Draft Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Investigative Powers of Prosecutors: Code of Practice) Order 2024 Draft Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Search, Recovery of Crypto Assets and Investigations: Codes of Practice) Regulations 2024 Draft Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and Terrorism Act 2000 (Certain Information Orders: Code of Practice) Regulations 2024 Draft Terrorism Act 2000 (Code of Practice for Authorised Officers) Orders 2024

Charlotte Nichols Excerpts

Tuesday 16th April 2024 General Committees

[Chris Philp]

It is a pleasure to serve for the first time under your chairmanship, Dr Huq.

The Government are committed to tackling all forms of economic crime. Decisive action has been taken by expediting the passage of the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022 through Parliament. The Home Office measures in that Act reform the unexplained wealth orders regime to improve transparency of ownership structures and allow more time for law enforcement to review material relating to unexplained wealth orders.

Building on the 2022 Act, the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 contained a vast range of reforms to the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and terrorist financing legislation, specifically the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 and the Terrorism Act 2000. The reforms include powers to allow the effective seizure of both criminal and terrorist crypto assets, reforms to enable targeted information sharing to tackle money laundering and remove reporting burdens on businesses, new intelligence-gathering powers for law enforcement, and provisions to reform outdated criminal corporate liability laws.

The reforms to UWOs, corporate liability and targeted information sharing are, I am pleased to say, already in force. The new offence of failing to prevent fraud will be brought into force once Government guidance has been published and businesses have familiarised themselves with the guidance, which is being drafted. The majority of the remaining Home Office measures will be commenced on 26 April 2024—in just a couple of weeks’ time. Today we debate the statutory instruments that underpin the codes of practice for those measures. I do not intend to cover the content of the powers—they were debated extensively by both Houses during the passage of the 2023 Act. What we are doing here is simply legislating for the four codes of practice that are being revised and the two new ones being made.

A search, seizure and detention of property code is issued by the Home Secretary for officers in England and Wales to guide the exercise of search and seizure powers in the context of criminal confiscation investigations. There are two codes of practice to guide law enforcement in the use of search and seizure powers for both civil forfeiture and counter-terrorism investigations. One is issued under the 2002 Act and the other under the 2000 Act in relation to powers in the 2001 Act. These codes are also issued by the Home Secretary.

[Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)]

The Minister refers to terrorism, but could he clarify whether that would capture state entities involved in state terror, such as the North Korean regime, which we know is involved extensively in cyber-crime?

[Chris Philp]

Terrorism is defined in those Acts and will be facts-specific. If an agent of a foreign Government committed certain acts on our soil and those acts fell within the definitions contained in the Terrorism Act 2000 or other terrorism legislation, the terrorism provisions would be engaged. Whether cyber-attacks conducted extraterritorially would meet those thresholds would be facts-specific; it would depend on the nature of the acts themselves. Clearly, acts by hostile states are of very significant concern and have in a number of cases been debated in Parliament. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Security and the Home Secretary are working very hard to counter those state threats, which emanate from a number of countries. The hon. Lady has mentioned one such country; others include Iran, China and Russia.

We are considering two codes to guide the exercise of powers to investigate suspected criminal property. One code is issued by the Home Secretary; the equivalent code for prosecutors is issued by the Attorney General for England and Wales and the Advocate General for Northern Ireland. The final code being introduced by these draft instruments is a new code to guide the National Crime Agency on the appropriate use of new information order powers, which is issued by the Home Secretary under both POCA 2002 and TAC 2000. The code clarifies the circumstances in which powers may be exercised to ensure that they are applied consistently, which is vital.

The Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and the Terrorism Act 2000 mandate that the Secretary of State must publish a draft code, consider any representations made, and modify the draft in the light of such representations prior to laying revised codes. The draft codes we are debating today were subject to separate public consultations. Information on the consultations can be found in the explanatory memorandums accompanying the statutory instruments. Among other things, the codes support the recovery of crypto assets. We are concerned that criminals are increasingly using crypto assets to hide money that has arisen from criminal activities.

In conclusion—always the two most popular words I utter in a speech; I see the shadow Minister, who has suffered many such speeches, agrees enthusiastically —the four draft instruments are required to complete commencement of the Economic Crime Transparency and Enforcement Act 2022 and the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023. This will ensure that all necessary legislation is in place and that there is legal certainty about how cases will be dealt with.

Antisemitism in the UK

Charlotte Nichols Excerpts

Monday 19th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to the work of the Community Security Trust, as well as to Mark Gardner—its chief executive—and all its staff and volunteers, and the people who fundraise for it. The trust’s work has never been more important than it is now.

I agree with what my hon. Friend has said about universities. I can see no reason at all why every vice-chancellor and every university should not adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism, and I call on them today to do so. There is no excuse whatsoever for failing to act. I endorse and echo the five-point plan set out by the Department for Education to get this issue on campuses tackled. It is deeply disturbing, and I want to see vice-chancellors and other university leaders do a lot more to stamp out the scourge of antisemitism, which is all too present on our country’s campuses.

[Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)]

This weekend, my heart broke to see some 20 officers and multiple police vans stationed outside my synagogue, and that this was deemed necessary for our protection. The conflict in the middle east is being used to radicalise people against British Jews online, in our schools and universities, and on our streets. Additional security funding is welcome, as is the funding for education settings, but what financial support and resource will be provided to local authorities for projects working across our faith and community settings at a local grassroots level to bring communities together, rather than allow them to be driven further apart?

[Chris Philp]

The hon. Member is right to say that grassroots work is needed. The £7 million I referred to earlier is part of that, and organisations such as the CST, which the Government substantially fund or provide with quite a lot of money—£18 million a year—do good work in this area as well. I echo her sentiment and that of others: there is no excuse, no reason and no possible justification for targeting Jewish people in this country, and the full force of the law must come down on anyone who does so.

Psilocybin Treatments

Charlotte Nichols Excerpts

Thursday 18th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House welcomes the development of treatment options in mental health; further notes there have been no new pharmacological treatments for depression, with the exception of Esketamine, in over 30 years; recognises that psilocybin, a naturally occurring compound, has the potential to revolutionise the treatment of many of the world’s most hard to treat psychiatric conditions such as depression, PTSD, OCD, addiction and anorexia nervosa; recognises that no review of the evidence for psilocybin’s current status under UK law has ever been conducted; regrets that psilocybin is currently more controlled than heroin under the most stringent class and schedule under UK law which is significantly stalling research; and calls on the Government to take steps to conduct an urgent review of the evidence for psilocybin’s current status as Schedule 1 under the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001 with a view to rescheduling, initially for research purposes only, in order to facilitate the development of new mental health treatments and enable human brain research for the benefit of researchers, patients and the life sciences sector in the UK, and to deliver His Majesty’s Government’s commitment to be world-leading in its approach, with evidence-led and data-driven interventions, and building the evidence base where necessary.

Psilocybin is a psychoactive substance found in more than 50 species of fungi, including many native varieties of mushroom that grow wild across the UK. There is a certain irony in the fact that this debate follows on from the debate on access to nature, because in many respects our debate is also about that.

Psilocybin is a naturally occurring substance and produces a window of neuroplasticity that lasts for a number of hours. When administered in a controlled environment with psychotherapeutic intent by trained professionals, psilocybin could be a powerful and effective tool to help treat society’s most complex mental health conditions, and that is what we call on the Government to make possible.

The evidential basis for psilocybin’s current status as a schedule 1 substance has never been reviewed since it was first controlled more than 50 years ago, and there is an urgent and medically justified need to reschedule psilocybin under the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001. It is unethical to deny that any longer. A review of the evidence of psilocybin’s harms and utility should be undertaken immediately, with a view to rescheduling it.

The use of psychedelics in medicine is not novel; they have been used throughout human history to treat the sick, from peyote ceremonies in Mexico to ayahuasca in the Amazon basin, and the San Pedro cactus in Peru. The earliest evidence of psychedelic use can be found in a cave in the Tassili-N’Ajjer region of the Sahara desert in Algeria, with a mural depicting what is referred to as the “mushroom man” or “mushroom shaman”, a bee-headed figure with mushrooms identified as Psilocybe mairei, native to the region, sprouting from his body. The mural has been dated as being between 7,000 and 9,000 years old.

The Selva Pascuala mural in a cave in Spain features mushrooms that researchers believe to be Psilocybe hispanica, a local species of psychedelic mushroom, and is dated as being approximately 6,000 years old. We can also date back to the 13th century western scientists first discussing the use of psychedelics in healthcare in Latin America. None of this is new.

Modern psychedelic research began when Albert Hofmann first synthesized lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD, in 1938, causing something of an explosion in interest among psychiatrists and psychologists, with studies from the period showing the safety and efficacy of psychedelics, including psilocybin, in treating a whole range of psychiatric conditions. However, all that progress was stalled by the counter-cultural movement of the 1960s, which ultimately led to the criminalisation of the drugs. Since then we have been in stasis, until in recent years something like a psychedelic renaissance has taken place among researchers.

Today, there are serious and considerable barriers to legitimate research associated with the schedule 1 regulations. While current legislation does not preclude scientific research with the drugs, it does make them significantly more difficult, time-consuming and costly to study. I will share with the House just one example of this, from Rudy, a psychology PhD student whose thesis is investigating psychopharmaceutical treatments for addiction—a noble avenue of study, as I am sure we would all agree.

Rudy was first motivated to undertake this research after reading incredible findings that psilocybin administration was associated with sustained nicotine cessation in humans, with 80% of participants abstinent after 6 months. Rudy wanted to see whether those results could be replicated to treat other addiction disorders. However, he ran into problems due to the schedule 1 status of psilocybin. He says that

“in order to undertake my research, I would have had to spend upwards of £20,000 applying for Home Office Schedule 1 licences and retrofitting my laboratory to the correct security standards. Meanwhile, I can work with heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine with no qualms. In light of this, I had to modify my experiment to instead investigate the effects of ketamine. I find it shocking that this government is willing to throw life science research under the bus and push life scientists out of this country with an outdated and downright illegitimate understanding of the medical benefits psilocybin can provide. Please do what you can to fix this!”

