Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether any illegal items have been found in packages sent to prisoners since 1 February 2015.

Prisons use a comprehensive range of security measures to detect, disrupt and deter the trafficking of illegal items into prisons. Despite these measures there will always be attempts made to smuggle items to prisoners. It is a requirement for prisons to record centrally instances where drugs, mobile phones, firearms and ammunition are discovered in prison.

During the period 1 February to 31 May 2015 there were instances recorded where drugs and mobile phones were discovered in packages¹ sent into prisoners.

¹ “Packages” includes those incoming items recorded as “parcels”, “post”, “mail” or “packages”