Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Temporary Class Drug) Order 2026

Considered in Grand Committee

Moved by

That the Grand Committee do consider the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Temporary Class Drug) Order 2026.

This instrument, laid before Parliament on 10 June, takes urgent action to control a new and very dangerous class of synthetic opioid. In the space of little over a year, orphines have been involved in at least 22 deaths in the United Kingdom, and 14 of those deaths were sadly between December and March. The UK is not alone in this respect: between 2024 and April this year, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime received 206 reports from numerous countries of drug samples that contained orphine compounds.

I am particularly grateful to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs for prioritising an assessment of these deeply harmful substances. Its report was published on 30 April, and the dangers we face here are encapsulated in the following line from that report:

“the risk to the population from these recently emerging compounds is sufficiently great that urgent steps are required to protect public health”.

The Government have heard that message loud and clear, and we are acting at pace. We enacted a temporary class drug order, TCDO, to control these drugs, less than six weeks after the council produced its report. The TCDO covers seven orphines: three that have tragically been involved in those deaths here in the UK, and four that the EU Drugs Agency has notified as being present in EU drug markets.

This is the first TCDO in 10 years, so I will take a moment to remind noble Lords about what these orders do. A temporary class drug order makes it a specific offence to produce, supply or offer to supply these seven orphines; to export or import them; or to possess them when there is also an intention to supply. Doing any of these things can result in up to 14 years in prison, the same as for a class B drug.

The TCDO also provides that the substances should be treated as if they were in Schedule 1 to the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001. Scheduling here covers the circumstances in which a controlled substance can be used legitimately, and the procedures that must be followed in doing so. Schedule 1 covers substances with no known medical uses, which is the case with these seven drugs. Anyone who needs to make legitimate use of them, for example in research, would need to apply to the Home Office to obtain a licence.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for bringing the order before the Committee. It is a simple and uncontroversial order, and I am pleased to support it. As the Minister established, the purpose of this legislation is to make a temporary class drug order under Section 2A of the 1971 Act in respect of seven substances that fall under the category of orphines, which are a class of synthetic opioids that have been recommended for control by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. Given the reports that the UN Office on Drugs and Crime have received regarding the presence of orphine compounds in drug samples and their links to deaths, the Government are absolutely right to seek to control these substances.

However, I seek a couple of clarifications. As its title suggests, this order makes a temporary class drug order for the listed substances. I note that Section 2A of the 1971 Act states that TCDOs expire within one year of the order being made, which means that the Government will need to come forward within one year with a new Order in Council under Section 2 of the Act that lists these substances as controlled drugs. If the Government do not do that, these substances will cease to be controlled, so will the Minister confirm that the Government will bring forward a new order within that timeframe?

As a linked query, it is interesting that the Government have sought to make a TCDO now rather than simply to bring in an Order in Council. Why make a temporary order and then a permanent order later? There is an argument for the Government to have added these substances straight away to Schedule 2 to the 1971 Act. If we accept that they cause enough harm to justify a temporary order, surely they should be controlled permanently in the first place. I would be grateful if the Minister could explain the rationale for their approach.

Other than that, as I said at the start, I am more than happy to support the Government in their endeavours on this order.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, for his broad support for the order. As he said, it is quite sensible that we do this, but he asked two legitimate questions. In answer to his first question, we are mindful that the TCDO lasts for just one year and we will lay a permanent control before Parliament as soon as possible, as the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has urged us to do. I cannot give the noble Lord a timescale for that but, self-evidently, with the expiry of the order, we want to get that done and make sure that it is covered as a whole.

As the noble Lord said, we could have brought in an urgent, permanent class A control, which the advisory council has suggested is preferable. However, controlling new substances as class A, B or C drugs takes some time, and rightly so. Such controls expand the scope of the criminal law and amend primary legislation, and it is right that Parliament has the opportunity to scrutinise them. That is precisely why the legislation also allows for these temporary class drug orders. They do everything that class A, B or C controls do, except that the maximum sentences are not as long as for class A drugs.

I say with due respect to my colleagues in the Privy Council, of which I am a member, that the need for the relevant order to be made at the Privy Council adds some weeks to the process, and there is no real need for that at the moment. In the previous Session of Parliament, the Government supported a Bill sponsored by the honourable Member for Gloucester which would have removed this requirement. For the moment, we think that we can put the controls in place, mindful of the expiry, and revisit that in due course. We will look at the longer-term procedure more slowly, but the purpose of this order is to make sure that we put some definitive controls in place on the seven new opioids that have, sadly, caused deaths in the past year. I hope that that answers the noble Lord’s questions.

Motion agreed.

Committee adjourned at 12.10 pm.