Mary Glindon
Main Page: Mary Glindon (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend)Department Debates - View all Mary Glindon's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(9 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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.
Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)
The National Offender Management Service has revealed that the amount of alcohol found in prisons in England and Wales has almost trebled since the Government took office. Will the Minister explain what urgent steps he is taking to address this serious problem?
Mike Penning
One of the ways we can deal with that is by making sure that individual governors have full control within their prisons so that they can work with their staff to make sure that not only drugs, but alcohol, which is not supposed to be in our prisons, is not there. Much of that alcohol is brewed within the prisons and we need to work hard to make sure that we eradicate that.