That is just one example. At a recent seminar at the Royal Society of Chemistry with some of the country’s most eminent neuroscientists, psychopharmacologists and psychiatrists, I spoke to countless researchers who have run into the same issues, making their research either needlessly more expensive or so prohibitively difficult to do that it has had to be abandoned. There is a huge credibility gap between psychiatry and politics for that reason; psychiatrists cannot understand why, at a time when we claim to be listening to the experts in the field of health, and when this country is facing a mental health crisis, we in Westminster are satisfied with doing nothing on this issue.

Why do we set up expert bodies and not listen to them? It is dangerous, immoral and unethical, and it is frankly offensive to both psychiatrists and their patients that we seem to think that as politicians we know better because of some moral panic 50 years ago. Multi-criteria decision analysis shows the comparative harms of various different kinds of drugs. Psilocybin is physiologically non-toxic and consistently found to be one of the safest controlled drugs, with the broader category of psychedelic compounds it falls into considered relatively safe physiologically and not drugs of dependence. The idea that psychedelics, including psilocybin, are dangerous is a myth, created and perpetuated to justify keeping them illegal.

Psychiatrists tell me that psychedelics are the best clinical tool and the best bit of psychiatric equipment they have, altering states of consciousness to allow for deeper processing and exploration of trauma and opening a therapeutic window where treatment can work, versus sub-optimal treatments with maintenance medications and substandard psychotherapies.

Moving on to patients, there is not a single other field where we would accept a 90% failure rate as acceptable, yet in mental health treatment that is where we are. There are a number of mental health conditions, including borderline personality disorder, that we seem to be satisfied with having no proper treatments or cures for. Psilocybin has been shown in numerous studies globally to have a profound and lasting effect over placebos for a range of different mental health conditions including treatment-resistant depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, anorexia nervosa and addiction.

I want to talk first about one of those conditions, PTSD. I have referred previously to living with PTSD, and that is where my interest in the potential promise of psilocybin as a treatment first began—so please consider this a declaration of interest, Mr Deputy Speaker. I was first diagnosed almost two years ago, after being the victim of a crime, and I cannot overstate the impact it has had on my life.

PTSD is a condition that I can expect to live alongside potentially indefinitely, and that can only ever be managed. It is a condition that has, for me, proved almost fatal. I manage it through a combination of a powerful serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor, Venlafaxine, taken daily, benzodiazepines taken for sleep and to stave off a dissociative episode if I am triggered by something, and regular therapy, following an almost month-long period as a psychiatric inpatient, having been sectioned in 2021 for my own safety. I am not telling the House this for sympathy, but because I hope my experience can be illustrative of just how debilitating a condition such as PTSD is.

We all know that being an MP can be a difficult job at the best of times. However, I ask hon. Members to consider for a moment what it is like living with a condition such as PTSD and the myriad subtle and unsubtle ways my body lets me down: having to put my best face on and go into a meeting after a panic attack; having the energy to make it through our long working hours after a virtually sleepless night plagued by night terrors, where I try to fight my attacker off me and wake up covered in bruises; seeing someone who looks like my attacker on a tube platform and feeling a terror so acute that I want to jump in front of the oncoming train to make it stop; going for walks until I am exhausted and my feet are bleeding in order to burn through the nervous energy that fizzes up inside me; finding myself in dangerous situations and being more vulnerable as a result; hearing a car going past playing the song that was playing when my PTSD began and vomiting; dissociating and losing time; being angry, messy and erratic; crying at everything and nothing; being snappy with my loved ones and becoming convinced that ending my own life would be a kindness to all those who have had to deal with me throughout the worst period of my PTSD, from my staff to my family. Even at its best, it is a living hell. There is nothing I would not give, nothing I would not do, to go back to who I was before my diagnosis.

My experience is not unique. This is the reality of living with a serious mental health condition. I am making it through as best I can because of the love and support of friends, colleagues and psychiatric intervention, but I know that, just as I am a million miles better than I have been, and there are many more good days than bad these days, I could easily relapse because of something I can neither plan for nor prevent.

I am hopeful that this sort of treatment may offer a light at the end of a very dark tunnel and finally give me my life back. The evidence shows that psilocybin, as with other psychedelics, can be such an effective treatment for PTSD that following a successful course of psychedelic-assisted therapy, many patients no longer even fulfil the diagnostic criteria any more—they are all but cured. But this Home Office, and its scheduling policy, which says against all the evidence that this is not allowed, is stopping that. It feels like institutional cruelty to condemn us to our misery when there are proven safe and effective treatment options if only the Government would let us access them.

Just as that is one story—my own experience—consider the millions of people in this country and around the world living with the same, with no hope that things can or will ever get better. Depression is one of the most socially, medically and economically burdensome diseases of the modern world. It is the single largest cause of global disability and the leading contributor to suicide. An average of 18 people take their own lives every day. Up to one third of people with depression do not respond to multiple courses of medication; an estimated 1.2 million adults in the UK live with treatment-resistant depression.

The direct treatment and unemployment costs to the UK associated with depression in 2020 have been estimated at £10 billion. The human and economic burden of that condition is profound, and there are clear benefits to supporting development of therapies that may be effective where all other treatments have failed. Mental health costs the UK £117.9 billion a year—around 5% of GDP—yet that is not nearly enough money to address our current crisis. Waiting lists for specialist treatment are often years long. There is both a moral and economic imperative for the Government to act.

