Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the target was for the number of random mandatory drug tests to be carried out by HM Prison and Probation Service staff in the year to March 2023.

Between start March 2022 and end March 2023, the national Key Performance Indicator target of expected random mandatory tests to be completed was 54,138 based on an overall prison population ranging from 79,698 in March 2022 to 83,918 in March 2023.

All random mandatory drug testing (rMDT) was paused in March 2020 following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Low levels of testing resumed from September 2020 in line with establishments’ position within the National Framework for managing COVID-19 before formal performance expectations around rMDT volumes were re-instated in April 2022. As set out in the HMPPS Annual Digest 2022-23 publication, rMDT levels did not return to the pre-pandemic levels in 2022-23. The levels of testing delivered varies across the estate from month to month and was impacted by the level of regime being operated by prisons, in line with staffing resource and other operational pressures.