Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 7 March 2022 to Question 133193, on Offenders: Alcoholic Drinks, what plans his Department has to evaluate the short- and long-term effects of the sobriety tagging scheme on (a) levels of alcohol consumption and (b) the wellbeing of offenders.

Prior to the introduction of the Alcohol Abstinence and Monitoring Requirement (AAMR), as required by the legislation, the department supported two pilots testing the option for community orders and suspended sentence orders. Both pilots undertook to evaluate the requirement and publish their findings, which can be found at the following links:

https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/aamr_final_impact_report_100521.pdf.

https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/aamr_final_process_performance_y2_report_final.pdf.

https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/annex_1_-_aamr_early_impact_report_210417.pdf.

https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/aamr_final.pdf.

https://www.northyorkshire-pfcc.gov.uk/content/uploads/2020/01/Evaluation-of-the-AAMR-tagging-pilot.pdf.

These findings touched on a number of areas including compliance and wellbeing and informed the introduction of AAMR. I am pleased to report that compliance with alcohol bans has remained at over 97% which is in line with the pilots. We have published statistics regarding take up and compliance with AAMR and will continue to do so, these can be found at the following links:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1060084/Alcohol_Monitoring_Statistics.pdf.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1042107/Ad_Hoc_Alcohol_Monitoring_Statistics.pdf.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1028971/AAMR_publication_AdHoc_release_Final.pdf.

We are incorporating evaluation into all electronic monitoring expansion projects, in order to build the evidence base for most effective use, and this will include alcohol monitoring on licence.