LABOUR PLAN 'NO CHILDREN' CONTRACT FOR DRUG ADDICTS

DRUG addicts will be told not to have children until they kick their
habit under a controversial plan being considered for Labour's
election manifesto.

A paper obtained by Scotland on Sunday suggests addicts sign a 'social
contract' requiring that - in return for benefits, methadone and
housing - they agree "not to start a family" and to end their habit.

If addicts agree to the contract but then breach it by having a family
they face having their children taken into social work care, as well
as the withdrawal of treatment and benefits.

The draconian measures are being considered as Labour MSPs respond to
a series of tragic cases where children have died as a result of
neglect by drug-addicted parents.

As many as 60,000 Scots children currently live with parents with a
drug problem, frequently causing irreparable damage to their education
and life chances.

Ministers recently declared they would not shirk from placing such
children in foster care, but Labour is now preparing to go much
further in the war on drug addiction, rolling out measures described
by opponents last night as "vicious".

The plan to stop addicts starting families, or having more children if
they are already parents, has been drawn up by influential backbench
MSP Duncan McNeil, who is convener of Labour's 50-strong parliamentary
group.

It has received a sympathetic response from several of his party
colleagues. It will now feed into Labour's manifesto preparations
ahead of next year's Holyrood elections.

In his paper, McNeil, MSP for Greenock and Inverclyde, declares: "If
the state undertakes to provide social security benefits, free drug
cessation services, free housing, free health advice, free medicines
and free social and other support services, then the recipients
[would] undertake, for example, to enter a drug cessation programme
with a strict programme in which they will become drug free; to submit
to regular drug testing; and not to start a family."

The paper declares: "An element of compulsion, currently lacking in
drug treatment services, would need to be introduced."

McNeil told Scotland on Sunday: "Having a family while you are coming off
drugs or on a drug rehabilitation programme is absolutely mad. We should be
using every means possible to dissuade people [in this situation] from
starting a family."

His plan suggests following an American scheme whereby female drug
users were given cash to take long-term contraceptives, such as
injections. "Some countries have said we will give additional payments
for contraception," McNeil added. "That should be looked at. At the
moment, all we are doing is giving people all this support and saying
it doesn't matter if you carry on taking methadone for 20 years.
People who pay the bills will not accept that."

McNeil said he also wanted it to be made easier for children to be
removed from the homes of drug-addicted families.

The radical plan comes after a series of shocking cases involving the
children of drug- addicted parents. In one appalling incident,
Alexandra King, a three-month-old baby in Larkhall, Lanarkshire, died
of septicaemia brought on by nappy rash after being neglected by her
drug-addicted mother.

Meanwhile, the parents of Derek Alexander Doran, from Elphinstone,
East Lothian, have been charged with murdering their two-year-old son
by giving him the heroin substitute methadone.

More than 300 babies are born addicted to heroin and other illegal
drugs every year in Scotland.

Research by the Glasgow-based Centre for Drug Misuse research has
shown that 60% of drug-addicted mothers and 85% of addicted fathers no
longer looked after their children.

Double the number of children live in drug-addicted families in
Scotland than in England.

While McNeil's views are by far the most outspoken within the Labour
camp, his call received backing by other Labour sources last night.
Plans to force addicts to sign a contract in which they pledge to get
off drugs by a set time are backed by ministers and are likely to be
introduced.

A Labour insider said: "Duncan is on the extreme end of the debate,
but there is a lot of sympathy for his position. The party will go
some way towards the areas he is talking about."

Another insider closely involved in drawing up the party manifesto
added: "People do take seriously some of these ideas."

Fellow Labour MSPs are also supporting McNeil's demand for tougher
action in taking children away from chaotic homes.

Backbencher Karen Gillon said children should be removed more quickly
from homes where addicts were failing to show signs of improvement.
"You have got to give kids the best chance and sometimes that is not
going to be by staying with mum and dad," she said.

McNeil's plan is just one of several other proposals being considered
by Labour. They include offering free tuition to children of drug
addicts who are being neglected at home.

McNeil's call was supported by Scots Tory leader Annabel Goldie. She
said: "I am pleased that at long last someone from the Labour party
has woken up to the spiralling drug problem in Scotland and the
current Executive's abject failure to do anything about it."

However, a spokesman for the Scottish Drugs Forum said: "There is a
vicious tenor to these proposals. What's proposed dehumanises people
who are in need of help and support simply because their problems are
seen as too difficult and complex for society to deal with."

Stewart Stevenson, drugs spokesman for the SNP, added: "These
proposals are totally unacceptable. What we must be focusing on is
helping addicts get free of their addictions, not dictating to them,
which might make them more reluctant to turn to their only source of
help in the first place."

But McNeil said: "We need to remind people that we are not about
trying to sustain them on a life of drug abuse, but to get people off
drugs. People need to be told that we expect something from them. We
expect something for their children."

A spokesman for the Scottish Executive said ministers supported plans
to make contraceptive advice more freely available to addicts.