approach to drugs. Collaborating with partners around the world will help to give us a better intelligence base and enable us to take better action.

I hope that Members will see that this is a truly cross-Government strategy that requires the commitment and coming together of many Departments. The Home Secretary will establish a new drugs strategy board, of which I will be a member. It will include people from all the key Government Departments, Public Health England, and national police leads. Then we can all plan together to implement the strategy and hold each other to account. I am confident that the strategy is grounded in the best available evidence. We consulted extensively with key partners working in the drugs field, and I am sure that the strategy will make a lasting difference, but we know that there is no easy way to tackle drugs and the harms that they cause, and we need to do much more. Our strategy is flexible enough to enable us to respond to emerging threats.

Finally, by working together across government, locally and nationally, we can genuinely deliver the safer, healthier Britain, free from the harm of drugs, that we all want.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Abbott]

My hon. Friend is exactly right, because the purpose of transferring responsibility to local authorities was that they should bring together all the stakeholders, including police and crime commissioners and the local police.

[John Mann]

Will my right hon. Friend join me in condemning the vast number of Labour local authorities that, in 2013, took their drug service out of the NHS and gave it to private providers? That includes mine in Nottinghamshire. Should we not have a Labour party position that would stop them doing this?

[Ms Abbott]

It is unfortunate that many authorities, including many Labour authorities, privatised these services. Privatising them necessarily makes it harder to achieve the co-ordination and co-operation that was the whole point of having these services sit in the local authorities.

Local councils face unprecedented cuts to their funding—anything from 25% to 40% of their entire budget. Is it any wonder that drug-related deaths are increasing when local authorities do not have the funds necessary for comprehensive treatment programmes?

--- Later in debate ---

[Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to take part in today’s general debate on drugs policy—a very important issue that affects every community, class and creed in the country. The scourge of drugs misuse and its associated criminal and antisocial behaviours has been a blight on too many of our cities, towns and villages for far too long.

Only last week, I conducted a home visit to a distraught family who were coming to terms with the tragic loss of a young man from drug misuse—a thoroughly decent family who had tried to get help for their loved one, but sadly were not successful in time. I will not go into the specific details, but a grieving mother and sister explained about the physical and behavioural changes they observed, and about their loved one stealing from other family members and the general antisocial behaviour that ensued. This story is not uncommon across any of our communities.

That set of circumstances brought home to me why we need aggressively to tackle the forces of organised crime, who are making millions from human misery—effective enforcement against the dealers is a key factor in the war against drugs—while sympathetically addressing the health and safety of users, and with greater emphasis on prevention and harm reduction rather than punitive punishments. Once criminalised, these victims can often face further life challenges and stigmatisation, all of which can result in users finding it harder to recover and to move on from drug problems and addiction, in some cases even trapping them in a self-destructive cycle.

As right hon. and hon. Members will be aware, health and justice, which are key areas in any joined-up drugs policy, are devolved to Scotland. The regulation of all proscribed drugs remains a reserved issue, and the policy is set by the UK Government. There is a strong argument that drugs policy should also be devolved to Scotland. The Minister herself referred to a joined-up, whole-policy approach, and that would be easier to achieve in a Scottish context if we had all the levers of policy. However, the Scottish Government continue to work with the Home Office to implement a series of actions against drug misuse in Scotland.

It is estimated that drug misuse costs society in Scotland £3.5 billion a year. That is very similar to the impact of alcohol misuse, which is estimated to cost £3.6 billion a year. Combined, this amounts to about £1,800 for every adult. In 2008, the SNP Government published the current national drugs strategy for Scotland, “The Road to Recovery”, which set out a new strategic direction for tackling drug misuse based on treatment services promoting recovery. The strategy continues to receive cross-party support in the Scottish Parliament. Evidence has shown that drug taking in the general population is falling, with misuse among young people at its lowest in a decade. However, drug deaths are currently at their highest. The approach taken recognises the importance of supporting families, and the number of family support organisations across Scotland is growing. In addition, several national organisations have been established or commissioned to support delivery of the strategy. They include the Scottish Recovery Consortium, which was established to drive and promote recovery for individuals, family members and communities affected by drugs, as well as Scottish Families Affected by Alcohol & Drugs and the recently launched Partnership for Action on Drugs in Scotland.

The Scottish Government also work with Scotland’s 38 alcohol and drug partnerships, which bring together local partners, including health boards, local authorities, police and voluntary agencies. They are responsible for developing local strategies for tackling problem alcohol and drug use, and promoting recovery, based on an assessment of local needs. A good example is the current Glasgow city health and social care partnership proposals for a pilot safer drug consumption and heroin assisted treatment facility in the city centre. The latest iteration of its business case was presented to the HSCP on 21 June 2017. The facility is designed to service the needs of an estimated 400 to 500 individuals who inject publicly in the city centre and experience high levels of harm. In particular, it is anticipated that the facility will significantly reduce the risk of further outbreaks of blood-borne viruses.

In 2015 there were 157 drug-related deaths in the Glasgow City Council area—up from 114 the previous year—and 132 of them involved an opiate or opioid. The recent rise in deaths is concerning and not unique to Glasgow. I am grateful to the Transform Drug Policy Foundation for its briefing, which informed me that around a third of Europe’s drug misuse deaths occur in the UK. We all need to do something to address this challenge. The British Medical Association and the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs have indicated their support for pursuing safer drug consumption proposals to promote harm reduction. Although that remains a matter for authorities in Glasgow to take forward, the Scottish Government will subsequently consider any formal proposal that is brought to their attention for consideration.

The Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 is reserved legislation, so any proposal is dependent on authorities in Glasgow making a formal request to the Lord Advocate to vary prosecution guidance. It would make sense to devolve all drugs policy to Scotland, to allow the Scottish Parliament to legislate on it and other issues.

[John Mann]

The Scottish Government have followed entirely the Tory Government’s approach on recovery-based treatment, as opposed to NHS treatment. Why would devolving power make a ha’pence of difference, when all the SNP has done is to adopt Tory policies and their consequential failures?

--- Later in debate ---

[Norman Lamb]

I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I was going to mention that solution in a moment. Let me quote Anne-Marie Cockburn—she has been mentioned in the debate—from the Anyone’s Child project:

“I invite the Prime Minister to come and stand by my daughter’s grave, and tell me her approach to drugs is working.”

That is a parent who lost their daughter as a result of the current approach to drug policy.

The claim in the strategy that the increase in the number of deaths relates to a problem of ageing drug users simply will not wash. The same demographic is replicated across Europe, including in Portugal, but the increase in deaths is not, and we have to ask why. The number of deaths per 100,000 of population in the UK is 10 times that in Portugal. I appreciated the Minister’s statement that she would listen carefully to what I said, and I hold her in high regard as well, but when our death rate is 10 times that of Portugal, which has chosen, incidentally, an approach that commands cross-party support in the country, from left to right, surely she should stop and listen. Surely she should investigate further Portugal’s approach, which has resulted in such a reduction in the number of deaths from drug use.

In 2015, 1,573 people died of a heroin overdose in this country. That is shameful. In the past, those people might have been dismissed as victims of their own stupidity, but we can no longer accept such thinking. These are people. They are citizens of our country, and they are losing their lives. They would not have died if they had had access to the treatment rooms that the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Sweeney) referred to. So why are the UK Government resistant, as I understand they are, to the project proposed in Glasgow, which has the potential to save lives? Surely that should be part of the strategy, but it does not even mention drug use rooms of that sort. Why on earth not, given that all the evidence points towards significant reductions in the number of deaths? No one dies of an overdose when they take their drugs in such safe rooms. Why are we not moving towards that? It is a disgrace, frankly, that we are not.

[John Mann]

Is not the right hon. Gentleman overstating his case? I have visited quite a number of safe rooms across the world and studied the academic research into them. Is it not an overstatement to suggest that nobody dies there? The question of safe injecting is one of the aspects of death, but, as all the Dutch surveys demonstrate, the fundamental determinant of how long someone with an opiate addiction will live is whether they come off heroin and stop injecting.

[Norman Lamb]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. The briefing from Transform states:

“No one has died from an overdose, anywhere in the world, ever, in a supervised drug consumption room”.

If Transform has made a mistake, I apologise.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

May I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Sandy Martin) on a brilliant maiden speech? It was one of five exquisite, eloquent, factual and well-informed maiden speeches that we have heard today. I have visited all those towns other than Ipswich, although I do hope that, at some stage, I will visit his football club and make it five out of five. I congratulate all five new Members on those speeches.

Interestingly, the facts provided by each one so eloquently are not matched—as is ever the case in a debate on drugs —by the so-called facts provided in many contributions. It always saddens me that, when it comes to debates on drugs, people quote from other people’s briefings rather than do their own empirical research. I could give very many examples of that, but I will confine myself to just one—safe injecting rooms.

I have been to safe injecting rooms in many places across the world. I have been to them in this country. Yes, they do exist in this country—not officially—and they can be effective in some situations for some people. They also have many downsides. The debate about the downsides and the upsides among the very people who run them are part of the larger debate. One of the problems is that they tend to be most effective in the heart of big cities, normally in so-called red light areas with significant amounts of street prostitution. That is where they tend to be most effective for some of the most vulnerable in society. Safe injecting in those places certainly saves lives, but what is found every time is that the majority of clientele who come in are passing tourists. That is because these places are known, they are visible and they are in the middle of big cities—of course those kind of zones are in the middle of big cities.

Sydney provides us with a good example, but there are many others places where that debate on their effectiveness has been a big problem. The ones in the Netherlands, which are not called safe injecting rooms, are not officially designated and are not public, are actually very effective. I call them retirement homes, because that is what they are. Cups of tea are available and the people there are very much of the same age profile—slightly younger—as those in retirement residences or social projects in this country. Clean needles, cups of tea, biscuits and advice are provided if required. The spaces are safe, they work and they save lives.

If we want, when it comes to injection, to save lives in this country, introducing Naloxone for paramedics would, overnight, have far bigger consequences, as has been demonstrated; there are thousands of medical tracts on drugs. The Australians have used Naloxone in dealing with overdoses for the past 15 years; that is why they have far fewer deaths from overdoses. Its introduction in this country would be a major step forward in dealing with deaths.

I came to this subject in 2002, when 13 of my constituents died from heroin overdoses in one year. After a year of research, in which I went around the world with GPs to see what worked and what did not, I overwhelmingly came to the conclusion that what works is not politicians telling each other whether cannabis is good, bad, strong or weak, or what to do with this or that drug; it is trusting the experts—the medical experts.

