Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what data his Department (a) collects and (b) publishes on levels of drug use by prisoners in the prison estate.

Data is collected on mandatory drug testing, including Random Mandatory Drug Testing (rMDT), targeted testing, and voluntary drug testing of prisoners. rMDT data is published in the HMPPS Annual Digest.

All random mandatory drug testing (rMDT) was paused in March 2020 following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Low levels of testing resumed from September 2020 in line with establishments’ position within the National Framework for managing COVID-19 before formal performance expectations around rMDT volumes were re-instated in April 2022.