Prisons: Illegal Drugs

Debate between Neil Shastri-Hurst and Andy Slaughter

Thursday 15th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick) (Lab)]

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for me to make a statement on behalf of the Justice Committee on the Government’s response to the Committee’s sixth report in this Parliament, “Tackling the drugs crisis in our prisons”. The report was published on 31 October 2025, and the Government response was received on 29 December 2025 and published on 9 January 2026.

Our inquiry was launched because the Committee was concerned by the growing level of drug use in prisons in England and Wales, and the profound damage that is doing to both the criminal justice system and individual prisoners. Our findings were bleak. The trade in and use of illicit drugs has reached endemic levels, creating a culture of acceptance where just shy of 40% of prisoners said they find it easy to acquire illicit substances.

We found a system struggling to keep pace with changing drug use, where established substances are being replaced by highly potent synthetic opioids and cannabinoids, often sourced by organised criminal gangs. The crisis is not merely institutional; it is a human tragedy. Between December 2022 and December 2024, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman investigated 833 deaths, of which 136 were classified as drug-related.

Although the Government have acknowledged the seriousness of the issue, we are disappointed by their response to our report, which accepts only eight of our 29 recommendations, while partially accepting 19 and rejecting two. We feel that the Government’s response fails to match the urgency or degree of the drugs crisis in our prisons. We asked for mandatory drug testing to return at least to pre-pandemic levels, and for waste water testing to be rolled out faster. Those are essential steps just to identify the source, scale and nature of the drug problem. We called for more drug-free wings and for full body scanners to be provided in all prisons. Those are essential steps to controlling drug ingress. However, these recommendations were not agreed.

The chief inspector of prisons, Charlie Taylor, has described a “menu of drugs” entering our prisons through a variety of methods. Traditional routes, such as social visits and post, continue to be significant channels for smuggling in drugs, as do throw-overs—packages thrown over prison walls. We heard of drugs being concealed in babies’ nappies or new psychoactive substances being sprayed on to fake legal correspondence and children’s drawings.

A major failure of security is disrepair in the prison estate, which allows access through broken windows and collapsed netting. We recommended that prison governors be able to procure critical security repairs within 72 hours. The Government have rejected that in favour of existing facilities management contracts. When we visited HMP Brixton, we heard that it took one year to repair netting that had collapsed due to snowfall.

Although most prison staff are dedicated professionals, a small minority are manipulated by organised criminal gangs into smuggling drugs into prison. We recommend that all frontline staff undergo a mandatory face-to-face interview, led by governors, to improve screening. The Government have only partially accepted that. We believe that bypassing governor scrutiny in the hiring process facilitates criminal activity.

During our inquiry, we took evidence from the Prisons Minister and His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service officials. We were provided with what we believe to be a clear and ambitious vision for vetting reform. We heard that HMPPS was moving towards a lifelong vetting model, ensuring that security assessments are not just a one-off event at entry, but a continuous process throughout an employee’s career. We were told that the organisational position was to align the standards of HMPPS vetting with other tier 1 agencies, such as the police. Our Committee recommended that the Government commit to this lifelong vetting model as the minimum operational standard. In their response, the Government stated that they

“do not accept the need for a lifelong vetting model as the minimum operational standard”.

Instead of the continuous lifelong assessment described to the Committee in the ministerial session, the Government have opted to re-vet staff only once every three to five years.

We are alarmed by the paradigm shift caused by drones, which now deliver bespoke packages of drugs and other contraband, such as phones, directly to cell windows. There was a 770% increase in drone sightings between 2019 and 2023. An official at the Ministry of Justice told us that they had seen drones that could lift a moderate-sized person. One of the most concerning findings of our report is the dominant role that organised criminal gangs now play in the prison drugs trade. We have moved away from what was described as a cottage industry of small-scale smuggling towards a sophisticated, gang-led structure. These gangs monopolise the lucrative prison market, where drugs can sell for up to 100 times their street value, fuelling debt, intimidation and violence.

Debt incurred by drug users is often collected from family members who, if they cannot pay inflated bills, are coerced into cuckooing or criminal activity. Prisoners in debt are also used as guinea pigs to test the potency of new, untested drugs. We called for systems capable of tracking the electronic financial transactions that underpin organised crime operations within prison walls. As long as these criminal networks can communicate reliably through illicit smartphones to co-ordinate debt and supply, the crisis will only deepen.

We acknowledge the £40 million investment in security infrastructure. However, the Government’s commitment to the Committee’s specific recommendations for disruption remains limited. While partially accepting our calls for better security, the Government have yet to commit to the rapid, estate-wide development of a SkyFence system, which is working well in Guernsey.