All the debate today has been about illegal drugs, but probably the biggest single problem in this country, in terms of addiction and the number of people misusing drugs, is legal drugs—prescription and over-the-counter drugs; volume-wise and, I suspect, death-wise, that is a bigger problem. I could not have disagreed more with the Minister when she said that her test for her children—I am trying to quote her exactly—was whether the drug was available at Boots. No; what is available over the counter at Boots or any other chemists is a problem in the war on drugs. The over-prescription of drugs, and the illegal sale of prescription drugs in our communities, is a massive problem that, volume-wise, far outweighs the other problems.

When we talk about drugs, we are not talking about one thing. It is like talking about food; I suspect that a vegetarian would not want to be provided simply with “food” for a meal, if they visited one of us; they would probably want a certain type of food. We should trust medical expertise. In my area, after a battle, I got a system set up whereby if someone had a substance misuse problem—heroin being the biggest one—they went in through the front door of their GP’s practice. It took me six months of battling to make sure that every GP’s practice took part in that, and six months to ensure that it was the front door, not the back door. It took me three months to make sure that it was a GP, rather than a drug worker. Anyone can be a drug worker —there is no qualification for being one—but not anyone can be a GP; the standard, in my view, is satisfactorily high in this country.

Guess what we found? There has been a lot of talk of rehabilitation, but I will tell hon. Members the biggest rehabilitation that someone on heroin can get: it is going through the front door of their GP’s practice, like everybody else in the community—like their mother, father, brother, sister, and sometimes their kids. It is going through the same door and seeing the same GP. Strangely, that is rehabilitating and normalising. It takes people back into society—and it is dirt cheap: the biggest single cost of this in my area is from the dental treatment, because those with a significant substance misuse problem do not tend to go to dentists. They go into treatment; I do not know what the treatment is, though I know some of the modalities, but the treatment is not my decision, or the decision of a politician, a councillor, the police, the criminal justice system, or a drug worker; the GP decides on the treatment. Strangely, these people wanted dental treatment; that was the highest single cost. Strangely, people who have had dental treatment have a far better chance of getting through a job interview than those who have had no treatment for five or 10 years. A job means a bit more rehabilitation, and if the local council has its act together it can provide proper housing.

What happens when people have better teeth, the ability to go to their GP through the front door, a job and secure housing? What we found was that people stopped dying. There were 13 deaths in 2002, and over the next 11 years there were two. Vast numbers of people got back into work; they paid taxes—they were in rehabilitation. Forget the statistics that the Government give out about who is in treatment and who is not—I will talk in a moment about how the system has fiddled the figures since 2010—because a good statistic is the number of people paying taxes.

What is the saving? It is hard to quantify, but I can certainly quantify one thing. In 2002 the yearly average for the number of overdose admissions to Bassetlaw hospital was 170, each of which cost £4,000. That yearly average was immediately reduced to under 40, and it stayed like that for the next 11 years. That meant a saving of £500,000 a year for a small hospital. Some people were worried that the hospital would need security staff and cameras, to guard against all the drug addicts coming in, but there were far fewer drug addicts, far fewer overdoses and far fewer hospital admissions. That meant a direct saving. Remind me, Mr Deputy Speaker, which constituency had the biggest fall in acquisitive crime in the whole of the United Kingdom?

[Hon. Members]

Bassetlaw!

[John Mann]

Mr Deputy Speaker, you are ever wise, ever accurate and ever factual. Bassetlaw saw a 400% reduction in acquisitive crime. Why? Because it was the drug addicts committing most of the crime.

For 11 years people could go through the front door of their GP’s surgery. Not everyone was happy. I have read the medical advice—not all of it, but hundreds and thousands of papers—and basically there is a two-thirds success rate for chronic relapsing illness, meaning that two thirds will be sorted, wherever the illness is, and a third never will be. There is a cohort of people who will always have problems, and they tend to go in and out of prison regardless, but there are far fewer of them because we have reduced the number by two thirds, leading to huge savings.

That does not totally solve the problem, but it allows the rest of the community to get on with their lives without being plagued. Pensioners were not having their windows smashed every five minutes by people who stole a fiver—the normal heroin theft is to break a pensioner’s window and grab the first thing in sight. The fear and the cost of repairing the window is far bigger. Frankly, I think that if most pensioners knew they would just leave the fiver outside. That is what life was like.

What do the Government do? Two things. First—this is a big improvement in this new drugs strategy—they say, “Recovery, recovery, recovery. We are not going to bother maintaining anybody.” That change is vital. That is what they did in the Netherlands, France, Sweden, Australia and New Zealand—in fact, in every country I went to. They all left it to the doctors.

In 2002 only three countries did not have health authorities in charge of drugs policy: the United States—obviously—us and Iran. When I went to Iran to talk about drugs policy, I found that they had just changed it. They had done that—this is my assessment, not what people there said—because, basically, all the drug addicts had been sent to be looked after by the religious leaders, who would put them in recovery. But it did not work, which was undermining the religious leaders. So those at the top in Iran sent people over to Australia to study the medical system there, and they came back and introduced it in Iran, which therefore now has a medicalised system—and there are big improvements. You see, doctors are rather good at treating people because they know what they are doing. Yes, they sometimes use methadone or buprenorphine treatments, and sometimes they bring in mental health therapies, but the system worked well through the NHS.

