Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2011 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

1. What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for the Home Department of the effects on the size of the prison population of implementation of the provisions of the Drugs Act 2005.

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)]

We have not recently discussed this specific point, but both the Government’s sentencing and rehabilitation Green Paper and their drug strategy include commitments to encourage drug-misusing offenders into recovery-based treatment.

[Paul Flynn]

Jailing drug offenders costs taxpayers half a billion pounds a year—£41,000 per prisoner. As health treatments are far better value and more effective, would not it be more sensible to treat drug addicts as patients, not as criminals?

[Nick Herbert]

It may be more sensible in many cases. That is why we said in the Green Paper that we published before Christmas that we would test options for intensive community-based treatment—both residential and non-residential—and couple that with more rigorous community orders. It is important to have a punitive element for offending as well. The goal should be to ensure that offenders get off drugs, but too often that is not the case.