We also addressed the drivers of demand. Our report found that 49% of prisoners enter the system with an identified drug need, yet the environment they find themselves in—routinely locked in cells for up to 22 hours a day—drives them further towards drugs as a form of escapism. Without access to work, education or therapeutic programmes, prisoners are left in a state of idleness, where drugs become a primary coping mechanism to get through their sentence. The Government have accepted our recommendation to expand access to purposeful activities, but that will be contradicted by rumoured cuts in prison education.

The physical and operational toll of drug use is catastrophic and is characterised by a surge in medical emergencies, known as code blues. These incidents divert essential healthcare resources and force regime restrictions, further reducing access to the purposeful activities that might steer prisoners away from drugs. This environment has left frontline staff desensitised to the daily suffering and at risk of illness themselves due to secondary exposure to drugs. We called for substance misuse treatment to be commissioned separately from general healthcare contracts—a move supported by evidence from Dame Carol Black. The Government’s plan to transition responsibility to NHS integrated care boards falls short of that.

The period immediately following release is a time of vulnerability, but the Government have rejected our recommendation to introduce a universal roll-out of take-home naloxone kits for those leaving custody, citing concerns over value for money. Given that 61% of post-release deaths are drug related, we believe that saving lives must be the priority.

The Government response lacks the comprehensive plan needed to gain control over this crisis. Without reform and investment, we are unlikely to tackle sophisticated supply networks, deficiencies in treatment, the lack of purposeful activity, the poor condition of the prison estate and serious capacity pressures. Prisons will remain unstable, unsafe and incapable of gaining control over the drugs crisis. We know that the Prison Service and the ministerial team are committed to taking tangible and practical steps to control the prevalence of drugs in prison. Failure to do so undermines the Government’s whole programme of prison reform and their sincere intent to tackle the crisis in our prisons, which they inherited.

This is a problem for the current Government to solve. I hope they will look again at some of the recommendations that we have made, and increase the intensity with which we drive down the drug culture in prisons. It is the first step towards ensuring that prisons are not only a place of safety, but a place of rehabilitation and reform.

[Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst (Solihull West and Shirley) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman share my deep disappointment and concern about the position that the Ministry of Justice finds itself in? The research and development phase for counter-drone activity has not been strengthened, and we have frequent episodes of drones bypassing prison security.

[Andy Slaughter]

I think it is particularly demoralising for prison staff and governors to see drones coming and going almost casually. The point I often make is that if this was happening around civil airports or military facilities, it would be stopped immediately. The problem, which is not unique to this Government and is in some way dictated by public mood, is that prisons take a lower priority, but we have heard that drones can now bring in bespoke packages and lift considerable weight—perhaps even the weight of a person. This has become an immediate crisis, so I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question.

Criminal Justice

Debate between Neil Shastri-Hurst and Andy Slaughter

Wednesday 25th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Andy Slaughter]

My hon. Friend, who is knowledgeable on these issues, is absolutely right. We are relying on the implementation of the Gauke review’s recommendations to do two things: to ensure there is capacity in the prisons for the growing number of people being sentenced in our courts; and, in the longer term, to reduce prisoner numbers through effective rehabilitation. That can take place in prisons—not in overcrowded prisons on the whole —but it can take place more effectively in the community by way of getting people back into normal daily life, which prison certainly is not.

In that vein, let me turn to the Probation Service, which will receive an additional £700 million a year to support the reforms in the sentencing review. That is a substantial increase in funding, which is intended to enable probation to supervise more people in the community and expand electronic tagging.

The Probation Service currently manages 240,000 individuals on court order or licence. Worryingly, in last year’s annual report, HM inspectorate of probation labelled 10 local probation services as “requires improvement” and 14 as “inadequate”. It identified staffing challenges, unmanageable workloads, deficits in casework and insufficient management of risk, public protection and safeguarding. However, it also found outstanding statutory victim work, commitment and vision from staff and some good partnership working. The Committee has seen that itself on its visit to probation services.

I will however raise my concern about the ability of Serco, the current electronic tagging provider, to deal with the dramatic increase in demand on its services that will inevitably result from the sentencing Bill. The Committee has been in frequent correspondence with the Prisons Minister to raise our concerns regarding Serco’s poor performance, which has also been highlighted by Channel 4 and its “Dispatches” programme.

The Committee has identified several issues with management of the tagging contract, including substantial delays to the fitting of tags, even to serious offenders. We were shocked to learn that financial penalties have been levied on Serco every month since it took on the service in May 2024. It is unclear how Serco will be able to deal with increased demand given its unacceptable performance in managing the electronic tagging service at its current level.

I turn briefly to conditions in the prison estate. In 2023, HM chief inspector of prisons Charlie Taylor said that one in 10 prisons should be closed down. He stated that about 14 Victorian jails were so poorly designed, overcrowded and ill-equipped that they could not provide proper accommodation for prisoners. Last year, 63% of prisoners reported overcrowding. That is often with two or more prisoners in a cell that was designed for one person, with no private toilet facilities.