What have we done? In 2010, we threw all that out the window and gave it to the local councils, and all of them—including Labour councils—in their great stupidity privatised it. What do those Labour councillors say? “We know better than the GPs and the NHS. It’s got to be joined up. It’s got to be more than the NHS.” So they took it away from the NHS and, since 2013 in my constituency, people have not been able to walk through the front door of their GP practices.

Guess what has happened? I had a meeting on Saturday, in Retford. There have been hardly any burglaries in Retford in the last 100 years, but there are record numbers this year. Who is committing them? The druggies—people who are drug addicted but cannot go through the front door of their GP practice as they could before. I cannot get them in. I used to guarantee to every family: “I’ll get you an appointment within a couple of days.” And I did, and it was easy. They went in and saw their GP. They engaged with their GP, and it was hugely successful.

My recommendation to the Government and to my own party—perhaps my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) will pass this on to my leader—is to put this portfolio in health. That is what the Labour party policy review that I chaired in 2009 recommended, and it had 4,000 submissions. The leader at the time and the one after him ignored it. Third time lucky. Put the portfolio in health and say that a critical part of the policy is that the NHS—primary care GPs—will manage the patients. Say that people in this country have the right to be treated by their GP. Yes, more is needed from other services—absolutely: getting people into jobs, keeping control of crime and getting people into stable housing, but the NHS is at the heart of the issue.

By the way, why on earth have the Scottish Government moved away from their successes a few years ago in places like Glasgow towards this nonsense of people coming out of the recovery system after six months? The Government said, “Six months and that’s it—out you come.” That appears to have changed.

[Sarah Newton]

indicated assent.

[John Mann]

If it has, that is brilliant, but we should never have gone back to that nonsense in the first place; I am sure the Minister will blame the Liberals. That is what we had in 2002: the revolving door. “Oh, you’re out—you’re clean.” “Who says I’m clean?” “Well it’s six months. You have to be.” It was a bit like how it is in the prisons: strangely, someone has some Naltrexone and “Oops! You’re clean!” That is the stats fiddled. Frankly, I could fiddle those stats. It is the system that does it. Totally meaningless.

Let us have a bit of honesty. We would still have a problem. We would not get rid of it all. Dealing with Spice is not as straightforward as dealing with heroin, and the GPs do not have all the answers. But if someone with an addiction goes to a GP, the GP pulls in mental health services, and that does work. Across the world, people have found that. So let us not misquote what happened in Portugal, where I have been, because what I am talking about is the key to that system. Let us not misquote what happens in the Netherlands, where they have kicked out most of the coffee houses and they specifically demonise heroin—very sensibly at the time, in my view. The position for quite a while was, “Our problem is heroin. Do what you want, but you’re not doing heroin”, and they got on top of it. We are not in that situation, so we do not need that kind of overly crude approach. We can look at what the Swedes do and what the French do. In France, the GPs will not do it. With single-practice GPs working from their own home, it is easy—go to the local chemist and get the prescription, and do not even bother supervising it. Do not complicate it, that is my advice, and then we will get better results.

I can only give it as I see it. I have got the documents—the research is there. To new colleagues in all parts of the House, I say, “Read the assessments of what has happened, because there is a plethora of materials that demonstrate this.” We will not get rid of the problem, but we can significantly be on top of the problem. There are some improvements, but frankly not enough. Yet again, the Home Office is the wrong Department. Of course the police advisers all want to decriminalise drugs, because it gets crime down. I have heard this for 15 years: “If we decriminalised and didn’t arrest, crime would come down and the problem would be solved.” No, that is not the answer. Lots of good stuff could be done in terms of how we police and do not police. There are lessons we could learn from abroad.

The starting point is to shift the portfolio to health. We should be bold enough to say, “It doesn’t fit in with how this place works, but we’re doing it anyway. When we’re in power the portfolio will be in health.” That in itself would transform the situation in this country because then we would have to make sure that primary care is funded and would be able to stop wasting money elsewhere. Local councils: love them or loathe them, they haven’t got a clue—big error. We should tell our Labour councils, “Stop privatising and give it back to the NHS.”

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Mann Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Policing and the Fire Service (Brandon Lewis)]

My hon. Friend has made a good point about the excellent work that is being done by Chief Constable Simon Cole and his team in Leicestershire. We are working to ensure that we achieve a fair, transparent review funding formula, and that all the chief constables and the police and crime commissioners feed into it. I assure my hon. Friend that we will deliver that work as quickly as we can.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

T6. Waffle, Mr Speaker—waffle is all that we get in answer to questions about dealing with hate crime on Facebook and Twitter and on the internet. If Germany can fine these companies half a million pounds every time they fail to take down hate speech posts within 24 hours, why can we not also take practical action to hold them to account for their failure to deal with hate speech?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sarah Newton)]

The hon. Gentleman has made a very important point. Hate crime has no place whatsoever in our society. It destroys communities and people’s lives, and we are taking every possible action against it. We have the strongest legislative framework in the world, and that includes working with internet providers. I can absolutely assure the hon. Gentleman that we have agreements with internet providers, and that when hate crime is identified, they will take the horrendous stuff down.

