Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)]

The National Grid scheme is a good example of good practice and Mary Harris, who is the lead force behind it, has very properly been honoured for her contribution. National Grid has been running the scheme for some time and getting a large number of other businesses engaged. The scheme is extremely important for the resettlement of offenders. Equally, it needs to sit alongside our proposals for work in prisons, all of which will assist in the rehabilitation of offenders with, we hope, the scale of success that the National Grid scheme has seen.

[Mrs Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

The hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) is no longer in his place and that is a shame, as he and I have rather a lot in common. For example, we both used to work for Asda, where we were told that the quality of a department can be judged on how it performs when the boss is away. Today, we have had at least five elegantly given “Don’t knows” from Ministers. Let us see whether Minister can answer this: does he know, and can he explain, why a written answer from his Department shows that almost 20% fewer inmates completed drug treatment courses in prisons last year than did so two years ago?

[Mr Blunt]

Of course, drug treatment programmes are the responsibility of the Department of Health. As one would expect from a mature Department, I will—[Interruption.] No, I do not know the precise answer to the question, so I will write to the hon. Lady with a precise answer.