Clause 5 - X-rays and ultrasound scans: England and Wales
Drugs Bill

Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Chesham and Amersham, Conservative)

Welcome to our proceedings this afternoon, Mr. Gale.

When we broke, I was responding to the Minister's response to the amendment. What really worries me is the lack of detail. I wholeheartedly support the Minister in what she is trying to achieve but would have liked some of the financial tests to be available to the Committee, not least when it comes to access to hospitals, general practice surgeries and the other medical premises included in the Bill. We are talking not about accident and emergency provisions but about a procedure that is to be initiated at the request of a police officer. The officer may request a general practitioner or a hospital's accident and emergency department to carry out tests on behalf of the police, and, indeed, to interpret those tests on behalf of the police and transmit the results to them. It follows that the national health service or private medical facility that provides those services will face a cost.

The Minister has given no indication whether the police have the intention, or, indeed, the provision, to purchase the equipment necessary to carry out those tests. Nor has she said that specific facilities or suites will be made available for them. She will therefore have to rely entirely on the national health service and/or the private sector. If I remember correctly, her response this morning was that the costs will be negligible. I do not see general practices responding in that fashion to the sort of costs involved. GPs in Chesham and Amersham provide a tremendous service, and our primary care trust tries its very best, but they are all under a great deal of pressure. Indeed, my constituents have to travel some distance to avail themselves of X-ray facilities.

The cost of the facilities is a moveable feast. However, while we were at lunch I unearthed a tariff of costs, and I need the Minister to respond to me in   writing—I shall withdraw the amendment—setting out what tests she will require the police to request from the national health service or a private facility.

The radiology tariff from the Department of Health for 2004-05 can vary. I am afraid that the information is slightly outwith the amounts given by the estimable lady veterinarian wife of the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael), but some of them could be the same price as a vet's X-ray. On the list is something with a specialty code RBA1, in band A, which costs £17. Ultrasounds start from £31 and go to £36, £69 and as much as £113.

Ms Caroline Flint (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (reducing organised and international crime, anti drugs co-ordination and international and European issues), Home Office; Don Valley, Labour)

I, too, have done some research over lunch, and it is important to put the issue in context. We anticipate about 100 extended detentions per annum. On the assumption that 50 per cent. of those have an associated X-ray, costing, to use a rough figure based on internet research, £50 each, and that 10 per cent. have an ultrasound scan—a private ultrasound scan for a pregnant woman is reported to be £170; we managed to get that figure together over lunch—we are talking about a total cost per annum of something like £7,000.

My argument has been, first, that there is a deterrent factor to the provision, and that the process will not get as far as the X-ray because people will know that the game is up and that they should plead guilty; and, secondly, that only a small number of people are involved. As to how the police in Greater Manchester work, they currently use accident and emergency departments—

Mr Roger Gale (North Thanet, Conservative)

Order. I remind the Minister that this is an intervention and not a speech.

Ms Caroline Flint (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (reducing organised and international crime, anti drugs co-ordination and international and European issues), Home Office; Don Valley, Labour)

Sorry, Mr. Gale. I hope that the information that I have provided gives the hon. Lady a better context for the operation of the clause, and I hope that she agrees that there will not be an unusual, unexpected or disproportionate impact on the national health service.

Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Chesham and Amersham, Conservative)

I am grateful that the Minister has done some extra research. I am sorry that we have had to drag it from her, kicking and screaming, over a lunch break. I hope that her estimates are right, because the other information that I dug up over lunch was from a reply to a written question of 7 May 2003, about the assessment that is made of current waiting times for X-ray tests and ultrasound scans. The reply was that data are not collected. However, it continued:

''The length of time that a patient may have to wait for any scan is dependent on their clinical condition. Emergency cases need to be seen immediately.''

We can all agree on that. The reply added:

''Other cases will be carried out as quickly as possible, dependent on the clinical priority of all patients waiting to be scanned.—[Official Report, House of Commons, 7 May 2003; Vol. 404, c. 764W.]

It follows, to go back to the debate that we had about timing, that there may be a very long wait in a public facility for a test.

Will the Minister write to all the members of the Committee and let us know the details of the results from the efforts made by the Manchester police? Also, further down the line, will she provide a firmer, technical explanation of exactly what X-ray or scan will be required? She mentioned a cost of £170 for a private, ultrasound scan for a pregnant lady. Of course, that could involve a full body scan, not just a lower abdominal scan, because where the body needs to be scanned and where the package may have lodged itself depend on how long has elapsed from the alleged swallowing of the class A drugs. I would like further and better details. It follows that only an abdominal scan will be needed, but that the whole alimentary canal will have to be X-rayed or scanned. That will take longer; there is more to it. It may cost more and the Minister may have underestimated the costs, even if she has not underestimated the numbers. It would be better if, rather than taking inspiration from another place, she could write to the Committee and explain the technical details. I will give way so that she can agree that she will—but she is not going to. We will all note that the technical details were not available on this clause, and I fall back on the inference that it was put together in rather a hurry. That seems increasingly to be the case with the Bill, but I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Dr Brian Iddon (Bolton South East, Labour)

I listened carefully to the debate on the amendment, which was quite lengthy, and rightly so. However, it did not address the real problem of swallowers. My hon. Friend the Minister said that the numbers are relatively small, at least in urban and rural areas, but my main concern is what happens at airports. I have studied that in a little detail.