Drugs are an increasing problem in prisons. The Committee has covered that extensively in its “Tackling drugs in prisons” inquiry, which is due to report shortly. Between April 2023 and April 2024, almost 50,000 adults aged 18 and over were in alcohol and drug treatment in prisons and secure settings, which was a 7% rise compared with the previous year. In the 12 months to December 2024, there were 10,600 assaults on prison staff—violence is also on the increase in prison, which is partly a result of the unpredictable environment created by the abundance of drugs available—which is equivalent to 122 assaults per 1,000 prisoners, an increase of 13% from the previous year and the highest number of assaults on prison staff recorded in one year. The use of force by prison officers and rates of self-harm among prisoners have also been increasing in recent years. Self-harm was 10% higher in 2024 than in 2023.

Overcrowding, increased drug use, violence and self-harm contribute towards a distressing environment in prisons such that the vital function of prisons to rehabilitate offenders can be almost impossible in some institutions. We are undertaking a major inquiry into rehabilitation and resettlement, which I hope will shed more light on these troubling pictures.

Beyond all that, we have the continuing scandal of IPP prisoners—those imprisoned for public protection. I recommend to the Minister the proposals published this week by the Howard League on a new approach to IPP prisoners, which would serve to reduce the numbers continuing in custody substantially.

Let me turn to His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service, which is the second-largest body in the MOJ. In the Government’s main estimate for 2025-26, spending on HMCTS accounted for 21% of planned resource spending and 12% of capital spending. The current backlog of outstanding cases in the Crown court stands at about 4,000. That is a result of a number of factors, one of which is the shortage of criminal lawyers, driven by low legal aid pay rates and poor working conditions. The backlog in the courts is detrimental to the lives of thousands of people. Victims, witnesses and defendants alike are forced to wait in limbo for justice.

[Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst (Solihull West and Shirley) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point about court backlogs. Another factor is having the appropriate magistrates, legal advisers and so on to hear these cases. The Magistrates’ Association has raised concerns that the spending review allocation is insufficient to tackle that. Does he share those concerns?

[Andy Slaughter]

I do share those concerns. I want to take only a few more minutes with my speech, so I do not have time to go into what is happening in the magistrates courts as well—that is a debate for another day—but the shortage of magistrates, the shortage of legal clerks and low pay rates across HMCTS are clearly some of the factors that prevent us from getting to grips with the backlog, even though I have no doubt the Government wish to do that.

I welcome the Lord Chancellor’s allocation of 110,000 sitting days in the Crown court for 2025-26: the highest sitting-day allocation made since HMCTS was created and the biggest financial settlement ever made for the Crown court. I hope that that is enough to bring about some reduction in the backlog. However, I note that the allocation is below the 113,000 days that the Lady Chief Justice told the Committee the Crown court could sit for in the last financial year, and there have been similar increases in sitting days for other courts, including the magistrates court, which will sit for up to 114,000 days a year.

The Government have acknowledged that the allocation of days is not enough on its own to severely reduce the backlog in the Crown courts and that more radical reform is required. I therefore welcome Sir Brian Leveson’s independent review of criminal courts, which will propose options for both short and long-term reforms aimed at ensuring cases are dealt with proportionately in the light of current pressures on the Crown court and explore how the courts could operate as efficiently as possible. I look forward to the first report of the review, which is due to be published next month.

I will briefly touch on the role of the Legal Aid Agency. In terms of expenditure, the LAA is the third largest body within MOJ. Its day-to-day budget was around £0.9 billion, which comprised 8% of the MOJ’s total resource budget. Between 2009-10 and 2023-24, resource expenditure on legal aid decreased by 2% in cash terms and by 31% in real terms. I was surprised to see that the spending review did not include a specific funding allocation for the Legal Aid Agency; the only reference to it was in the context of potential efficiency savings that the MOJ will make in the review period.

Concerns have been raised about the sustainability of the criminal legal aid sector, given the number of legal aid firms and of solicitors and barristers practising in this area. In March 2025, the Law Society said that the number of criminal duty solicitors had fallen by 26% since 2017 and that that may, in future,

“leave many individuals unable to access their right to a solicitor and free advice.”

Even though I welcome the MOJ’s announcements in December 2024 of an additional £92 million per year for criminal aid solicitors, and I look forward to seeing the results of its consultation on that, it may well not be enough. Indeed, the 15% uplift in criminal barristers’ fees as a consequence of the Bellamy review took so long to come in and was so far overtaken by other increases in cost that that again needs to be looked at in the near future if we are to sustain the criminal Bar.