We are being left behind as a nation. Some US states have legalised the use of psilocybin in mental health treatment. In 2018 it was granted “breakthrough therapy” status for depression by the United States Food and Drug Administration, expediting the research and approval process, with expected approval by the FDA in 2024. In Australia, from 1 July this year,

“medicines containing the psychedelic substances psilocybin and MDMA can be prescribed by specifically authorised psychiatrists for the treatment of certain mental health conditions.”

In Canada, healthcare practitioners may be able to access psilocybin for emergency treatment under a special access program when a clinical trial is not available or suitable.

We have charitable organisations in this country, such as Heroic Hearts, which take veterans abroad to be able to access treatment that they should be able to get in this country on our NHS. We have scientists, including the brilliant Dr Ben Sessa, leaving the country to pursue research and treatment abroad. That is utterly, utterly shameful. The real-world data from those countries will only make avoiding change in the UK even less justifiable.

The motion would make no difference to the laws around recreational use or supply of psilocybin or magic mushrooms. Further, there is no evidence of diversion of schedule 2 substances from clinical research. Use of psilocybin-containing mushrooms is low, and there is no evidence of users developing a dependency. As psilocybin mushrooms grow wild throughout the United Kingdom, psilocybin does not represent an opportunity for profit-motivated gangs and criminal individuals. These proposals do not risk increasing drug-related harms but will allow us to assess and access the benefits of psilocybin as a substance.

Of all of the psychedelic compounds that show promise in this area, psilocybin has the lowest risk profile across all metrics, so there is little reason not to reschedule it but plenty of reasons to make the change as soon as possible. The overwhelming scientific consensus is that psilocybin does not pose a major risk to the individual, to public health or to social order. Its schedule 1 designation is not morally, medically or economically appropriate.

We are supported in our call today not only by politicians from across the House, but by the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Campaign Against Living Miserably, the Conservative Drug Policy Reform Group, Drug Science, Heroic Hearts, Clusterbusters and SANE, among many other organisations. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for having the political courage and will—those are, sadly, too often lacking in this place —to grant us this important debate so that we may move ahead on rescheduling psilocybin. Now it is the Government’s turn to show that political courage and will.

Psilocybin’s current status as a schedule 1 drug is incommensurate with the evidence of its harm and utility. I beg the Government to support our motion and finally, finally right the historic wrong of its scheduling.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I think the whole House will wish to commend the hon. Lady for her courage in bringing this matter before the House and for the way in which she has put her case this afternoon.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

I am afraid I do not know the precise departmental visit that my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South is on. But knowing him, if he was here, he would certainly wish to be part of this debate and to continue the conversation that he has had with hon. Friend the Member for Reigate. It is only because of other departmental business that he was not able to join us today.

I want to begin by recognising, as others have done, the personal interest that the hon. Member for Warrington North has in this topic. I concur with your comments, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the hon. Member spoke with great conviction and very deeply. I have heard her speak on other subjects that we have a shared interest in, such as the fight against antisemitism, with the same eloquence and bravery that she showed today.

It may be helpful at the outset to remind the House that medicines policy, including the availability of medicines for prescribing, is led by the Department of Health and Social Care. Medicines are licensed and regulated by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. However, the Home Office is responsible for controlled drugs legislation. Our controlled drugs licensing regime supports research and clinical trials in the UK. The two Departments work together on issues connected to controlled drugs in healthcare. I will endeavour to set out the Government’s position this afternoon.

Controlled drugs legislation seeks to prevent criminality while permitting access for legitimate use, including for medicines development. The Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001 enable the use of controlled drugs in healthcare. The Home Office’s controlled drugs licensing regime enables the possession, supply, production, import and export of controlled drugs to support industry, pharmaceutical research and healthcare. These controls are subject to review in light of any emerging evidence and in consultation with the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which has been referenced many times this afternoon.

There is an established process for medicines, including those that contain controlled drugs, to be developed, evaluated in clinical trials and licensed, based on an assessment of their quality, safety and efficacy by the MHRA. The MHRA supports the safe and scientifically sound conduct of clinical trials in this area, and provides regulatory and scientific advice to companies at all stages of developing medicines. Should a company submit an application for a marketing authorisation, otherwise known as product licence, it will ultimately be a decision for the MHRA whether to license a product based on a psychedelic drug as a therapy.

[Charlotte Nichols]

The Minister refers to marketing authorisation. In this case, psilocybin, as we have discussed, is something that grows in mushrooms across the UK. Is the Minister suggesting that people would be able to access psilocybin only if it were in another substance?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am by no means an expert in this field, but I think I am suggesting that were this to be a drug that is licensed, it would need to go through the MHRA process in the usual way.

I would like to come to a point made by the hon. Lady earlier around the costs involved in a first-time application for a controlled drug licence of the kind we have been discussing. She quoted a substantial figure, which would be concerning as it would be prohibitively costly for smaller manufacturers or researchers. The figures that I have been quoted are that first-time application for a licence costs £3,700 and a standard renewal costs £326. I will write to the hon. Lady with those figures and if she contests them in any way, then I or the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire, my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) will be happy to respond.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend has made his point very powerfully. Of course the Government’s ambition is to ensure that NICE, the MHRA and all our regulators work in the most research-friendly manner, and that applies to mental health treatments as much as to anything else.

