Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many illegal drugs have been seized (a) since the £100 million funding for prison x ray scanners was completed in 2020 and (b) in the comparable time period before that funding was allocated.

Delivery of the £100m Security Investment Programme was completed in March 2022 and included measures to prevent the smuggling of illicit items, such as drugs, into prisons. Under this investment, 75 additional X-ray body scanners were deployed, resulting in full coverage of the entire closed adult male prison estate. Between July 2020 and October 2022 there were approximately 28,000 positive indications on these X-ray body scanners.

The number of incidents where drugs are found in prisons in England and Wales is published in the HMPPS Annual Digest through the incidents data tool. Between April 2020 and March 2022, there were 37,995 drug find incidents in prisons in England and Wales. In comparison, between April 2018 and March 2020, there were 39,900 drug find incidents in prisons in England and Wales.

This reports the number of drug find incidents rather than the amount of drugs found, and incidents can include different quantities of drugs. It is important to consider with incidents of drug finds in prisons, that an increase in numbers may be as a result of more items being found, rather than more items being present in prisons.