My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If I remember my facts rightly, the Government estimated that having a comprehensive drugs education would cost approximately £500 for every pupil in England and Wales. If we offset that against the average of nearly £1 million that would be spent on a person misusing substances over the course of their lifetime, we can see it can be cost-effective to provide decent, comprehensive drugs education and so stop us spending at the other end, on people misusing and abusing substances.
Statistics provided by Mentor UK, the drug and alcohol charity, demonstrate that this was a disastrous set of decisions by the Government. Some 60% of schools now teach drugs education for one hour or less per year, and 59% of pupils say they cannot remember having a drugs education lesson in the last year. Paul Tuohy, former chief executive of Mentor, has told a national newspaper:
“We are probably in the worst situation for drug education for decades.”
Where there is drugs education in our schools, the quality is questioned. Ofsted found that 40% of PSHE teaching was not good and needed to improve. A 2013 survey of teachers by the PSHE Association reported that 81% of respondents would like more classroom resources for drugs and alcohol education.