Davis – Let the war on drugs begin
Shadow Home Secretary David Davis today promised to make the battle against hard drugs his top priority in a Conservative government.
Arguing that drugs “destroy lives, destroy society and render all our efforts to reduce crime worthless”, Mr Davis said addicts would be given a stark choice – residential rehabilitation or prison.
He told Conservative Party conference in Bournemouth: “Some people say that we’ve lost the war on drugs. I say we haven’t begun to fight it … we will never give up on the war against crime and the war against drugs.”
Mr Davis re-iterated a pledge to increase ten-fold the number of residential rehabilitation places and provide treatment for every young hard-drug addict in the country.
“Residential rehabilitation is no soft option,” he insisted. “It will be under court supervision – and failure will mean prison … The public is protected. The addict is encouraged to go straight – And stay straight.”
The Shadow Home Secretary said he would also “support, encourage and accelerate” the random drug testing of school pupils.
“Children need to know that it is not cool to use drugs: it’s stupid, it’s illegal, and it’s dangerous,” he said, warning: “If nothing is done we will face a drugs epidemic, with terrible effects on our whole society.”
In a tough-talking speech, Mr Davis promised “zero tolerance” in the war against crime.
The Conservatives would build an extra 20,000 prison places, because prison did work, he said, stating: “It is a deterrent. Criminals fear it. And it takes criminals out of circulation – while they are locked up, they cannot commit crimes.”
They would also scrap Labour’s early release scheme, and increase the proportion of the prison budget spent on education and rehabilitation.
Mr Davis admitted that his “zero tolerance” policy would require more police, but insisted that the Conservatives would hire 40,000 more police officers in contrast with Labour’s 25,000 extra community support officers.
Calling for a return to “good, traditional policing”, he said there would be “no more national targets, no more ring-fenced funding, no more Whitehall priorities”.
On immigration, he promised tougher controls – “because the country demands it” – including 24-hour embarkation controls, overseas processing of asylum claims and reform of the work permits system. Above all, he said, the Conservatives would “lay down” a clear annual limit on immigration.
On terrorism, he said he supported much of the Government’s actions to deal with the terrorist threat, but warned it must not infringe “ancient British liberties” such as the presumption of innocence, the right to trial by jury, and habeas corpus (legal restrictions on the circumstances of detention).
He added that Britain was fortunate to have “many good, moderate Muslim leaders” and that so-called “Islamic” terrorists were no more representative of Islam “than IRA terrorists were representative of Catholicism”.
