Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment he has made of trends in the prevalence of (a) drug use and (b) synthetic drug use among the prison population in England and Wales.

We recognise that illicit drug use in prisons is too high, and are committed to tackling this to improve safety, support rehabilitation and reduce reoffending. We are investing over £40 million in physical security measures this financial year and have funded Incentivised Substance Free Living Units in 85 prisons. We work closely with health partners to identify prisoners with a drug dependency and support them into treatment and recovery and are rolling out naloxone in prisons – life saving medication which can reverse the effects of an opiate overdose.

We are currently unable to publish performance data on drug level use in prisons because due to reduced testing levels, reduced number of prisons with sufficient testing and the need to update the testing panel, the data is currently not sufficient to robustly estimate the percentage positive. Prisons across the estate strive to conduct target levels of rMDT, but in recent years Governors have had to make difficult decisions about how to balance the demands of testing with wider capacity pressures. However, rMDT is only one element of a wider testing regime, which includes suspicion-based testing for those suspected of illicit use, and compact-based testing on Incentivised Substance Free Living Units and Drug Recovery Wings. Our testing regime enables us to monitor a wide range of substances and assess the prevalence of different types of drugs. We keep this under regular review to ensure we identify emerging trends to keep both prisoners and staff safe. Our new drug testing contract supports this by giving us greater flexibility to respond to emerging drug threats, including synthetic drugs.