Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many mandatory drug tests have taken place in prisons in each month since May 2010.

We take a zero tolerance approach to contraband in prison and use a range of robust security measures to find them, including searches and specially trained dogs. Prisoners who are found with contraband face tough punishments including having their privileges removed and getting time added onto their sentence and may be referred to the police for prosecution.

The number of mandatory drug tests that have taken place in prisons in each month since May 2010 is shown in the table below. We are committed to focussing our efforts on preventing drugs from entering custody, an intelligence led approach to using MDT tests most effectively and programmes and support to ensure that prisoners can stay free from drugs in custody. The national positive rate of MDT samples has remained reasonably static since April 2010, with the rate between 7.0% and 7.4%, down from 24.4% in 1996.

All figures in this answer have been drawn from live administrative data systems which may be amended at any time. Although care is taken when processing and analysing the returns, the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. The data are not subject to audit.