Clause 22 - Financial provision
Drugs Bill
4:31 pm
Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Chesham and Amersham, Conservative)
I have a couple of points that I want to put to the Minister. I would like her to explain paragraph 55 of the explanatory notes. It states:
''This will be implemented once the expanded workforce is in place and frontline efficiencies have been achieved. There are downstream costs to the Criminal Justice System but these are expected to be balanced by savings arising from reduced offending.''
As we are examining the detail of the Bill, an explanation would be useful of what front-line efficiencies are expected, who will achieve them, and where the cuts will fall in order to create the expanded work force. I am not sure that I fully understand the provisions, and others have raised the matter with me.
I want to look at the implications for public sector manpower, which also fall as a burden. Paragraph 61 says:
''Clauses 1–6 and 8 will have a minimal impact on manpower'',
but clauses 8, 5 and 6 all have manpower implications. Indeed, even the estimate that police forces will require one additional supervising officer per day—presumably, on a 24-hour shift basis—represents quite an additional burden.
Rather than that, however, I would like the Minister to explain the suggestion that
''The extended detention provision will allow police forces to equip a custody suite''.
Do we have the correct financial provision to provide for custody suites? If not, there will be enormous issues about detaining people for a long time in police cells. In Operation Safeguard, police cells were used as prison cells because the prisons were overflowing. We must ensure that we have the correct safeguards and balances in place before the provisions bite and people can be detained for an extended period in police cells. Someone who is in a cell for the first time will be more vulnerable and susceptible to self-harm and suicide, and we do not want to inflict greater trauma on the individual or on police officers around the country. I would therefore like the Minister to explain those financial provisions.