Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Dawn Butler and Andrew Selous

Tuesday 14th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising this issue. The Secretary of State has said very clearly that reducing violence in our prisons is our top operational priority, and he has recently allocated an additional £10 million to this. She will know that a lot of the violence is caused by terrible new psychoactive substances such as Spice and Black Mamba coming into prisons. We have now made them illegal, thanks to the work of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing, Fire, Criminal Justice and Victims on the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016, and that is a help. We will shortly be rolling out world-leading testing, which will also make a difference. I draw a very clear link between the drugs and the violence.

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

13. What recent progress he has made on the review of the effect of the introduction of employment tribunal fees.