Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Grant Excerpts

Tuesday 14th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Sorry, that question is unrelated to Question 1; it relates to Question 2. I call Peter Grant.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

The Minister, as every Minister does these days, describes the strategy announced last week as world-beating. I suggest we maybe wait to see how it works before we make those claims. I also suggest that he also looks at what is actually working in the rest of the world. Can he explain why this world-beating strategy still insists on putting the medical and health needs of drug users in second place at best to treating them as criminals to be ostracised and punished, rather than sick people who desperately need to be helped?

[Kit Malthouse]

As usual, SNP Members mischaracterise what we are trying to do. The key feature of the strategy is twofold. First, we are ramping up restrictions on supply, building on our success thus far, particularly on dismantling county lines, which will have a direct impact on drug supply in Scotland. The reason we are doing that is that by restricting supply we believe we can create more space for the £780 million we will be spending on therapeutic interventions, particularly with heroin and crack users, to have an impact. Critically, the two have to go together. If we are dealing with a heroin or crack addict, very often they will leave a therapeutic intervention—I am sure hon. Members see this in their own constituencies—and walk straight back out into the hands of a drug dealer. We need to make that less likely if we are going to ensure those therapies stick and have an impact. As far as criminalising addicts is concerned, large numbers of them do commit crime. They commit crime from which there are victims. Those victims deserve to see justice done, too.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dominic Raab]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that a certain category of case, particularly in respect of the private family law courts, needs to go before a court because of safeguarding issues or domestic abuse. Such cases account for 60%, more or less, while the others ought to avoid going to court through the use of mediation or alternative dispute settlement. Not only is that the right thing to do for all those involved, and particularly for children, but it saves the precious resource of the family courts for when they are really needed.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Will the coming review of human rights legislation explicitly acknowledge the concept of universal human rights—rights that are ours for no reason other than that we are human beings, that do not need to be conferred by any Parliament and that cannot be revoked by any Parliament on earth?

[Dominic Raab]

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was making the case for the wholesale repeal of the Human Rights Act, but we are not going that far. We need to put in place a legal framework and that will, of course, respect this country’s proud tradition of freedom under the rule of law.