Orgreave

Lord Mann Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend highlights the strength of feeling on both sides about issues that happened decades ago, and also highlights again that, hugely importantly, the police have reformed. There are still reforms going forward that we need to see through, and I hope we will all be working together in the years ahead to deliver them.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

The jobs of ordinary police officers, many of whom came from mining families, were made difficult for many years after the miners strike precisely because of the misuse of police by the state. Is that not the fundamental issue here? Zimbabwe, China and Venezuela are three countries that have recently used the police to undermine individual rights and freedoms. How do we know that senior politicians were not involved, as the Cabinet papers have not been revealed and there is no longer going to be an inquiry? When will we know, for better or for worse, what senior politicians did and what pressure they brought to bear on the police?

[Brandon Lewis]

A large number of historical files on Orgreave and the miners strike are already publicly available through the National Archives. Also, as I have said, the PCC for South Yorkshire is employing an archivist to look at publishing even more from its archives, and I am sure the hon. Gentleman will take a great interest in that. He should also work with us and endorse the reforms to the police service that will lead to that key important result that Members have mentioned: that the new leadership of South Yorkshire police is able to find a way to build a new relationship with the people of South Yorkshire and to continue the work the police do every day, policing by consent.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Mann Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Goodwill]

The transfer process has been paused at the request of the French so that the relocation can take place and the children are not in the container camp, which so many people are critical of. We continue to work closely with our French colleagues to actually resolve this situation.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

13. What assessment she has made of the effectiveness of interventions by her Department in dealing with heroin addiction in England.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sarah Newton)]

Recovery from drug misuse remains at the heart of our approach. More people are recovering from their dependency now than in 2010, and the number of heroin and crack cocaine users in England has continued to fall, with the number going below 300,000 for the first time since 2011. We are developing a new drugs strategy with other Government Departments and key partners, which will be published soon.

[John Mann]

With most drug services having been privatised across England in the past three years, the figures that the Minister has just quoted are fake, aren’t they? They are fake figures. Outcomes are no longer being measured on a health basis, are they? Will the Minister tell us what the outcomes currently are when it comes to heroin treatment?

[Sarah Newton]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question—[Laughter.] Decisions about services and how they are commissioned are made locally, as he well knows. The figures are far from fake; they are independently reported. I would think that he, as a local MP, would actually be praising his local services, because the latest data I have show that people have quick referrals to their service—96% of people who need access to treatment are receiving it within three days. In fact, his local area has a really good track record of engaging with people, and making sure they do not drop out of treatment and get good results from treatment programmes.

Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

Lord Mann Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

Yes, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. We may have discussions, urgent questions and statements on issues of staffing, but the fact is the inquiry is going ahead, it is taking evidence and the chair is working hard to make sure she delivers as soon as possible.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

It is not taking evidence from everyone yet. I am the appointed representative of some of the survivors from my constituency, and my office is assisting others with statements, and none of that has gone forward yet. Is there not a danger that this is going to become another lawyers bun fest, with judges and barristers resigning, and with large numbers of lawyers not just queueing up, but at the front of the queue, to make large amounts of money not only representing people to the inquiry, but, simultaneously, taking legal civil action against the authorities? What are the Government going to do to ensure that the survivors are at the heart of this rather than the lawyers?

[Amber Rudd]

We always make sure that survivors are at the heart of this. There is, nevertheless, a legal role to be played, and there are expenses associated with an inquiry, but there is no blank cheque. One role with which the Home Office does have constant engagement is making sure that the budgets are carefully set and challenged each year so that the proper costs are associated with this.

--- Later in debate ---

[Amber Rudd]

I respectfully ask the hon. Lady perhaps to engage with the inquiry in a slightly more positive manner. This Government set it up, and we are absolutely serious about wanting to assist survivors and victims, and wanting to make the changes to institutions that are necessary as we move forward.

[John Mann]

Parliament set it up.

[Amber Rudd]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, but I like to think that this Government had some part in making sure that that took place.

If the hon. Lady would like to write to me about the particular instance to which she is referring, I would of course be happy to respond, and she can rest assured that I will do so.

Wanless Review and the Dickens File

Lord Mann Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Wanless Review and the Dickens file.

[Valerie Vaz (in the Chair)]

Before the hon. Gentleman begins, I advise him and other hon. Members that, in line with the House’s sub judice resolution, no direct reference should be made to the substance of criminal or civil legal proceedings that are current—that is, those on which a judgment has not yet been issued or on which appellate proceedings are active. Clearly there are still police investigations current that relate to the matters that he intends to raise and I am sure that he is aware that the House would not want him to prejudice those investigations by anything he might say here today.

[John Mann]

Thank you, Ms Vaz. I assure you that I have no intention of prejudicing any investigations. I am keen to challenge those commentators who say that there is some big conspiracy to hunt out and name people who are innocent, and that everything has been overstated when it comes to historic child abuse. Some have got quite a track record in saying that. I would say to them: Rolf Harris, Stuart Hall, Max Clifford and the former Bishop of Lewes; 1,400 children in Rotherham, children in Derby, in Northampton, in Halifax, in Newcastle, in Oxford, in Telford, in Peterborough, in North Yorkshire and in Wrexham; bishops in Belgium, Norway and Austria—all over the world, there has been a spate of arrests and huge numbers of convictions of people involved in child abuse from the past, so those who say that this has somehow been dreamt up are factually wrong.

