Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to statistics on alcohol and drug treatment in secure settings 2019 to 2020, published on 28 January 2021, if he will make an assessment of the effect on reoffending levels of the finding that 65.5% of adults with a substance misuse treatment need do not successfully engage in community-based structured treatment following release from prison.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and Her Majesty's Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) are committed to meeting the health needs of offenders in custody and the community, including those with substance misuse issues. NHS England and NHSE Improvement (NHSE/I) are responsible for commissioning healthcare services in all prisons in England, this includes integrated substance misuse services. Local authorities are responsible for commissioning treatment services in the community.

Although there is not a simple linear relationship between the 12-month rate of reoffending among prison leavers in England & Wales, and the proportion of adults with a drug or alcohol dependency who do not engage with treatment programmes following their release from prison, we do recognise that engagement in substance misuse treatment can reduce the likelihood of reoffending.

In 2017, a joint MoJ and PHE study[1] found that, over a two-year period following the start of treatment, only 34% of all offenders misusing alcohol, opiates and/or non-opiates who dropped out of treatment did not reoffend, whereas 53% of substance misusing offenders who successfully completed treatment did not reoffend.

That is why the government has awarded an additional £80 million to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to fund drug treatment in 2021/22, as part of a £148 million overall funding package for reducing crime. This is the biggest increase in drug treatment funding for 15 years. The £80 million will be used to enhance drug treatment and the numbers of treatment places available, reduce reoffending and tackle the rise in drug-related deaths. Importantly, most of this funding will support delivery of additional services to reduce drug-related crime including treatment places for delivering Community Sentence Treatment Requirements (CSTRs), continuity of care for prison leavers and interventions to reduce drug related deaths. The funding will also include extending the NHS England RECONNECT service, a care after custody service for prison leavers with vulnerabilities, who would otherwise struggle to engage with community health services.

Officials across MoJ and HMPPS will continue to work with DHSC and health partners, including on the development of the additional £80m allocation, to ensure substance misuse services meet the needs of the offender cohort, address significant health inequalities in this patient cohort and reduce crime across communities.

[1] Ministry of Justice, Public health England (2017). Table 4, page 18, “The Effect of Drug and Alcohol Treatment on re-offending”: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-effect-of-drug-and-alcohol-treatment-on-re-offending