Keith Vaz
Main Page: Keith Vaz (Labour - Leicester East)Department Debates - View all Keith Vaz's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(9 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Chris Grayling
The number of hours worked in prisons has increased dramatically in the past four years—the latest figures show 14 million hours—and we are seeking to increase that number all the time. Last week, I was at HMP Coldingley for the launch of a new partnership between the Ministry of Defence and the Prison Service, whereby prisoners will produce items such as sandbags for use by our armed forces. I hope that that work will continue, grow and develop. The more we can get prisoners in our prisons working, the more likely they are to get a job when they leave.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
As we heard earlier from the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), drug addiction in the criminal justice system is a huge problem. There were 4,500 seizures of drugs in prisons last year. What further steps will be taken to deal with mandatory help in prisons and help for prisoners when they leave?
Chris Grayling
There are two parts to that equation. Although there has been considerable success over the years in tackling the problem of conventional drugs in prisons, the problem now is the arrival of new psychoactive substances that are not detected through the normal means. That has posed an additional challenge to our prison system, and is a significant reason behind the increase in the amount of violence—serious violence—in prisons in the past 12 months. We are taking additional measures to try to tackle that, including tougher security measures and tougher penalties within prisons, and the training of dogs to sniff out that new generation of substances.
Of course, alongside that, proper work must be done to try to tackle addiction. With the through-the-gate system we have created and are creating, it is important that we see a flow-through from work done in our prisons to work done after prison. I remember being told by prison staff how frustrated they were that they had no guarantee that the rehab being done in prisons would continue when prisoners left. That will now change.