My involvement began in 1988 when, looking at corruption in the London Borough of Lambeth, I was told that when boys left children’s homes—boys over 16, therefore—they were being cajoled into prostitution. That was being done through various bars in the borough. There were suggestions about how and where, and that was all given to the police. I was told of a place that I had never heard of called Dolphin Square, which was one of the places where those boys were going to parties that involved Members of Parliament. I will refrain from giving the detail I was given. It was given to the police at the time and it has been given many times since. The police told me about a year into that investigation that somebody on high had curtailed the investigation—stopped it. I know; I was there. That is what happened.

Then, several years later, in 1994, Inspector Clive Driscoll, who was looking at a different, possibly related sex abuse scandal in the same borough came to see me. He was taken off his investigations and told to stop investigating. It now transpires that at Coronation Buildings in Lambeth in 1980 another police investigation was curtailed. In that case, special branch moved in to stop it. Therefore, we know that three separate investigations mysteriously disappeared and, in one case, I was there when that happened.

I have no intention of naming names, not because of the advice given, but because that is not appropriate. I do not know who is guilty. That is not my job. It is not the job of any MP and I have never done that. Let me therefore correct the record. One newspaper, The Mail on Sunday, suggested that I had named a Member of Parliament. That is factually inaccurate; it is not true. The story was fabricated. It was taken—I think as a spoiler—from a newspaper called The Sun, which said that two MPs had made various allegations. Not true. There are not two MPs and I am not an MP involved in doing that. If I was, I would not have named anyone; I would have given the evidence to the police and kept my mouth shut. It is fair to say that I have given information—evidence in some cases—to various police forces and some of that involved prominent people. I am not naming those people, I have not done that and I will not, because it is for the police to investigate and make a case for prosecution in the courts if they feel that is appropriate. My criticism and complaint is about where that does not happen. It is important that those matters are clarified immediately.

Look at the scale of what is going on. I believe there was a further arrest just this afternoon, but so far in north Wales a whole series of people have been arrested and jailed. That is also the case in other parts of the country. According to Simon Bailey, the chief constable of Norfolk constabulary, there are at the moment 89 national or local politicians, 145 radio, TV and film persons, 38 music industry persons and 15 people from the world of sport under investigation, as well as 2,016 others, including people from religious institutions, teachers and careworkers. That is what the police said to the Society of Editors on 19 October this year. Operation Pallial in north Wales has made over 40 arrests. In Lambeth, people have been jailed—in other words, they were successfully prosecuted. The idea that this stuff is in some way fanciful or made up is again not proven by the facts. The commentators who suggest that are wrong—very sadly wrong.

Let me talk about Nottinghamshire. A gentleman came to see me; he flew in from Canada for a 20-minute meeting—he had not been in this country for 30 years—about an allegation in relation to the Ashley House children’s home in my constituency, which he and I knew could not be prosecuted. It was not possible. For a 20-minute meeting—he flew in and flew out just to tell me that. He was not making it up.

The woman who claims to have been abused at Skegby Hall near my constituency and at various other locations is not making it up. The dozens of children at Beechwood in Nottingham who made detailed allegations are not making it up. Those who have come to me in relation to schools and churches or family abuse, including rape as young children, are not making it up. People do not go to their own MP and make this kind of thing up.

The man who came to me alleging that he, aged 11, was forced to work in a foundry full time, and before that, from the age of eight, was forced to work in a field, gave precise locations and precise names. He has a full file of precise records. He is not making it up; he is telling the truth about what happened. The whole issue of children being sold on to farms as slave labour is a scandal yet to emerge in this country. It is a part of this big, historic problem and more will emerge from that.

That is not the conspiracy. The conspiracy was the conspiracy of silence at the time—the conspiracy of connivance, the conspiracy of cover-up. That is the conspiracy. Do you know what the man who was enslaved wants more than anything? Strangely, because he never went to school, he cannot read and write, so he wants literacy lessons. This is my battle at the moment. I have a letter on it that arrived in the last hour from a county council that has given him five literacy lessons, questioning whether he needs more, when he was not allowed to go to school because he was enslaved. That is the cost of child abuse in this country.

This debate is about people like that man, who are living with this stuff today. There are people whose lives have been diverted, with many going abroad. Some have channelled it into great success, by being single-minded about their goals in life, but others are very damaged, and many lives have been totally destroyed. These campaigners are not going to go away, because they know what happened. I am fortunate. I was never beaten as a kid; I was not sold or raped as a child, but I have met lots of people who were. Some of the names are jaw-dropping. They are not going to go public, for lots of good reasons, and that is their choice, but the numbers coming forward and who have confided in me are extraordinary. They are not asking for anything to be done; they are supporting the campaign. They do not want to relive their trauma. The scale of the problem is absolutely phenomenal. I know there will be some sceptics about what I am going to say, and all I can say to them is, “Open your eyes and ears. See and hear what is going on.” What is under the surface will always be far bigger than what has emerged.

My approach is to give absolutely everything to the police. Material I have seen recently relating to the Dickens dossier incorporates stuff relevant to North Wales police and to other forces. I will not go into details, because that would prejudice those investigations, but there are dozens of documents that are hugely important.

There were two Dickens files. I have met someone who has not come forward because of the Official Secrets Act but who saw the first Dickens file. There were approximately 16 names in it; they were cross-party and not all were well known, but some of them were. That was the result of research done by Geoffrey Dickens. I do not know whether it is true or not, but I do not know that he gave the file to Leon Brittan in November 1983.

