Drugs (Roadside Testing) Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:25 pm on 10 June 2011.

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Photo of Andrew Bingham Andrew Bingham Conservative, High Peak 12:25, 10 June 2011

I have listened with great interest to today’s debate, and I broadly support the idea of drug testing. As we have heard, drug use is now more prevalent. We may be in a similar situation to that in 1967, when Barbara Castle introduced drink-driving tests. I support the principle, but as other hon. Members have outlined, there are a few queries and wrinkles that get in the way of the Bill at the moment.

I asked my hon. Friend Mr Chope in an intervention about passive drug taking, which might be prevalent in the clubs about which we have heard a lot—I have not visited them, but I am perhaps too old for that sort of thing nowadays. Even so, if people are in an arena where others are taking cannabis, will they inhale the fumes and then be tripped up by a drugs test because of that passive intake?

I realise that performance-enhancing drugs are not illegal, but in 1988, when Ben Johnson fell foul of a drugs test at the Seoul Olympics, Linford Christie, who was initially a bronze medallist, was also tested. After much thinking about whether his test was positive, it was thankfully found to be negative, and he was duly elevated to the silver medal position. The problem was that he had had a cup of ginseng tea. As far as I am aware, ginseng tea is not a performance-enhancing drug, but it created an anomaly. It is alleged in today’s newspapers that Kolo Touré, the Manchester City footballer who is currently serving a ban for taking a performance-enhancing or other drug, had taken a water tablet. Those are queries and anomalies with drug testing. As I said, those are not illegal substances, but the problems with tests for illegal substances could be similar. Will such tests produce rogue readings? That needs to be ironed out.

As we have already heard, there is a problem with caffeine in coffee, and as my hon. Friend Jacob Rees-Mogg mentioned tea dances, I should say that there is also caffeine in tea. He could find that the good burghers of North East Somerset end up cluttering up the cells on their return from a tea dance because they have taken too much Typhoo or Brooke Bond.

I have been in the Chamber for the most of the debate—I left it only briefly—but I am unsure whether the issue of thresholds has been addressed. We are talking about illegal substances. If any such substance is found in a test, will someone then be taken away for a more detailed test? Is my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch proposing a threshold, as there is with alcohol, of which people are allowed a certain amount? Does any amount of an illegal substance mean that a person will fall foul of the law?

My hon. Friend Mr Nuttall has told me of a drug- driving incident in Cambridge—not Gloucestershire, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset will be pleased to hear—and it bears repeating. The Cambridge News reported:

“A drug driver who led police on a seven-mile chase around Cambridge at speeds of up to 80 mph has been spared jail.”

He

“overtook on blind corners and ignored red lights as he tried to shake off officers in the early hours of the morning.”

The deployment of a stinger device did not stop him despite puncturing his tyre. The report goes on to say that the gentleman

“had taken cannabis and mephedrone, before he was eventually arrested in Great Shelford. He pleaded not guilty to dangerous driving and cannabis possession, denying that he was the driver, but was convicted…and…given a nine-month” suspended sentence.

He was told by the recorder:

“'You were driving very fast, you overtook on blind corners, and you ignored a number of red traffic lights. It was…a miracle nobody was killed or injured.'”

We were hearing such stories 10 or 20 years ago to do with alcohol and drink-driving, but the world has moved on, and we now hear a lot about the prevalence of drugs and drug taking. Are we now in a position with drug-driving that we were with drink-driving many years ago?

We should urge the Government to take action as quickly as possible. However, for reasons that have been eloquently dilated upon today, I still have concerns about the mixture and the substances. I remember somebody saying many years ago, “Would you be done for drink-driving if you had had too many portions of sherry trifle?” We are now talking about illegal substances, which someone might have ingested unwittingly, and they could be criminalised for doing so. I support the idea in principle, and I think that we should move quickly, but let us not rush head over heels and make a mistake, and end up criminalising people on their way from a perfectly harmless tea dance in North East Somerset.