Oral Answers to Questions

David Burrowes Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

I fear we may have been down this road before with my hon. Friend. I take on board his comments. Sentencing is a matter for the judiciary, but I will always defend my strongly-held belief that equality of outcome is what we are looking for in the female prison estate. At present, female prisoners are much more likely to have many complex needs and are far less likely to gain employment once they leave prison. I am seeking to tackle that.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

4. What steps he is taking to tackle the use of new psychoactive substances in prisons.

[The Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice (Mike Penning)]

Quite rightly, we do not tolerate drugs in our prisons and we are bringing forward tough new measures, including the new legislation on psychoactive substances, which will make possession in a prison a criminal offence, unlike the position in the rest of the country.

[Mr Burrowes]

I congratulate the Minister on spearheading that new legislative tool, but if the scale of harm demonstrated by a significant increase in ambulance attendances and suicides were happening in other places where there is a duty of care—hospitals, children’s homes or schools—would we not have what is needed, which is a root and branch review of how best to tackle supply and demand for drugs in prisons?

[Mike Penning]

We must make sure that these drugs do not get into our prisons. Psychoactive substances and drugs have been in our prisons for some time. Following a request not only from the prisons Minister, but from prison officers as well as prisoners around the country, we made sure that possession was a criminal offence. We need measures such as new sniffer dogs, which can sniff out such products, and they are in training. We must eradicate these drugs from our prisons.