If a manufacturer is successful in being granted a marketing authorisation by the MHRA for a medicine containing psilocybin, the Home Office is committed to swift action to remove psilocybin from schedule 1 and make it available for prescribing, subject to advice from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs on the appropriate scheduling and safeguards for the medicine. The same scrutiny should be applied to all potential medicines to ensure patient safety. While it is legally possible to enable prescribing in advance of marketing authorisation, the Government currently have no plans to move to that position.

[Charlotte Nichols]

The Minister keeps referring to medicines containing psilocybin. He does not seem to understand that psilocybin is the medicine, in and of itself. It does not need to be added to something else to make it work. This is why we are running into the issue. The Government keep telling us about a licensing regime in which there is a requirement to add something to the compound in order to make it some sort of novel substance, rather than looking at the substance that already exists and, as we have said, has been used for thousands of years with demonstrated safety and efficacy. Will the Minister talk about psilocybin, rather than medicines containing psilocybin?

[Robert Jenrick]

I understand the hon. Lady’s point. As I have said, the Government are funding research into psilocybin and its effect on patients with certain conditions. What we are discussing today is the Home Office’s role in ensuring that that research, as it emerges, can be considered as part of our drugs legalisation framework.

The Government have commissioned the ACMD to consider how better to enable research with respect to all schedule 1 drugs, and that includes the potential to extend schedule 2 status for research purposes to all schedule 1 drugs including psilocybin. This, I believe, is the point that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire made in the Adjournment debate, and he has written to the ACMD asking it to consider, in particular, the potential options available to extend schedule 2 status for research purposes to all schedule 1 drugs. He highlighted psilocybin specifically in his letter. If the hon. Member for Warrington North, my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate or, indeed, other interested Members have not seen it, I shall be happy to ensure that they receive a copy and can see the instructions that my right hon. Friend has given to the ACMD. My hon. Friend the Member for Reigate asked earlier about the likely timetable for any advice from the ACMD. I have been told that, while the ACMD is independent of Government, it is understood that its consideration is well advanced, and we should expect its advice in the near future.

The approach that we have taken in this regard should deliver much of what my hon. Friend and others are requesting. I should make a distinction: prescribing will remain unavailable outside a clinical trial. It is not for the Home Office to determine medicines policy, and I am sure that my hon. Friend and others will accept the general principle that medicines should be assessed on the basis of their safety, quality and efficacy before being made available to patients.

The two Departments continue to support the ACMD’s review. The chief scientific adviser to the Home Office recently convened a discussion with her counterpart in the Department of Health and Social Care and the Government’s chief medical officer on this precise subject. I understand that they had a very positive discussion and I know that they will be advocating for the best outcome for researchers and, of course, patients. When the ACMD provides its advice, the Government will consider it carefully before deciding how to proceed.

I thank Members for their contributions to the debate. I can assure my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate and others that the Government have heard what they have to say. I will ensure that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire is fully apprised of what was said in the debate, so that he and others can continue their conversation on this issue.

I reassure the whole House that the Government agree with the intent of much of what has been debated today, but rather than developing a bespoke approach for psilocybin alone, we consider our approach to be more ambitious. We want to tackle this issue across all categories of section 1 drugs to reduce barriers to legitimate research, rather than focusing on individual drugs. Equally, we must keep a firm focus on the need to tackle drug misuse, which causes such harm across our society. Both are vitally important aims, and we will continue working to strike the right balance in the interests of the public.

[Charlotte Nichols]

I thank all Members who came to support the debate. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt)—he is a friend—I am disappointed in the Government’s response; yet again, we see a real lack of urgency from them on this issue. As we have heard, the ACMD review has been ongoing since 2017. In that time, at least 40,000 people have taken their own lives.

I am grateful for the fact that the Minister said he will take back the content of today’s discussion to the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire, the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), who should have been here today but unfortunately was not, because I am really keen that we should finally progress this issue. I thank all Members who took part in the debate to make the case clearly and cogently to the Government that we cannot accept their inertia any longer.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House welcomes the development of treatment options in mental health; further notes there have been no new pharmacological treatments for depression, with the exception of Esketamine, in over 30 years; recognises that psilocybin, a naturally occurring compound, has the potential to revolutionise the treatment of many of the world’s most hard to treat psychiatric conditions such as depression, PTSD, OCD, addiction and anorexia nervosa; recognises that no review of the evidence for psilocybin’s current status under UK law has ever been conducted; regrets that psilocybin is currently more controlled than heroin under the most stringent class and schedule under UK law which is significantly stalling research; and calls on the Government to take steps to conduct an urgent review of the evidence for psilocybin’s current status as Schedule 1 under the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001 with a view to rescheduling, initially for research purposes only, in order to facilitate the development of new mental health treatments and enable human brain research for the benefit of researchers, patients and the life sciences sector in the UK, and to deliver His Majesty’s Government’s commitment to be world-leading in its approach, with evidence-led and data-driven interventions, and building the evidence base where necessary.

