Lord Hanson of Flint
Main Page: Lord Hanson of Flint (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Hanson of Flint's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(5 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Rory Stewart
I know that my hon. Friend does wonderful work with the prison in her constituency. As she says, we need to take action, and we are taking action. There have been 40 convictions of people using drones, and we have imposed 140 years’-worth of prison sentences. No one should be in any doubt that importing drugs into prisons with a drone is a very serious crime, and I am pleased to say that, thanks to the Department’s work since 2015, we are getting on top of the problem.
David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
The Minister mentioned in July and re-emphasised today the importance of jamming equipment in prisons; how many prisons have that equipment?
Rory Stewart
First, that is classified information, but, secondly, the answer is not that many prisons. It is very expensive equipment to use, but we are looking at an electronic fencing technique which has been deployed in Guernsey. We can learn a lot from Guernsey prison: if that electronic fence in Guernsey works, it is a good cheap solution. We would need to check its technical specifications and then we could look at rolling it out.