What new initiatives and resources are planned in the campaign against drug usage by younger adolescents. [148771]

As the Government announced this morning, we are putting £152 million over three years into co-ordinating and targeting local services to help young people, including those most vulnerable from drug misuse.

The Government's anti-drugs strategy has set challenging targets to halve the numbers of young people using illegal drugs by 2008. We are ensuring that young people receive the help and advice that they need to resist drug misuse, and we shall increase drug education and prevention spending from £63 million this year to £120 million in 2003–04.

In Leicestershire, the county council education department's drug policy is due to be published in the spring of this year, with training planned to support its implementation.

I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. May I commend to him the work in Leicestershire schools of the life education centres, whose drug prevention education helps many thousands of children make healthy choices? Will he discuss with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment ways of sustaining and developing the LECs, particularly in the use of digital technology, to make their programmes more effective with pupils, teachers and parents?

Yes. I am also prepared to come to Leicestershire to hold discussions with my hon. Friend and his colleagues there about how we can build on the work that is already being done in the county to prevent addiction but, when it does, to provide proper treatment. We shall also help to relieve communities in Leicestershire from the stress that drug dealers cause in some of them.

Is it—[Interruption.] It is always a pleasure to brighten up the lives of miserable Labour Members who are about to lose their seats.

Is it the right hon. Gentleman's policy that young offenders who abuse drugs should be eligible for drug referral schemes? If so, what assessment has he made of attendance at, and participation in, such schemes? Does he believe that it is necessary to have a mixture of a carrot-and-stick approach to ensure compliance? [Interruption.]

Order. I ask the House to settle down; there are too many private conversations.

The issue is not about saving seats; it is about saving lives. Perhaps I can draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to that. The schemes are working effectively. They encourage young people who have a drug abuse problem to take responsibility for seeking out a partnership with the local authority to receive available treatment and to address the issues that arise from the criminal activity related to their misuse of drugs.

The pilot project has had two results: first, there has been a dramatic decrease in criminal activity—up to £300 a week less has been stolen to feed the drug habit; and secondly, a large proportion of the people in the schemes are successfully participating in the treatment programmes and are about to go on to receive education, training and housing. However, it is a hell of a job to get those young people to work in a sustained way in the community. It is difficult to get them to give up drugs, sustain the lack of drug activity and to go on to a healthy life style, but we must ensure that we get on with encouraging that. I reassure the hon. Gentleman that that is what we are doing.

May I invite my right hon. Friend to visit Halifax to meet some of the dedicated workers who are employed in drug referral and prevention strategies? Will he join me in condemning the proposals by Tory-controlled Calderdale council to cut staff in that vital service?

First, I would be more than happy to visit my hon. Friend's Constituency. Secondly, a year or so ago I went to her local authority to discuss drug issues on estates. I would be staggered if any local authority decided to reduce funding in such a vital service when the Government have put in place a £1 billion investment programme to prevent drug abuse, provide treatment, encourage community safety and reduce the availability of drugs in communities. There is no reason why her local authority should not be involved in a strategy to ensure that the system in her community works effectively to get young people off drugs and into a more proactive life style.