Metropolitan Police: Casey Review

Charlotte Nichols Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

The hon. Lady is right to talk about leadership training; that is why I work closely with the College of Policing to ensure we have a better programme of preparation for the next generation of police leaders. That must start early on in a policing career. The existing training is frankly not good enough, and that is why there will be a programme of reform announced soon.

[Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)]

Among the most harrowing parts of Baroness Casey’s report, she quotes a serving police officer who says of rape,

“you may as well say it’s legal in London.”

However, that is not just an issue for London or the Metropolitan Police. This Government have allowed the national charge rate for rape to drop to an abysmal, historic low of 1.6%. Does the Home Secretary accept that this is a national problem, and that it is her responsibility to fix it so that victims can expect justice from our justice system?

[Suella Braverman]

It is exactly because we accept that there have been problems with the investigation and prosecution of rape that the Government commissioned the end-to-end rape review, which looked rigorously at how we can improve the investigation and prosecution of rape. The Metropolitan police is part of Operation Soteria, a pioneering new way of delivering better outcomes for victims. In the last year, the number of charges for adult rape offences increased by 79%. That is progress and movement in the right direction, and we need to ensure that it continues.

Proscribed Psychedelic Drugs

Charlotte Nichols Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

This is the first occasion that the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire, my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) and I have had to debate an element of his new portfolio in public, a subject to which I have devoted much of my time over the past five years. I want to put him at his ease. I of all people know he has one of the toughest jobs in Government—I suspect his willingness to go out and bat for the Government on the most difficult of wickets is one reason he was chosen for these responsibilities—and I do not want to draw him on to ground where he has to defend the indefensible. Instead, I will use most of this brief debate to make the case as best I can for his positive intervention in a narrow but profoundly important and potentially positive part of his responsibilities.

I do not want or expect an answer this evening; these matters demand careful consideration. There will shortly be an application to the Backbench Business Committee, supported by more than a score of colleagues from across the House, for time for a fuller consideration. I hope by the time that debate is secured we can enjoy the news that this Minister is taking the available opportunities of his very tough policy inheritance.

Since the United States—directed by the FBI of Harry Anslinger under J. Edgar Hoover—corralled the world into agreeing a 1961 UN convention on comprehensive narcotic prohibition, global drug policy has a decent claim to being the greatest public policy failure since 1945. The casualties and costs, certainly, are cumulatively much greater than those of any conflict of the period.

In the future, historians will look back on the policy in stunned wonderment that the US, having had a decade and a half of prohibition of alcohol in its own country, thought it sensible, less than 30 years later, to press the rest of the world to prohibit everything but alcohol and tobacco, and expect a different outcome. This time, the scale was truly epic, affecting the entire world and everything that humans had come to use to make themselves feel better, driven by the same moral certainty that underpinned the temperance movement decades earlier. The scale of the cost and the toll of the casualties should have been entirely predictable. So great have been the investment in that policy around the world, the moral high ground of the political class, and the blood price paid by state security forces around the world, that it seems that only retired leaders engage properly in this first-order debate, and, based on their experience, now challenge the assumptions upon which they governed.

Today’s leaders face the particular problem of explaining to their electorates why the certainties on which self-evidently failing policies are based are in fact a mirage. The black-and-white simplicities that lend themselves to ease of political communication do not exist. They must also begin to put in place an alternative and more effective answer to reduce the harm done to humanity by narcotics than the simplicity of blanket prohibition. That will be complex and difficult, and will require communication skills and moral courage of an exceptional order. That global reordering will be for the future. The sooner we get there, the sooner the carnage can stop and the cost and benefits of our policy can be measured properly with a degree of disinterested academic rigour so absent over the past half century.

What policymakers can do immediately is to address the most obvious and damaging consequences of prohibition: access to medicine being lost and denied. Forgone medical treatment is just one element of the cost of blanket narcotic prohibition, but it is very great once we understand the treatments that we have denied ourselves amid the moral panic underpinning prohibition. For no class of drugs is that urgent repair more needed than for the psychedelics.

First, the opportunity for a major step change in mental health treatment is real. We are not talking here about simply improving the treatment of symptoms of mental ill health. We have the opportunity, with the psychedelic class of compounds, to make a step change in mental health treatment and, with a proper regard for the actual risks involved, drive access to medicines while facilitating the collection of data for their efficacy in the real world.

As Ministers around the world are now becoming aware, psychedelics, including psilocybin, are being investigated and found to have promising application as facilitators of psychotherapy for the treatment of the most debilitating and devastating mental health conditions suffered by people around the world. Unlike the treatment options that are currently available to patients, psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy does not foster dependence. It treats the underlying causes of mental ill health rather than simply covering the symptoms through emotional blunting, unlike selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors—antidepressants—on which patients can come to rely for decades, and to which they currently have no real alternative.

My hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger) is properly concerned about freeing people from the overuse and dependence on those treatments. When I sought his support for my application to the Backbench Business Committee, he cautioned me to stay my enthusiasm until we had solved that problem as the first priority. But that misses the point that assisted psychotherapy can give patients back their lives, allowing them to escape antidepressants in the first place by helping them to form and enjoy satisfying relationships with other people; to return to and thrive at work or study; to contribute fully to society; or even better, to help them to confront their fear of death and cope with end of life. It really is revolutionary and has the potential to dramatically improve the lives of millions of our fellow citizens. We must do both.

