Prisons (Substance Testing) Bill

Baroness Pidding Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 16th April 2021 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Pidding]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

Relevant document: 37th Report from the Delegated Powers Committee

[Baroness Pidding (Con)]

My Lords, it is my privilege to move the Second Reading of the Prisons (Substance Testing) Bill, which was introduced by the right honourable Dame Cheryl Gillan in the other place. Members across the House will be aware of the news that Dame Cheryl sadly passed away earlier this month. I hope that noble Lords will understand my wish to take a few moments to reflect on this immense loss. I speak as someone who counted Dame Cheryl as one of my dearest friends. I had the privilege of knowing her for 30 years, from when I took part in her selection by the Chesham and Amersham Conservative Association in my role as Young Conservatives chairman through to now as president of that same association.

I want to pay tribute to Dame Cheryl’s remarkable career. She was the longest-serving woman MP on the Conservative Benches, but she was so much more than that. She was kind, empathetic, bright, tenacious, articulate and knowledgeable, and, as one of her former parliamentary colleagues said, she knew what being a colleague was all about. Cheryl was a remarkable parliamentarian and one who had a reach beyond any one political party. She was a great advocate for her constituents and will be sorely missed. My condolences go to Dame Cheryl’s family, friends and staff. I pay respects to her for her commitment, passion and dedication to the excellent causes that she championed and I hope that this Bill can represent another significant contribution towards an already impressive legacy.

I also pay tribute to Richard Holden MP, who efficiently and smoothly guided this Bill through its various stages on her behalf. The Bill had a successful passage and received unqualified support from all sides in the other place. I trust that it will be similarly welcomed and supported in your Lordships’ House. It would make our prisons and young offender institutions safer, more secure and, ultimately, better environments for rehabilitation.

The misuse of drugs is one of the biggest challenges faced by our prisons and young offender institutions. A survey by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons in 2019-20 showed that 40% of female prisoners and 45% of male prisoners found it quite easy or very easy to get drugs in prisons. Psychoactive drugs and the misuse of prescription-only medicines and pharmacy medicines in particular are a relatively new problem for our prisons and young offender institutions, but they are a growing and dangerous problem. We must take further action to identify prisoners and young offenders with substance misuse issues and ensure that they are offered the appropriate treatment. The Bill would boost the capability of prisons and young offender institutions in England and Wales to test for the use of illicit substances and would make key progress in combating the prevalence of drugs in prisons.

Members in both Houses are well aware of the scourge of drugs both in prisons and out in the wider community. The scale of the problem with drugs in prisons is demonstrated by the available data. In the year to March 2020, there were almost 22,000 incidents of drug finds in prisons in England and Wales alone. The highest number of incidents was over the past decade, with 182 kilogrammes of illicit drugs being recovered.

Drug use drives the increasing violence that we have seen in prisons. Debts are enforced, discharged or avoided through assaults on other prisoners or staff and incidents of self-harm. This is our chance to make a productive change to the prison drug testing framework, ensure that those with substance misuse issues are referred to the appropriate treatment and disrupt continued violence within our prisons and young offender institutions.

The Prison Service and the Youth Custody Service currently have the legal authority to test for controlled drugs, as defined under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, and specified substances listed in Schedule 2 to the Prison Rules 1999 and Young Offender Institution Rules 2000. In order to add a new drug to the list of specified substances, the Government need to individually add each and every new compound to it through secondary legislation. That process is resource-intensive and inefficient. Most importantly, it causes operational delays for prisons and young offender institutions, limiting their ability to deal with emergency healthcare cases and take appropriate disciplinary action. Despite the Prison Service and the Youth Custody Service updating the list at regular intervals, ill-intentioned drug manufacturers and chemical experts are able to quickly get around the law by producing modified variations of these drugs, meaning that prisoners and young offenders are no longer able to be tested for them and their use goes undetected.

I turn to the contents of the Bill. Its response to this issue is both simple and straightforward. The Bill adopts the definition of “psychoactive substances” provided by the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016, which will allow the Prison Service and the Youth Custody Service to test prisoners for any and all psychoactive substances now and in future. Similarly, the Bill permits prisoners and young offenders to be tested for the illicit use of prescription-only medicines and pharmacy medicines as defined by the Human Medicines Regulations 2012. The Bill also provides an express power for the use of prevalence testing, which, through the testing of pooled and anonymised samples, allows prisons and young offender institutions to identify new drug types in circulation and tailor treatment services and security countermeasures accordingly.

I am convinced that this Bill will have a meaningful effect, future-proofing the drug testing framework and enabling it to quickly respond to a rapidly changing modern drugs trade. This will allow the Prison Service and Youth Custody Service to take the appropriate action needed to tackle the threat of drugs, whether that be in referring prisoners and young offenders into healthcare treatments or in pursuing sanctions against those involved in the distribution and use of drugs.

In conclusion, I earnestly hope that your Lordships will recognise the importance of making these changes, and speedily. We must act as soon as possible. We know that those who seek profit from drugs will stop at nothing to continue harming our prisons and young offender institutions. We must meet them with at least equal vigour in our measures of disruption. I appreciate that timescales are tight as we come towards the end of this parliamentary Session, but I sincerely hope that this Bill will be on the statute book. I look forward to hearing noble Lords’ contributions in this Second Reading debate and hope that there will be support from across the House. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Pidding (Con)]

My Lords, I start by thanking noble Lords on all sides of the House, and my noble and learned friend the Minister, for their warm comments about Dame Cheryl. I am touched by them and I know that her family will be too.

I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, and I appreciate the generous support for these important measures and the very thoughtful contributions. The Bill will make our prisons and young offender institutions safer, more secure and, ultimately, better environments for rehabilitation—aims that all local Lords who have spoken today share. Once again, I take this opportunity to reiterate the limited time we have remaining in this parliamentary Session. There is a real risk that the Bill could fall and we would miss the opportunity to pass these measures into law. From the valuable contributions today, it is clear that all noble Lords recognise the benefits of the Bill and the importance of the measures contained within it. However, should there be any unanswered concerns, I would welcome early engagement from colleagues across the House to allow me—I hope, with the support of the Minister—to address any concerns and resolve them without the need for amendments to the legislation as drafted.

Finally, I appreciate the Minister’s expertise and very supportive remarks and I thank the clerks and the officials at the Ministry of Justice for the guidance and support they gave me in preparing the Bill. I ask your Lordships to give the Bill a Second Reading. I beg to move.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.