here - United Kingdom Parliament

269WH
Drugs
6 JUNE 2013
Drugs
270WH
at what New Zealand is doing. I am suggesting not that
he needs to go there, but that he engage with what New
Zealand Ministers have done, because we should adopt
such good practice in future. I urge the Government to
follow our recommendation to make retailers liable for
the harms caused by untested psychoactive substances
that they have sold. Just as a garage would be responsible
for a crash involving a faulty car, legal high sellers
should be accountable for the effects of their products.
The cost of ineffective drugs policy reaches far wider
than the United Kingdom. During the Committee’s
visit to Colombia, we witnessed how the devastating
impact of drugs extends far beyond the addict. In 2010,
coca was cultivated on 149,100 hectares in Andean
countries—an area roughly one and a half times the
size of Hong Kong—that cannot afford to fight the
drugs war on their own. The value of the global cocaine
market is £543 billion, while Bolivia’s national budget,
for example, is just £1.69 billion. Despite damage to
their land, farmers receive only 1% of the revenue from
global cocaine sales. When the Committee met the
President of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, he asked
us why his policemen, his judges and his citizens should
die in the war on drugs when members of the British
public were the ones who wanted to use those drugs.
The responsibility lies with us.
I want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to
President Santos and his soldiers and police officers
who, day after day, die protecting us from the scourge of
cocaine. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude. I shall
be meeting him this afternoon as he is in London and I
will again convey the thanks of our country. I also want
to thank the Colombian ambassador to the United
Kingdom, His Excellency Ambassador Rodriguez, for
his assistance with our visit to Colombia and for keeping
us informed with a regular dialogue.
Some 85% of profits are earned by distributors of
drugs in the United States or Europe, and the United
Nations estimates that global drugs profits stand at
£380 billion, the vast majority of which ends up in
our financial system. Antonio Maria Costa, the former
head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, has said:
“I cannot think of one bank in the world that has not been
penetrated by mafia money.”
Banks with British bases, such as Coutts and HSBC,
have been found guilty of laundering drugs money, yet
there have been no individual prosecutions, just fines,
which are basically a drop in the ocean for multinational
banks. Those companies need to hear the rattling of
handcuffs in their boardrooms. We must bring forward
new legislation to extend the personal criminal liability
of those who hold senior positions in our banks and
who have been found wanting for not dealing with
money laundering.
The Financial Services Authority did not come up to
scratch on that issue, as it ignored almost $380 billion
of money laundered by the drug cartels and dealers. I
hope—I look to the Minister for assurance on this
matter—that the new Financial Conduct Authority will
be much tougher than the FSA, because we were not
overly convinced by the FSA’s work.
After a year scrutinizing UK drugs policy, it was
clear to the Committee that many aspects of our current
drugs policy were simply not working and needed to be
reviewed. When the then Lord Chancellor, the right
hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke),
gave evidence to the Committee, he told us that the war
on drugs had failed. The Prison Governors Association
also recently said that we needed to rethink our approach
to drugs. We are not dealing with the dealers or focusing
on the users. Drugs still cost thousands of lives and
billions of pounds each year.
People are already describing Guinea-Bissau as the
world’s first narco-state. That is why we felt that, even
after a year’s inquiry, the visits that we made and the
evidence that we took, it was vital that the Government
established a royal commission. We felt that the best
way forward was to bring all the people with great
expertise, including those who have been affected by
drugs, before a royal commission headed by a High
Court judge so that we can study in huge depth this
subject that even we, after a year, have not got to the
bottom of.
I urge the Minister to reconsider our proposal on a
royal commission. I think that he supports the idea of
one, but the problem is with other parts of the coalition
Government. It is the policy of his party and his leader,
the Deputy Prime Minister, to support a royal commission,
and it is a policy that has been advocated by the hon.
Member for Cambridge. I cannot remember the quote
of the Deputy Prime Minister, but he once lavishly
praised the hon. Gentleman, saying that as far as he was
concerned, on certain aspects of policy, what the hon.
Member for Cambridge said went. I hope very much
that the royal commission can be established and that
the Government will look at all aspects of drugs policy,
so that there is a proper debate. We do not want a
situation in which politicians run away as soon as the
word “drugs” is mentioned and everyone hides under
the table. We want a proper and open discussion, as I
had in Leicester. I asked the Leicester Mercury to conduct
a citizens’ poll to tell me what the people felt about the
matter. I pay tribute to the Leicester Mercury and all the
other local papers that were part of that debate. Let the
people decide; let them put forward their views to a
royal commission. I believe that that is the proper way
forward.
To those who say that a royal commission could last
forever, let me say that we thought about that, which is
why we suggested that it should have an end date of
2015—that magic year in the history of our country
when all things will change and all things will become
visible. This matter is a great challenge for us and for
our generation of politicians and I hope that we will rise
to it.
Hugh Bayley (in the Chair): I think that the Chamber
should hear from the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr
Huppert).
1.56 pm
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD): It is a pleasure
to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bayley, and to
follow the Chair of the Select Committee, especially
after his kind words. I am not sure that they were
entirely accurate. I think that he was referring to the
draft Communications Data Bill, which he and I and
various others have discussed in the past.
I congratulate the Chair of the Select Committee on
having the courage to ensure that the Committee considered
this issue, because it is so sensitive and can lead to a