Addressing the missed opportunity of treatment over half a century will help address the miserable dependence of too many on SSRIs. It would be untenable for the Government to keep barriers to cancer research, for example. That should also be the case for psychedelics given their promise for mental health.

[Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this important debate. Does he have any estimate of the number of people living with treatment-resistant depression in the UK and what the cost could be to the economy of not rescheduling psilocybin as he proposes?

Oral Answers to Questions

Charlotte Nichols Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2023 Commons Chamber

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

My hon. Friend represents a seat in an interesting county, and I know that she works hard on this issue. I believe that there are three projects of the kind that she mentions in Derbyshire, on which more than £1.5 million has been spent. These projects do level up, and they include spending on measures such as closed circuit television and street lighting. Crime has fallen in her constituency, and that is partly due to her work with the outstanding Conservative police and crime commissioner, Angelique Foster. I urge my hon. Friend to continue that work.

[Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)]

Following the news this week that Australia’s medical regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, has moved to reschedule psilocybin for medicinal use from 1 July, when can we expect the Home Office to finally reschedule psilocybin, so that people with conditions such as treatment-resistant depression and post-traumatic stress disorder do not have to travel to Europe, the United States or, now, Australia for psychedelic therapy treatment that they should be able to access safely, where appropriate, here?

[Chris Philp]

The hon. Lady is raising an important and reasonable point. I have carefully read her moving letter on this issue. We are getting advice from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, and will act on this as soon as we can.

International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women

Charlotte Nichols Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2022 Westminster Hall

[Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Elliott. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) on securing this vital debate, although it is shame that such an important debate is not taking place on the Floor of the House, in Government time.

These annual debates are so important, not just so that we can hear the latest sad figures of violence and hold Ministers to account for the ongoing abuse and killing of women and girls, but so that we can speak about the wider context and to try to call for a better way forward.

Locally, Cheshire police tell me that arrests for domestic abuse have increased by 76% this year, and that we have the highest charge rate for stalking in the country and the third highest charge rate for sexual offences and rape. Such statistics, even positive ones, are evidence of failure, not signs of progress, because they represent change from an unacceptably low baseline. Moreover, even with higher figures for arrests, charges, prosecutions and convictions, the sad truth is that far too many women will not engage with the justice system or report what has happened to them. Women will suffer domestic abuse many times before they go to the police.

We have an appalling situation in which survivors of sexual violence can have their counselling notes read by police officers, prosecutors, defence lawyers and even the person who raped them, often in order to try to find something to make the survivor look untrustworthy or to discredit their testimony. Rape Crisis England & Wales is clear that counselling notes should be kept confidential; otherwise, survivors will continue to have to choose between the pursuit of justice—statistically futile though that may seem—and looking after their own needs and mental health. It is absolutely sick that we expect that from them, when they should be supported to see both justice and compassion.

Specialist services for survivors are on their knees, and survivors suffering from conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder—a condition more frequently suffered by survivors of child sexual exploitation and sexual violence than by veterans—find themselves in a postcode lottery, waiting years to access treatment, if they can access it at all. We cannot talk about support for victims without recognising that there needs to be vastly more funding for these services, including for support by independent sexual violence advisers and independent domestic violence advisers. I would welcome a commitment from the Minister in those areas.

We need not only better policing and judicial processes, but to change our social culture itself. It is not enough to merely get better at prosecuting offences after the fact. We must ensure that we are using every legal and social lever to stop it happening in the first place. I commend the men speaking in this debate, because they recognise that violence against women and girls is a scourge that cannot be ended by the victims. We need men to work to stop this. I do not mean the small minority of men who are the perpetrators, but the majority of decent men who are horrified by the results of this violence and who can influence the behaviour of their peers.

We need a renewed focus on sex and relationships education in schools, to insist on dignity at a young age, and clear expectations and behaviour codes in the workplace. I suggest we start here, by making sure all our colleagues in this workplace are modelling that, too. We also need adverts that put the onus on men, such as those promoted by the Mayor of London that say:

“Have a word with yourself, then your mates”.

Male role models need to front such campaigns in order to change expectations, so that when lads meet in groups, whether that is in the locker room, the pub or anywhere else, they can display character and object to reactive group misogyny, no longer being bystanders implicitly supporting such behaviour.

We also need to ensure that women can no longer be financially trapped into abusive situations, or at risk of destitution when they seek to leave. Those are the kinds of holistic changes that we need to see if we are serious about ending violence against women and girls.

I know that everyone in this Chamber wants to end violence against women and girls. Our challenge is to tackle the wider context of toxic behaviour that breeds it. I hope that by next year’s debate, we will have made more progress on that fundamental task.

Oral Answers to Questions

Charlotte Nichols Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I would be very happy to do so.

[Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)]

11. Whether she is taking steps with Cabinet colleagues to ensure that the potential health benefits of ingredients scheduled under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001 are kept under review.