On 18 January 1984, a second person gave a second file to Geoffrey Dickens. I have a copy of that file, which I call the second Dickens dossier, and so do the police. The information in it was provided by two former Conservative MPs, Sir Victor Raikes, the former Member for Liverpool Garston, and Commander Anthony Courtney, a former British Navy intelligence officer and former Member for Harrow East. There was an internal battle going on within the Conservative party, specifically within the Monday club—they were both key figures in that—with a new organisation, the Young Monday club. They were part of that factional battle, and the second file emerged because of it. I do not think that they thought that what they described in the file as paedophilia was of particular importance other than for doing the other side in.

What is significant is the details, the allegations that were made and the fact that those allegations were not investigated. The file is unambiguous. I have an original. I have met, spoken to and got a copy from the person who personally handed it to Geoffrey Dickens, who in turn then personally gave it to Leon Brittan. In the first line, it says, “GK Young heads up a Powellite faction known as Tory Action.” George Kennedy Young, now long dead, was deputy director of MI6. The allegation is that he manipulated a group of people, and that, within that, there were paedophile rings. The file goes into detail about who it is alleged was involved and where. I will not give all the locations because I think some would be sensitive and might identify people, but London is one, Greater Manchester another, and North Yorkshire is a third. I should stress to any journalists listening, that Mr Leon Brittan is obviously not in that file, or indeed the other Dickens file. Geoffrey Dickens was not stupid. He did not give Leon Brittan a file that named Leon Brittan, but there are lots of other names in there.

The file is intriguing, to say the least. Information and allegations in it include allegations of sex with children, names of people alleged to be involved, and suggestions both of locations, including one precise location, and of a third-party organisation that was directly involved. I will not name that organisation. It will all come out—there is no reason why it should not—but it would not help the police if it came out today. It would be a pretty straightforward investigation for the police to look into the precise location that is in the file, but there was no investigation. The question is, why not?

It is worth saying one other thing about George Kennedy Young. He was involved in many dubious activities; he tried to get some kind of private army called “Unison” going. I have seen a range of background documents that would be of interest to anyone campaigning on the Shrewsbury pickets and on infiltration of the miners’ strike, with names that correlate. There are a lot of allegations about him attempting to undermine both the Heath and the Wilson Governments. He was clearly a manipulator, and is key to what was going on. I do not know why he is so prominent or why the Society for Individual Freedom, which he set up, is named in this, but he is a significant figure and that may give some sort of reason for why things then disappeared.

After the review by Mr Wanless and Mr Whittam, the Prime Minister said that their report meant that

“people who’ve been looking for conspiracy theories will have to look elsewhere.”

I am not looking for a conspiracy theory. To me, this stuff is fairly simple. There are always simple explanations. But we do not need to look elsewhere any more. I have here a copy of part of what I call Dickens dossier No. 2. It went to Leon Brittan at the time. We need to know why it then disappeared, what happened to it and where the Home Office investigation into it went. Why did the file disappear when such serious allegations are made within it? It is incongruous that there could be no investigation, given the information in here. It is not possible that this dossier would not raise all sorts of issues.

I could reveal more from other documents I have seen, from the same person, that suggest that quite a lot of people were aware of the issues, but it would be inappropriate. I am certain that some people who are named in the file were on the periphery—not involved in anything that could be described as child abuse, but a bit too close for comfort in terms of embarrassment—and they knew some of the sorts of things that might have been going on and had suspicions. I think those people are guilty of nothing other than a loose connection—being at various events or venues—but they know things. It is clear from correspondence I have seen that some of them must know things.

Part of the problem is that when we talk about paedophilia, most people think we mean under-16s. But at the time the term could be used in relation to 16 to 21-year-old men. With Dolphin Square and Lambeth, the issue is the allegations about Members of Parliament paying for sex with boys over 16 who had been procured from Lambeth children’s homes after they had left them. I would call that major sleaze, but at the time, it was illegal. The file also alleges things involving children younger than that. I do not know—I have not got a clue —whether any of it is true, or what bits are true, but there is sufficient information for a major police investigation.

That is why it is absolutely critical that the lid is lifted. We need to know where the file went, why it disappeared and what is going to happen now. The original is with the police. Why did the Home Office and the whole of Government fail to come up with that document, when it had been given to Leon Brittan in 1984? I think the answer to that question will unlock part of the cover-up of the time, explain it and help the police. It is imperative that the Government now reopen the Wanless and Whittam investigation to see why they were not given the file at the time by someone in the Home Office, and why civil servants at the time did not co-operate.

Home Affairs and Justice

Lord Mann Excerpts

Thursday 28th May 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The Metropolitan police were able to maintain the figures that the Mayor committed to, and indeed the force is recruiting police officers at the moment, as are a number of forces around the country.

I referred to the policing and criminal justice Bill and there are a number of measures in that that I believe will bring important reform. First, we will change pre-charge bail to prevent the injustice of people spending months or even years on bail only for no charges to be brought.

Secondly, we will amend the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 to ensure that 17-year-olds who are detained in police custody are treated as children for all purposes under that Act.

Thirdly, we will strengthen the powers and extend the remit of Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary to better allow it to comment on the efficiency and effectiveness of policing as a whole.

