Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to page 32 of his Department's Annual Report and Accounts 2022-23, what his planned timetable is for when random mandatory drug testing will return to the levels required to estimate national drug use in prisons.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
All random mandatory drug testing (rMDT) in prisons were paused in March 2020 following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Low levels of testing resumed from September 2020 in line with the National Framework for managing COVID-19. rMDT levels have not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels due to operational and staffing pressures in prisons. We will keep performance under close review.
Prisons continue to have a zero-tolerance culture, and any prisoner suspected of taking illicit substances can still be subjected to a mandatory drug test. As part of the ambitious cross-Government Drug Strategy, we are rolling out a range of interventions to support prisoners off drugs and into recovery, such as doubling the number of Incentivised Substance-Free Living wings, and supporting prisoners to engage with community treatment pre-release.
We are also committed to tackling the supply of drugs into prison and our £100m Security Investment Programme delivered 75 additional X-ray body scanners, resulting in full coverage across the closed male estate. 84 X-ray baggage scanners have also been installed at 45 prisons and 4 learning centres, building on the rollout of our body scanners, drug trace detection machines and metal detection archways.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to page 32 of his Department's Annual Report and Accounts 2022-23, for what reason the mandatory drug testing panel wasn't updated in 2022-23.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Mandatory Drug Testing (MDT) panel is updated when a new drug type is known to be prevalent within the prison estate, or where a new drug poses a significant threat to the safety and security of prison regimes.
For the panel to be updated, HMPPS’s contracted drug testing supplier must have the technical capability to accurately test urine samples to obtain results to an evidential standard. Whilst new additions to the MDT panel were identified during 2022/23, preparatory technical work to add these compounds to the panel was not completed within the 2022/23 financial year. These substances have now been added to the MDT panel.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to reduce concerns about violence and personal safety for prison officers and prisoners in England and Wales.
Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The safety of staff and prisoners is a key priority, and we continue our efforts to address the levels of violence in prison.
We are equipping our staff with the right tools and training to maintain safety in our prisons. We have rolled out a new Body Worn Video Camera system and we are rolling out PAVA – a synthetic pepper spray – in the adult male estate alongside SPEAR, a personal safety training package.
The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 doubled the maximum penalty to up to two years’ imprisonment for those who assault emergency workers, including prison officers.
We continue to support prisoners at risk of violence to move away from violent behaviours and we are delivering a £100m Security Investment Programme to disrupt smuggling of illicit items such as drugs and weapons that can fuel prison violence.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many illegal drugs have been seized (a) since the £100 million funding for prison x ray scanners was completed in 2020 and (b) in the comparable time period before that funding was allocated.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
Delivery of the £100m Security Investment Programme was completed in March 2022 and included measures to prevent the smuggling of illicit items, such as drugs, into prisons. Under this investment, 75 additional X-ray body scanners were deployed, resulting in full coverage of the entire closed adult male prison estate. Between July 2020 and October 2022 there were approximately 28,000 positive indications on these X-ray body scanners.
The number of incidents where drugs are found in prisons in England and Wales is published in the HMPPS Annual Digest through the incidents data tool. Between April 2020 and March 2022, there were 37,995 drug find incidents in prisons in England and Wales. In comparison, between April 2018 and March 2020, there were 39,900 drug find incidents in prisons in England and Wales.
This reports the number of drug find incidents rather than the amount of drugs found, and incidents can include different quantities of drugs. It is important to consider with incidents of drug finds in prisons, that an increase in numbers may be as a result of more items being found, rather than more items being present in prisons.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what data his Department holds on the number of hours each day that body scanners for (a) prison staff and (b) prisoners entering prisons in England and Wales are operated by staff in the last 12 months.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
Data on the number of hours x-ray body scanners are operated by staff in prisons is not recorded.
HMPPS currently scan adult male prisoners on an intelligence or reasonable suspicion-led basis. It does not have legal permission to use x-ray body scanners on staff working in prisons.
