Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment she has made of the success of drug recovery wings in prisons; and whether she plans to increase the number of drug recovery wings in prisons.

Our Prison Safety and Reform White Paper, published this month, affirms the government’s commitment to fundamentally reassess our wider approach to tackling the supply and demand for drugs in prisons. We want prisoners who arrive dependent on drugs to get the treatment they need so when they leave they don’t need to commit crimes to feed their addiction.

Drug Recovery Wings are one approach to tackling substance misuse in prison. Drug recovery wings were formally piloted in 11 prisons, a Department of Health funded independent evaluation is currently under peer review and will feed into our work on prison reform. Some establishments, in partnership with Drug Treatment Providers, have also established their own local recovery wing models outside of the original pilot areas. It is for health commissioners, alongside prison governors, to decide if they wish to commission drug recovery wings when considering how best to meet the needs of their population.