Clause 11 - Requirements under sections 9 and 10: supplemental
Drugs Bill
10:30 am
Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Chesham and Amersham, Conservative)
Clause 11 is really all about the practical details of the assessments. In particular, it puts the obligations on police officers, who seem to be doing most of the administration.
I find it extraordinary that the Bill has so much detail about the administrative arrangements, particularly in the light of the dearth of provisions on X-rays and ultrasound scans, and that the Minister usually likes to rely on secondary legislation to put any of the flesh on the bones. One of the sad markers of this Bill is that so much of the real detail that we should be examining in Committee will be subject to orders at another time and place and will not have the detailed scrutiny that we could otherwise have given it. Again, I presume that that is to do with the political timetable and the haste with which the Minister was keen to have something to wave in the air and enable her to say that she was doing something about the drugs problem.
Clause 11 has some detailed provisions about what policemen must and must not do. One of the questions that I have is about the police officer who has to inform the person of the time and place at which the initial assessment is to take place under subsection 2(a), and then explain that the information will be confirmed in writing under subsection 2(b). Presumably, they will repeat all that information later in writing and send it to a person who the Minister said may or may not have somewhere to live. That was one of the things that she wanted to ascertain in the initial assessment. So some practical difficulties arise. I am not sure how the police officer would confirm all that in writing if the person could leave the police station and walk away. It would not be known until the initial assessment whether the person had somewhere to live or whether they were homeless. I am taking the Minister's own words. [Interruption.] The Minister said from a sedentary position that the person would need to be charged, but they would not, would they? That is the problem: they would be only under arrest, not charged. The Minister should fill in that gap in logic.
I move on to subsection (8). If the Bill is to include details of what police officers must or must not do, it is worth querying whether a great deal of qualified police officers' time will be taken up. Subsection (8) states that
''a police officer or a suitably qualified person may give the person a further notice in writing . . . .of any change to the time when, or to the place at which, the initial assessment is to take place.''
I would leave the police officer out of that process completely. Why would they need to be engaged in it? Presumably, either the assessor or the client would change the time or place of the initial assessment by some sort of agreement. We cannot call the person anything other than a client, because they would not be guilty of an offence; they would not have been charged, only under arrest.
Why not simplify matters for the police? Rather than putting all that into the Bill, why not have practical provisions so that guidelines can be established? If the Bill is enacted, the House of Commons will have to go to a remarkable amount of time and trouble to change all the provisions. Primary legislation will have to be considered and amended—even, for example, to include giving notification by e-mail. As technology moves on, there will be a great deal of difficulty.
My plea to the Minister is that she should consider again the drafting of the Bill before Report and Third Reading. Things that ought to be in the Bill seem not to be, yet unnecessary detail is included that will cause us even more problems.