Our £100 million security investment programme to reduce crime inside prisons, including stemming the flow of illicit items such as drugs, mobile phones, and weapons, was completed in March 2022. Enhanced gate security—including 659 staff, 154 drug dogs and over 200 pieces of equipment—has been deployed to 42 high-risk prison sites that routinely search staff and visitors. We now have 97 X-ray body scanners covering the entire closed male estate and they have recorded more than 28,000 positive indications helping to tackle the supply of drugs and mobile phones into prisons.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department has plans to (a) review the effectiveness of substance free living units and (b) make an assessment of the potential merits of extending those units across all prison estates.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
As part of the ambitious cross-Government Drug Strategy, we are rolling out a range of interventions to support prisoners off drugs and into recovery. This includes expanding the number of Incentivised Substance-Free Living Units where prisoners commit to remaining free of illicit drugs, with regular drug testing and incentives. We now have over 60 of these wings across the estate, and are aiming to reach up to 100 by March 2025. This will dramatically expand the number of prisoners who have access to these wings. Alongside this we are working to evaluate ISFLs to improve our understanding of the impact they are having and the experience of prisoners on these wings.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the volume of illegal drugs found in prisons between (a) 2013 and 2017 and (b) 2018 and 2022.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The number of incidents where drugs are found in prisons in England and Wales is published in the HMPPS Annual Digest through the incidents data tool.
a) Between 2013 and 2017, there were 41,354 drug find incidents in prisons in England and Wales.
b) Between 2018 and 2022. There were 92,130 drug find incidents in prisons in England and Wales.
It is important to consider with incidents of drug finds in prisons, that an increase in numbers may be as a result of more items being found, rather than more items being present in prisons.
Delivery of the £100m Security Investment Programme was completed in March 2022 and included measures to prevent the smuggling of illicit items such as drugs into prisons. The Investment included deployment of Enhanced Gate Security at 42 high-risk sites and 75 additional X-ray body scanners, giving full coverage across the closed adult male prison estate.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many drug overdoses took place in prisons from March (a) 2021-2022 and (b) 2022-2023 broken down by institution.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
Between January 2021 and December 2021, a total of 2,273 incidents of self-harm were recorded that were linked to overdoses.
The total figure for January 2022 to December 2022 was 2,387 incidents linked to overdoses. Please see the accompanying table.
The data has been produced on a calendar basis to match published figures on method of self-harm. Information is reported for calendar rather than financial years to avoid the risk of identifying individuals in combination with published calendar year breakdowns of self-harm data.
We do not explicitly collect data on an “overdose” incident type. The data we have provided is based on the “self-harm” incident type. In particular, the data is based on self-harm categorised as “Self-Poisoning/Overdose/Substances/Swallowing” and subcategorised as “illegal drugs”, “own persons medicine” or “other persons medicine”.
The data provided is based on two main assumptions:
There will be other incidents involving the consumption of substances that are not included as they were not reported as self-harm by the prison and so would not have been captured in the provided data.
These figures have been drawn from the HMPPS Incident Reporting System and although care is taken when processing and analysing returns, the detail is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. Although shown to the last case, the figures may not be accurate to that level.
The data only includes self-harm incidents collated centrally; identifying any wider incidents that lead to a hospitalisation and have a connection to drugs would exceed the cost threshold as it would require reading through the text of each incident.
We are committed to doing all we can to prevent deaths from drug overdoses in prison. We have outlined in both our Prisons Strategy White Paper and the Government’s 10-year drug strategy ‘From Harm to Hope’ (2021) how we will achieve this.
All prisons have a zero-tolerance approach to drugs. Our £100m Security Investment Programme, completed in March 2022, introduced measures such as 75 additional X-ray body scanners and airport-style gate security. To prevent the smuggling of illegal drugs such as psychoactive substances through the mail, we have deployed 95 next generation drug trace detection machines. We are aiming for full coverage of public sector prisons by March 2024.
We are also increasing the number of Incentivised Substance-Free Living units, where prisoners commit to remaining free of illicit drugs with regular drug testing and incentives. We have more than doubled the number of these from 25 last summer to 60 now and we are aiming to reach up to 100 by March 2025.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the target was for the number of random mandatory drug tests to be carried out by HM Prison and Probation Service staff in the year to March 2023.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
Between start March 2022 and end March 2023, the national Key Performance Indicator target of expected random mandatory tests to be completed was 54,138 based on an overall prison population ranging from 79,698 in March 2022 to 83,918 in March 2023.
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. As set out in the HMPPS Annual Digest 2022-23 publication, rMDT levels did not return to the pre-pandemic levels in 2022-23. The levels of testing delivered varies across the estate from month to month and was impacted by the level of regime being operated by prisons, in line with staffing resource and other operational pressures.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many random mandatory drug tests were carried out by HM Prison and Probation Service from March 2022-2023 by institution.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
Between March 2022 and March 2023, a total of 41,308 random mandatory drug tests were carried out by HM Prison and Probation Service in 122 prison establishments. Please see the accompanying table.
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. As set out in the HMPPS Annual Digest 2022-23 publication, rMDT levels did not return to the pre-pandemic levels in 2022-23. The levels of testing delivered varies across the estate from month to month and was impacted by the level of regime being operated by prisons, in line with staffing resource and other operational pressures.