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Health Visitors
3. Dr. Phyllis Starkey (Milton Keynes, South-West): What responses have been received from organisations representing health visitors to the consultation document, "Supporting Families". [74579]
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Jack Straw): While responses to the document are still being logged, we have so far received almost 200 responses from health care trusts, health care organisations and individuals in the medical profession. We have at least five responses from local centres of the
Community Practitioners and Health Visitors Association and a co-ordinated response from the United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting. All of them showed considerable support for our proposals to expand the role of health visitors.
Dr. Starkey: I thank my right hon. Friend for that response. When I spoke to the health visitors in Milton Keynes, they generally supported the document, but they were concerned that they might be asked to interfere in people's personal relationships. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that it is envisaged that the role of health visitors will be to support and advise families, not to police people's personal relationships?
Mr. Straw: I can confirm that. One of the reasons why health visitors are held in such trust and confidence by people is that they are seen as a source of independent advice and counselling, and not as part of the agencies of social control, which are necessary, but in which--happily--the health visitors are not involved.
Mr. Nicholas Soames (Mid-Sussex): Does the Home Secretary agree that health visitors provide an invaluable service and do their jobs extraordinarily well? When he considers the responses to the consultation paper, will he also consider--taking into account the point made by the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Dr. Starkey)--a graded system so that health visitors continue to call, beyond the usual arrangements, on families that are considered to be high risk?
Mr. Straw: The hon. Gentleman's suggestion is very important and I shall certainly take it forward.
Drug Treatment and Testing Orders
4. Mr. Tony McWalter (Hemel Hempstead): What assessment he has made of the progress made by probation services in implementing the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, with particular reference to the supervision of drug treatment and testing orders. [74580]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. George Howarth): The three probation services involved--Liverpool, Gloucester and Croydon--in the drug treatment and testing order pilots have successfully set up schemes and, as of 5 March 1999, 28 orders have been made. It is too early to assess the effectiveness of those orders, but the early signs are encouraging.
Mr. McWalter: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer, and I apologise for my lack of voice. I welcome his assurance that we are progressing slowly but surely on the issue, but is he confident that probation services and local authorities will have the resources necessary to deal with the issues when the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 is fully operational?
Mr. Howarth: The Home Office has provided £1.7 million to run and evaluate the pilot schemes in the three areas that I have mentioned over their 18-month period. As we roll the scheme out, the necessary resources
will be in place to ensure that that new and innovative approach to breaking the link between drugs and crime is advanced in the way that the legislation envisages.
Mr. Richard Allan (Sheffield, Hallam): The Government have used the probation services' tremendous efficiency improvements of more than 20 per cent. since 1994 as an example for the police force. However, many chief officers of probation are already reporting difficulties in meeting both national standards and new commitments under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, particularly following a 10 per cent. fall in the work force between 1994 and the end of 1997. Is the Minister confident that probation services will be able to recruit new officers? Is he concerned that in January there were only 274 trainee probation officers? Does he have any plans to try to increase recruitment and training of officers?
Mr. Howarth: Staffing must be properly monitored. The comprehensive spending review settlement for the probation service over the next three years will provide £18 million, £24 million and £25 million respectively on top of the money already available. That should be enough to deal with the problems that are likely to arise. Training must, of course, be kept under review, and we shall keep a close eye on developments for both the service's work load and its available resources.
Drug Addiction (Crime)
5. Mr. Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield): What new steps he is taking to tackle the links between drug addiction and crime. [74581]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. George Howarth): Our initiatives include piloting a new drug treatment and testing order with a view to national roll-out in 2000-01, and setting up and monitoring arrest referral and court referral schemes such as the STEP--the substance misuse treatment enforcement programme--in West Yorkshire, which I have visited and which is resourced by the police and probation services. We are also establishing a new drug prevention advisory service to support drug action teams on drug prevention, including prevention of drug-related crime.
Mr. Sheerman: Although we have done much good work on both the supply of and demand for drugs, is my hon. Friend aware that police attention seems too often to be focused on low-level, corner-shop parts of the drug trade? Anyone who has spoken to a chief constable will know that drugs are a multi-million pound business and a tremendous problem that we must face up to. Does my hon. Friend believe that signing up to the Schengen group of countries will help us to take on large operators and big gangs, so that we can stop a business that is dangerous to many of our constituents?
Mr. Howarth: My hon. Friend should know that about £1.4 billion is spent across Government on drug-related activity. Following the comprehensive spending review, £217 million of additional expenditure will be made available over a three-year period, mainly for treatment- based approaches. As regards Schengen and the
international drug trade, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is undertaking constructive discussions with colleagues from states that have signed up to Schengen and we hope that that dialogue will bear fruit in due course. One thing is absolutely clear: we will use our resources and our influence to stop the foul and iniquitous international trade in drugs, which does no one any good in the United Kingdom or elsewhere.
Mr. James Clappison (Hertsmere): Does the Minister agree that there is a trade in drugs in our prisons? Keeping drugs out of prison is vital if the link between drug addiction and crime is to be broken. Is it not a fact that drugs are far too readily available in our prisons? This is a difficult problem, but does the Minister accept that the Government made a serious mistake in weakening the system of mandatory drug testing just when there was evidence that it was working? Are not the Government in danger of not even fighting the war against drugs, let alone winning it?
Mr. Howarth: The hon. Gentleman's statistics are inaccurate, and I shall return to that point in a moment. First, however, we do not believe that it is acceptable that anyone in prison should use drugs, and whatever means are necessary to prevent that will be made available to the Prison Service, including additional resources from the comprehensive spending review.
The truth is that our more careful targeting of mandatory drug testing has made us able to deal with the problem at the point at which it most seriously manifests itself rather than following a scatter-gun principle. Mandatory drug testing remains, but it is partly random, and partly at the discretion of governors. The hon. Gentleman should know that the proportion of people discovered through mandatory testing to be taking drugs has fallen rather than risen. Independent evidence shows that more people come out of prison drug-free than are going in. We must be doing something right.
Dr. Brian Iddon (Bolton, South-East):
Bolton probation service has been running an excellent project, funded by the Department of Health, to examine the link between drugs and crime. The project will terminate at the end of this month, but last year it reported to the Department and I draw my hon. Friend's attention to the report, which identifies various gaps in the service that we could fill. One that concerns me is the absence of treatment services for very young people--that is, those under 18. Is my hon. Friend, with the Department of Health, dealing with that problem?
Mr. Howarth:
Although we may disagree on some of the finer points of policy, may I pay tribute to the work that my hon. Friend does on this matter? He is knowledgeable and he puts in a lot of time. There is concern that the right resources are not in all the right places to deal with the problem of drug taking at a young age. We are in continuous dialogue with our colleagues at the Department of Health and we are determined that, where appropriate, treatment-based approaches should be available to people of every age. It is particularly important that we catch people as young as possible so that they do not get into the spiral of drug abuse,
Dr. Vincent Cable (Twickenham):
Does the Minister acknowledge that the extent of addiction and criminal behaviour that originates in alcohol abuse is quantitatively much larger than that originating in drugs more narrowly defined? What plans do the Government have to give that problem comparable attention?
Mr. Howarth:
The hon. Gentleman is right. A long history of particularly violent crime is associated with the heavy use of alcohol. I am chair of the ministerial group that is considering the problems of under-age drinking across the board. We have already introduced several measures to deal with it, including discouraging the use and production of inappropriate, so-called alcopops. More needs to be done and we are working hard to produce a programme that will start to deal with that serious problem.
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