Fourthly, we will overhaul the police disciplinary and complaints systems to increase accountability and transparency. We will enable regulations governing police conduct to be extended to cover former police officers, ensuring that misconduct cases can be taken to a conclusion even when an officer leaves that force. We will make the police complaints system more independent of the police through an expanded role for police and crime commissioners, and there will be a new system of “super-complaints” which will allow organisations such as charities and advocacy groups to lodge complaints on behalf of the public.

Fifthly, we will enshrine in legislation the revised core purpose of the Police Federation of England and Wales, and make the federation subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

Sixthly, we will introduce measures to improve the police response to people with mental health issues. The Bill will therefore include provisions to cut the use of police cells for section 135 and 136 detentions, reduce the current 72-hour maximum period of detention, and allow more places, other than police cells, to fall within the definition of a “place of safety”.

Finally, subject to the outcome of a public consultation, we will provide enhanced protections for children by introducing sanctions for professionals who fail to take action on child abuse where it is a professional responsibility to do so.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

Will the Home Secretary also include the Official Secrets Act and the fact that restrictions from it remain, including this week stopping people coming forward and assisting police in getting those who have perpetrated historical child abuse brought to justice?

[Mrs May]

The hon. Gentleman has raised this issue on a number of occasions in the House and the answer I will give him now is no different from that I have given previously. It is already possible for arrangements to be put in place so that people can come forward and give their evidence without concerns about the Official Secrets Act. It is now an issue for Justice Goddard in relation to the child sexual abuse inquiry. It is for her to discuss the matter, if she wishes to, with the Attorney General, ensuring that arrangements are in place so that people come forward. The hon. Gentleman and I share the same intention: people who have evidence, who have allegations of child sexual abuse, whether it has occurred recently or in the past, should be able to come forward to the inquiry and ensure that those allegations—where appropriate; where they are specific—can be investigated by the police. We all want to ensure that we recognise what has taken place, that evidence is brought forward and that the inquiry is able to come to proper judgments about what went wrong in the past and how we can ensure that it does not happen in the future.

In addition, the Bill will allow us to deliver further reforms to the criminal justice system to protect the public, to ensure offenders are punished appropriately and to make our systems and processes more efficient. We will also enshrine the rights of victims in primary legislation to make sure that victims are supported and protected throughout the criminal justice process, making it clear to criminal justice agencies that they must comply with their duties towards victims.

The Policing and Criminal Justice Bill will ensure that we can better protect the public, but we must also protect the public from specific harms, so I turn now to the trade in new psychoactive substances. I know that the ready availability of these substances on the high street is of deep concern to Members, to the public beyond and to many parents in particular. The issue was raised recently with me by new colleagues, whom I am happy to welcome to the House, my hon. Friends the Members for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) and for Torbay (Kevin Foster). The issue concerns many people in their communities.

In 2013 there were 120 deaths involving new psychoactive substances in England, Scotland and Wales, so the Gracious Speech includes a Bill to introduce a blanket ban on the supply of new psychoactive substances. During the previous Parliament we took a number of significant steps to deal with the issue, including using enhanced powers under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, such as temporary class drug orders, to ban more than 500 new psychoactive substances. But with these existing powers we are always playing catch-up, banning new psychoactive substances on a substance-by-substance or group-by-group basis, while the suppliers stay one step ahead.

Counter-Terrorism: Conflict Zones

Lord Mann Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The whole question of exchanging passenger name records for intra-EU flights is one that I and others have been putting forward in the debate in the European Union arena for some time now. I am pleased to say that other member states have recognised the need for an EU PNR directive. It was one of the issues referred to at the recent European Council meeting. I am clear that any such directive should include the exchange of PNR for intra-EU flights. Failing that, it is open to member states to undertake bilateral agreements to that effect.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

Scotland Yard’s budget for monitoring extremism on social media has been cut this year—by how much and why?

[Mrs May]

Decisions about individual aspects of Scotland Yard’s budget are a matter for the Metropolitan police. Let me be clear that the Government have protected counter-terrorism policing budgets over our period in office, and we have extended that to 2015-16.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Mann Excerpts

Monday 5th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley]

My hon. Friend will know that, in her force constabulary area, there has been a 16% cut in crime, thanks in large part to her excellent PCC, Julia Mulligan. As an MP for a rural constituency, I too take rural crime very seriously. My hon. Friend is right that much of rural crime, particularly that involving large agricultural vehicles, is undertaken by organised crime groups. I am pleased that the regional organised crime units are working with local forces to ensure that we tackle rural crime and make it a No. 1 issue.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

T6. Considering the warning that Tony Robinson has been given about his obligations under the Official Secrets Act, what guarantee can the Home Secretary give that other special branch officers, former special branch officers and others with knowledge of prominent people and historical child abuse will be able to speak out without such obstructions again?

[Mrs May]

I am very clear that the Official Secrets Act is not a bar to giving evidence to the police or to the inquiry. Arrangements are in place that enable Crown servants to disclose such material when it relates to child abuse. I am clear that that lawful authority should be given in those cases, but I recognise that the hon. Gentleman has raised the issue on a number of occasions. I am willing to continue to look at it to ensure—I want this, as he does—that all evidence available is made available to the inquiry, and where appropriate to the police, for proper investigation.