I note the noble Lord’s point. I assure him that communication across government on this is very vigorous. I am sure he will agree that schools are not the only place where you can communicate with young people. We live in an age where there may be other less formal ways of conveying this message. I think the Government are right to see issues such as this also in those terms. I hope he will understand that our strategy is multifaceted; it is not just the single point that he made. The legal high trade is very resilient. It is inventive. There is no silver bullet for dealing with it. We need to ensure that whatever we are doing is equally resilient and effective.
The noble Lord, Lord Howarth may have been referring to a meeting of the Home Affairs Select Committee last week, at which my colleague Norman Baker, who is the Minister now responsible for drug policy, advised the committee that he is particularly keen that we look at all the options for tackling new psychoactive substances and to learn from other countries in that regard—the noble Lord referred to New Zealand, for example—and that is what we are doing. However, even though this area is a cause for concern, caution needs to be exercised before we take any further steps. The possible unintended consequences need to be fully understood. That is why I think that the speeches of my noble friends Lady Hamwee and Lord Paddick, along with the excellent speeches from the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, demonstrate that they are right to be concerned that the amendment and this new clause are deficient.
With this in mind, the move away from an evidence-based approach to drug harm that Amendment 56NA could imply is not one that the Government can take lightly; I think noble Lords were right to point that out. We are committed—as indeed we should all be committed—to ensuring that our legislative response continues to restrict the supply of harmful new psychoactive substances, both in our communities and online, by providing UK law enforcement with robust and practical powers to tackle this trade.