We did not have much of a cocaine problem in Manchester until flights started to come direct from the Caribbean rim a few years ago. The cocaine problem then started to get worse. I suspect that there is a change of fashion in the north from heroin to cocaine, but we have certainly not had the terrible experience that London and some other cities and towns have had, mainly in the south. The police fear cocaine far more than heroin: although both are addictive and equally evil, cocaine makes people aggressive, whereas heroin has the opposite effect. The police do not like to deal with people on cocaine, because they can be horrific to deal with, particularly   if they have just snorted or smoked it. We now have the problem in Manchester because of direct flights from places such as Kingston.

A few years ago, I was on the police parliamentary scheme with the Greater Manchester police force, and one of our visits was to the Netherlands. We spent a whole day at Schiphol airport, and I thought that we should certainly do what was done there at Heathrow and Manchester, if not at some other international airports. The problem with British airports dealing with swallowers is that so many security forces are built into silos. At Manchester airport, we have the local police—the Greater Manchester force—special branch, who do not take a high profile, for obvious reasons, individual security companies working for baggage handlers and airlines, and Customs and Excise.

Many years ago Holland realised that such silos were not working effectively together. An important report on that was made to the British Government. Forgive me, but I have forgotten the name of it, but I referred to it on the Floor of the House a couple of years ago. It suggested that the silos be merged. The Netherlands gives one force the total right to police all ports of entry and leaving.

Mr Roger Gale (North Thanet, Conservative)

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but I have looked very carefully at clause 5 and it does not deal with the matters to which he is addressing himself. It deals with X-rays and ultrasound scans. I appreciate that a little background may be in order, but try as I may I am finding it increasingly hard to determine that he is in order.

Dr Brian Iddon (Bolton South East, Labour)

I will try to focus on the main point, which is about swallowers coming into airports. I am willing to be corrected, but as I understand it, the clause gives police at airports and in urban and rural areas the right to subject people they suspect of swallowing hard drugs—class A drugs—to X-rays and scanning. My point is that the biggest problem is at our airports, whether it be at Heathrow or Manchester.

I was trying to describe what happens in the Netherlands, and I shall finish talking about the position there. One police force deals with all swallowers coming into airports, and it has a tremendous set-up. If the Minister has not visited Schiphol, I strongly recommend that she spend two or three hours there seeing how the force deals with swallowers.

The last amendment dealt with purpose-built facilities, but most airports already have, or are building, special medical facilities. People come off planes with all kinds of medical problems, and the medical facilities at a large international airport such as Heathrow may already have X-ray equipment, so it would not always be necessary to take a swallower to the local accident and emergency unit.

The real reason why I support the clause, which gives the police extra powers, is that people die transporting drugs into Britain. In the Antilles, a former Dutch colony, children as young as 12 spend   hours trying to swallow the largest grapes that they can collect. Then, of course, they are introduced to swallowing the real thing—condoms packed hard with cocaine, which are mightily difficult to get down. Of course, flights are profiled, and someone looks at who buys tickets, who gets on the plane and how passengers behave on board. If passengers do not eat or drink on the plane, they will obviously be under suspicion immediately because they may be worried about passing the balls of cocaine. Indeed, they sometimes do, and a hell of a smell develops in the cabin. There are many ways of dealing with those people, and highly profiled passengers—those picked out before boarding the aircraft or on arrival—who get off planes at international airports such as Heathrow or Manchester will be observed, taken away, searched and interviewed. The trouble is that they have to be kept in cells for an awfully long time before the evidence can be collected.

Sometimes, packages burst on the aircraft, and those carrying them die; indeed, quite a number of mules die. The Dutch told us that they had caught 14 mules on one plane from Kingston, Jamaica. They probably did not get all the swallowers on the plane, because international flights from the Caribbean rim are being swamped, and that is the main way of getting cocaine into Britain.

Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Chesham and Amersham, Conservative)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the problem affects women in particular? The largest proportion of female foreign nationals in our prisons is from Jamaica. The majority received custodial sentences after they were used as mules.

