Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the ban on nitrous oxide canisters on levels of illegal nitrous oxide use.

The government controlled nitrous oxide as a Class C drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 on 8 November last year.

The government is aware of early successes by police forces in arrests and prosecutions as well as confiscating nitrous oxide canisters. It has committed to publish a review of the effect of the control of nitrous oxide under the 1971 Act.

The review will be a wide-ranging assessment of the effect of control with publication intended to be within three years of the ban coming into force.