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)]

Drug control seeks to strike a balance between preventing criminality on the one hand and allowing access for legitimate use, such as medicines development, on the other. The Government are guided in their decisions by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs as a well-established process for taking these decisions, and of course we follow the expert advice.

[Charlotte Nichols]

Psilocybin should never have been designated a schedule 1 substance, but this position by the Home Office has become even more untenable following publication this month of the largest multi-site phase 2b trial of psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression. The study found rapid and enduring reductions in depression symptoms on a 25 mg dose. The further, very promising research in the UK is being severely hindered by psilocybin’s schedule 1 status and the prohibitive associated costs for our academic researchers. Will the Home Secretary finally commit to rescheduling psilocybin and related compounds to schedule 2, to allow more research into mental health treatment paradigms that could see a happier, healthier and more productive country and a growth boom for our science, innovation and pharmacology sectors?

[Chris Philp]

The drug to which the hon. Lady refers is an MDMA-based medicine. The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs is currently considering the barriers to legitimate research that are posed by controlled drugs. Once we have had its advice on the topic, including the implications for psychedelic drugs, such as MDMA and psilocybin, we will obviously take an appropriate decision in relation to research. In relation to more widespread availability, we will follow the decisions made by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence before reaching any such decision ourselves.

Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape

Charlotte Nichols Excerpts

Tuesday 25th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s constructive question. He is right; we do think that the use of section 28, as it is called—giving recorded evidence—will have a role to play. As he will know, we have rolled it out for vulnerable victims across all Crown courts, and we now have a number of pathfinder courts—in Liverpool and, I think, Leeds—where we are using it in cases of intimidated witnesses, not least in cases of rape and sexual violence. As for the guidance that he points towards, that is a police-owned document, and I know that they are collaborating closely with the CPS and the Criminal Bar Association to get it right. We stand ready to help them with publication once their work is finished.

[Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab) [V]]

I have heard harrowing testimony from a number of my constituents about their experience of seeking justice after rape and sexual violence. The majority felt that they had been further traumatised by the process and felt like they were the ones on trial, whether because they were required to hand over their digital devices, because they were not able to access pre-trial therapy, or because of the myths and stereotypes that abound.

Listening to that testimony, I felt vindicated in my own decision not to go to the police—a decision that thousands of women sadly take because they understandably feel like their trauma will only be compounded by the process, with a minuscule likelihood of securing a conviction. Will the Minister therefore please commit to supporting Labour’s call for the establishment of a pre and post-trial survivor support package, including a full legal advocacy scheme for victims and better training for professionals around myths and stereotypes, so that survivors can finally have some confidence in this process?

[Kit Malthouse]

It is obviously a matter of deep regret that anybody feels prevented from coming forward to report a rape, or indeed a sexual assault, to the police. That is one of the issues that we need to address—building confidence among victims that they should and could step forward, recognising at all times that it takes enormous courage to do so. Like the hon. Lady, I have sat with victims of this particularly appalling and intimate crime over the years, so I recognise the devastating impact that it can have. As to the measures that she calls for, I obviously cannot make an announcement today, but I recommend that, when the review is published, she reads it from cover to cover.

Daniel Morgan: Independent Panel Report

Charlotte Nichols Excerpts

Ways and Means resolution & Programme motion
Monday 24th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I am not going to draw analogies between the facts of this terrible, terrible case and the headlines and facts that have emerged in relation to Princess Diana. I think both cases and both people deserve their own moment. The previous urgent question concerned the late princess. This UQ concerns Mr Morgan, so I will confine myself to him. In terms of the process, at the risk of repeating myself, the report has been prepared by the panel. The panel has taken eight years to gather evidence. One can only imagine—I am speculating, because I have not seen it—what the product will be after eight years’ worth of work. That is why, in accordance with the terms of the inquiry, the Home Secretary will make arrangements for it to be laid in Parliament. Of course that means that Parliament will see it.

In relation to the Maxwellisation process, I do not know the process that the panel has gone through, but the Home Secretary has a duty under section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 in relation to threats to life, but that is the only consideration that will be in her mind—that, and national security. We have no interest in editing this report—none whatever. We want the truth to come out.

[Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab) [V]]

Five police investigations failed to find the person or persons responsible for Daniel’s murder, but they did find evidence of police corruption. Police officers and News UK reporters are alleged to have corrupted these investigations in the 1980s, the 1990s, and the years after 2000. Throughout these 34 years, Daniel’s brother, Alastair Morgan, has led the campaign for justice for Daniel. The Daniel Morgan independent panel was promised access to Metropolitan Police Service files, but not to any material held by News UK. Given News UK employees’ alleged involvement in the cover-up of Daniel’s murder, will the Home Office now re-establish the Leveson part 2 inquiry, which has the necessary power to investigate News UK, or do the Government intend to allow potentially guilty parties in relation to this case to go free?

[Victoria Atkins]

I want to bring the hon. Lady’s attention back to this urgent question, which is about the report that the panel has drawn up following eight years of research and investigation. We want the report to be published and the truth to come out. When we receive the report, we will, in accordance with the terms of the inquiry, publish it and make arrangements for it to be laid before Parliament. There is nothing further that I can add to that because we have not yet received the report. We await it, along with everyone else, and look forward to the panel providing us with it.