Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions he has had with the Home Secretary on lead ministerial responsibility for drugs policy.

The complexity and pervasiveness of drug misuse and the harms it causes mean that no one department can tackle it alone. The Home Office remains the lead department for policy on legislation on the misuse of drugs and implementation of the 2017 Drug Strategy, working closely with the Department of Health and Social Care, which is responsible for the recovery strand of the Strategy, Ministry of Justice and other interested Government Departments and agencies. There are no plans to change this. Ministers and officials from both the Home Office and the Department of Health and Social Care regularly hold discussions to develop a collaborative approach to reduce illicit and harmful drug use.