Asked by: Paul Flynn (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what account his Department took of the experience of attempting to exclude illegal drugs from prisons when formulating its ban on tobacco in prisons.
Answered by Andrew Selous
In my written statement of 22 October, I announced plans for roll out of a smoke free estate.
The introduction of voluntary smoke free areas in all closed prisons mirrors the provision of drug free wings which exist in many establishments across the estate. Staff and prisoners will be able to elect to work or reside in a smoke free area and they will be supported within them. It is a short term measure which provides a proportionate response to the impact of second hand smoke in communal areas.
In line with Public Health England (PHE) guidance, the importance and significance placed upon the provision of smoking cessation services is critical to our approach. Prisoners with drug problems are currently managed via a balance of medicated maintenance and abstinence based treatment. We will adopt this approach to smoke free. Vaping and the use of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) as an alternative to tobacco smoking are supported by PHE as a harm reduction tool. Research commissioned by PHE concluded that e-cigarettes can help smokers to stop smoking. E -cigarettes have been made available to prisoners and their use is allowed in designated areas. In addition a range of nicotine replacement products and smoking cessation support will be in place to support prisoners attempting to abstain.
The Government is committed to reducing the supply of drugs into prison. NOMS already deploys a comprehensive range of robust searching and security measures to detect items of contraband both at the point of entry to the prison and concealed within the prison. In addition, each prison has a dynamic Local Searching Strategy which identifies and mitigates known supply routes.
The success of the strategy is illustrated by the reduction of drug misuse in prisons, as measured by the random Mandatory Drug Testing (MDT) programme, which has declined by 17.5 percentage points over the past 17 years.
This approach to enforcement and security will inform NOMS thinking where appropriate as we move forward to smoke free prisons.
Asked by: Paul Flynn (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the annual cost per place of (a) MTCnovo's contract to run Rainsbrook Secure Training Centre and (b) G4S Care and Justice Services contract to run Medway Secure Training Centre.
Answered by Andrew Selous
Secure Training Centres (STCs) play an important role in helping young people to reform and turn their lives around. They typically cater for younger offenders with multiple or complex needs, and therefore have smaller units and higher staff ratios than some other youth establishments.
The estimated average annual cost per place over the 5 year contract period at Rainsbrook STC is £136k and at Medway STC it is £138k. These figures are based on the bid price, uplifted in line with forecasted inflation.
Asked by: Paul Flynn (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential effect on prison and prisoner stability of banning tobacco in prisons.
Answered by Andrew Selous
I refer the Hon. Member to my WMS of 22 October 2015.