Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department has taken to reduce the number of criminal offences involving the use of drugs committed in West Yorkshire.

This Government’s ten-year Drug Strategy, From Harm to Hope, sets out a whole system approach to reduce drug-related crime through its three priorities: breaking drug supply chains; delivering a world-class treatment and recovery system; and achieving a significant reduction in demand for illicit drugs.

The Home Office is investing £300 million over three years to mobilise a robust and innovative end-to-end plan which attacks every phase of the supply chain, and the Department for Health and Social Care a further £780 million over three years to rebuild drug treatment and recovery services.

Combating Drugs Partnerships have been set up to cover every local area across England and offer a new blueprint for local accountability. Treatment helps reduce crime and local authorities in West Yorkshire have been allocated over £7.3 million for 2022/23 to improve services in line with the ambitions of the drugs strategy.

Project ADDER, which is supporting the delivery of the strategy outcomes, trail-blazes a whole-system response to drive down drug related offending, drug deaths and drug use in 13 sites across England and Wales. In total, Wakefield’s Project ADDER funding allocation will be £1,670,000 for 2022/23, which includes both health and enforcement funding.

We have also published a white paper, ‘Swift, Certain, Tough: New Consequences for Drug Possession’ that proposes tougher, escalating penalties for so-called recreational drug users who drive the demand for drugs and fuel criminal markets.