Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, what steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help increase the number of prosecutions for people found to be driving under the influence of drugs.
Answered by Lucy Rigby - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
Enforcement of drug driving legislation and how available resources are deployed is an operational matter for individual Chief Constables and Police and Crime Commissioners to determine in conjunction with local crime and policing plans, taking into account the specific local problems and demands with which they are faced.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) prosecutes cases that are referred to it by the police.
The Government has announced more than half a billion pounds of additional central government funding for policing next year to support the Government’s Safer Streets Mission.
Section 5A of the Road Traffic Act 1988, introduced in 2015, aligned enforcement of drug driving with that of drink driving by introducing a strict liability offence to avoid the need to prove impairment. CPS management information shows that in the financial year 2023/2024, 25,559 offences were charged under this section which proceeded to a first hearing in the magistrates’ courts.