My Lords, I too thank the Minister for this Statement about understanding and tackling spiking, and indeed for the document which accompanies it. It is good that the Government are making a series of proposals. If I pick up where the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, finished, on the change of the law, that is a useful clarification because if the law—even though it is there—is not being used by the criminal justice system, it is failing. I hope we will all be able to get behind that amendment when it comes through in the Criminal Justice Bill.

When I read the report, my heart sank. There are some good points, and I will come on to those in a minute. However, there is very little emphasis on tackling the prevalence of behaviour by perpetrators. There is a mention at the very end of the recommendations in the document that prevalence will be part of trying to highlight spiking, including

“increased arrests, detections, and prevention activity taking place”.

However, that prevention activity is unlikely to change the mindset of a young man—it is usually a young man—going out with some drugs that he wishes to use to spike somebody’s drink or even to use a needle. It always worries me that victims are the ones who need to read up and learn about how they can best protect themselves, while nothing is done to attempt to change the culture of the behaviour of the perpetrator. It seems to me that that is a big issue. Can the Minister say what is planned on this? For example, are there advertising schemes? We must get the perpetrators to think that it is absolutely unacceptable even to think about it—but I am struggling to see that.

Having been a health spokesperson, I am interested in the research into the capability of existing test kits. I know that most of the current test kits involve using a urine sample, which is impractical at the time: you can find out only afterwards if you have one of those tests. If it is the equivalent of the lateral flow test that was developed during the Covid pandemic, it would be enormously useful—but 150,000 will not go very far. I note the wording in the document is very careful in talking about the plan “to begin research”, but we ought to put some urgency on this. If there are 5,000 cases a year that we are aware of, they are putting a considerable burden on not only the victims but the entire criminal justice system. It seems that this should be a bigger priority for prevention.

My final point is on the training programme. Noble Lords will know that I go on and on about training programmes in relation to victims and the criminal justice system. They are really helpful for upskilling staff in the night-time economy. I declare an interest that one of my children works in the night-time industry, as a security guard. I know that she would welcome some training to accompany the other training that she has on safeguarding and other matters; it would be extremely helpful. It would be useful for particular sectors that work very much with young people—universities and further education providers—as well as the night-time industry.

My real concern is that we need to get to the people who think that it is acceptable to perpetrate this crime. I do not see any of that in the Statement.