Mr Roger Gale (North Thanet, Conservative)

Order. I am sorry to spoil this party, but the clause has nothing whatever to do with the matters that are being discussed; it is specifically about the technicalities of X-rays and ultrasound scans. Can we please return to the matters in the clause?

Dr Brian Iddon (Bolton South East, Labour)

I take your second indication that I should focus on the subject, Mr. Gale, but it is important to point out that people die after swallowing balls of cocaine. The clause is about diagnosing mules when they arrive at airports, and that is why I support it. People sometimes arrive in great pain as a result of having swallowed drugs, and many subsequently die. The Dutch police told us that they had found butchered bodies in harbours because the security forces had failed to catch people coming off a plane. When they died, their bodies were butchered to get the drugs out. I am trying to show the Committee that the clause is amazingly important and that it may well save lives. That is why I support it. Thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Gale.

Mr John Mann (Bassetlaw, Labour)

I intend to ask the Minister two specific questions about subsection (1)(a) and one about subsection (2).

My question about subsection (2) relates to ion scanners. Although I support the clause, the problem of people swallowing drugs when they think they may be arrested is small. My police have a bigger problem   with flushers: those who flush drugs down the toilet. That is a common problem. On drugs raids, the first thing that the police do—I have witnessed this on several occasions—is head for the toilet to ensure that drugs are not flushed down it. The clause does not attempt to deal with that problem.

I move on to our successes. We lead the world with our technology for scanning for drugs. We supplied the equipment used in Jamaica, where every suspected cocaine-swallower leaving the country must go through ion scanners, which are supervised by British Customs and Excise staff. Are those scanners defined as X-ray equipment in this context?

Are the Government succeeding in their strategy on this issue? Information from the Hibiscus charity in Jamaica, which the Government partly funds, is that the number of drug-swallowers exiting the Caribbean for the UK has reduced by more than half in the past few years. It seems that we lead the world in some of the technologies and methodologies that we use. Will the expertise that we have built up, particularly in the Caribbean, through Customs and Excise, have a direct impact on how the police will use their powers under the clause? Will ion scanners be classified as X-ray equipment available for police use?

Ms Caroline Flint (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (reducing organised and international crime, anti drugs co-ordination and international and European issues), Home Office; Don Valley, Labour)

There are important issues relating to people who are manipulated to act as mules or who feel that that is the only option available to them because of poverty or other reasons, but the clause is designed to address intent to supply.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) says, it is of concern that people try to dispose of drugs by swallowing them. Drug squad officers from Doncaster have told me of an occasion on which they had a house under surveillance where they knew that supply offences were taking place. They wanted to raid the property and catch the suspect—he was known to them and had been under surveillance—with drugs on him that he was going to use for supply offences. The police have become wised up to such operations, and have, on occasion, had officers not only going into the house, but checking the down pipes from toilets to ensure that they get to the drugs before they disappear. However, because the police have become much better at those sorts of raids, and are better about searching places where drugs might have been disposed of, such as rooftops and back gardens, some dealers are swallowing.

That brings us back to the debate about getting a person's consent to X-ray or scan, and the fact that an inference can be made in court if they refuse. As I said, the person might have a legitimate reason for not having an X-ray or scan. The measure primarily concerns that situation, rather than that of people being used as mules.

As my hon. Friends the hon. Members for Bassetlaw and for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) said, there has been tremendous success in Jamaica, where technology has reduced numbers. We welcome the international co-operation with the Jamaican authorities on that, as we could not have done it without their support. My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw is right: there has been a drop of at least   50 per cent. in the number of people coming through. That is important, because the longer these people have the drugs inside them—it is a long plane journey—the more they are at risk. I will check what my hon. Friend said about the use of ion scanners in this area. Obviously there could be a cost implication, because there are a whole number of places around the country in which someone could be arrested and charged. I will follow that up because, if there are opportunities to tackle that and identify drugs as technology advances, we should look at them. Identifying reasonable evidence of drugs is what the Bill is all about. I hope that will suffice for my hon. Friend at this point.

I take the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East about police intervention. Let us not forget that people in a busy airport may not be acting as mules while still involved in the supply of drugs. Someone could be detained and arrested who swallows a drug because the concourse of the airport is their patch, where they are supplying drugs. There might be a need to follow that up. There might be occasions where an airport that already has facilities to deal with the more traditional mule route could make facilities available to the police to deal with those who engage in supply activities within the airport perimeter. I take my hon. Friend's point on that.We have had an interesting debate. The clause is about detention. It is about suspects who have tried to use every trick in the book to frustrate the police in their attempts to get evidence. If they realise, given the safeguards I have outlined, that their denial—refusing X-rays or scans—will be looked at by the courts, my hope is that the clause will not necessarily lead to a huge increase of people going for X-rays and scans. It might help to reduce the police time involved by getting people to be more up front about their offending behaviour.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.