Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the number of prison staff exposed to new psychoactive substances during the course of their work in each year since 2010; and if he will make a statement.

Protecting the health and safety of our prisoners and staff is our priority and I am concerned by reports of the effects of secondary inhalation of psychoactive substances in addition to the harm which prisoners do to themselves by using these drugs.

We do not have reliable data on the number of incidents where staff may have been exposed to psychoactive substances but we are working closely with Public Health England and other experts to understand the scale of the issue and to ensure our response to the threat is clinically and scientifically appropriate.

Our internal guidance on controlling the risks of secondary exposure has, though, been substantially revised following consultation and includes detailed information on how to assess and control risk on entry into cells where psychoactive substances have been used.

Of course, the best way to do address this risk is to keep drugs out of prisons. That is why we have formed a Drugs Taskforce which is working with law enforcement and health partners across government to restrict supply, reduce demand and build recovery. The Taskforce is developing a national Drug Strategy, which will provide all prisons with guidance and examples of best practice to support them in tackling drugs. We are also investing £6 million in 10 of the most challenging prisons, to provide more staff focused on effective searching, drug detection dogs, body scanners and improved perimeter defences.

Psychoactive substances have presented a particular challenge and in September 2016, we became the first prison service in the world to introduce innovative mandatory drug tests for these substances, a significant step in tackling the supply and use of them. We have made it a criminal offence to possess psychoactive substances in prison, trained more than 300 sniffer dogs specifically to detect them and ensured all prisons have clear guidance on how to detect and prevent attempts to send paper laced with psychoactive substances into prisons.