Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people received a caution for the possession of (a) class A, (b) class B and (c) class C drugs in the most recent year for which figures are available.

Drug offending is serious in itself and drug abuse also underlies a huge volume of acquisitive and violent crime which can blight communities. The independent Sentencing Council issued a sentencing guideline on drug offences, effective from February 2012, which brought sentencing guidance together for the first time to help to ensure consistent and proportionate sentencing for all drug offences that come before courts.

Simple cautions are a non-statutory disposal available to the police to dispose of any offence committed by an adult and designed for dealing with low level, mainly first time offending.

The Ministry of Justice issues guidance on the process to be followed by the police when they are administering simple cautions for adult offenders. The latest guidance, issued in November 2013 following the Simple Cautions Review, states that the use of a simple caution for possession of class A drugs should only be given in exceptional cases following authorisation by a senior police officer. These will be cases where there were exceptional circumstances which would mean that it was not in the public interest to prosecute.

The Government is legislating in the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill to place statutory restrictions on the use of cautions for certain serious offences.

The number and proportion of offenders that were sentenced at all courts of a single offence of possession for class A, B and C drugs by sentence outcome in 2013, England and Wales can be viewed in the table below.

The number of people cautioned for possession of class A, class B and class C drugs, in England and Wales, from 2009 to 2013 (latest data available) is accessible through the Ministry of Justice website and can be viewed through the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/311319/8-outcomes-by-offence.xls. Under the heading “Drug Offences” there are links to tables containing information relation to possession of class A, class B and class C drugs, including the number of cautions, from 2009-2013.