Clause 14 - Attendance at follow-up assessment
Drugs Bill
11:00 am
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)
The hon. Lady makes a valid point. If somebody does not attend and that is made an offence under the Bill, the courts will have to determine the term ''without good cause''. The point is, however, that we should be giving guidance to the people implementing the measure so that if they go to court they do so on the basis that the prosecution will be successful. It would not be helpful if a number of cases were brought to the court and the court said that they were ridiculous, because they were obviously good causes. We do not want to create unnecessary use of court time. In some situations, it is inevitable that someone might not attend. I hope that we can cover that in the guidance, which we will base on working with drug addicts and on their attendance and participation in other drug treatments under other programmes. I hope that she is satisfied with that response.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 14 ordered to stand part of the Bill.