Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of searches of (a) prison staff and (b) visitors when entering prisons on reducing the number of prohibited items being brought into prisons.

NOMS’ national policies and procedures are reviewed regularly to ensure that they are effective in dealing with threats to prisons, including the importation of prohibited items.

We are planning to boost our searching capability within prisons and are examining options for better equipped and more widely deployed searching teams at national, regional and local levels. We are also investing in improved intelligence capabilities at all levels to enable searching and other security activities to be targeted more effectively.