What recent steps his Department has taken to prevent drug misuse in prisons.

What recent steps his Department has taken to prevent drug misuse in prisons.

Most offenders have a drug problem when they come into prison. Ensuring that drugs are not available within prison is therefore a major priority for all staff and the system as a whole. All prisoners are subject to mandatory drug testing in prison, and the results indicate a 68 per cent. decrease in drug use in prison since 1996-97. We still have to take further action. Measures recommended in the Blakey review are now being implemented, including body orifice security scanners, tougher controls on mobile telephones in prison and a comprehensive strategy to deal with staff corruption.

In my naivety, I had imagined that prisons were disciplined and ordered places where prison staff and prison officers were able to enforce their authority and prevent drugs from getting in. I am interested in what the Justice Secretary has to say, but what penalties is he instituting for those who smuggle drugs into prison-be they visitors, people outside prison throwing drugs over the walls or staff themselves?

There are substantial penalties. One measure that I introduced at the beginning of 1999, when I was Home Secretary, significantly tightened up the checking and vetting of visitors to prisons, who are one of the major sources of the drugs that are smuggled in, and the penalties for such visitors if they transgressed the rules, as well as imposing clear penalties on prisoners who receive drugs or who conspire with visitors in that respect. This is a challenge-there is no question about it-not least because prisoners seek to conceal both drugs and mobile telephones in an obscene way in their body orifices. Detecting the smuggling of drugs and mobile telephones into prison is difficult, and so we have tightened controls and introduced these body orifice scanners.

Clearly, the Secretary of State will have to agree that whatever initiatives he has introduced are not working. Any reasonable person would ask how these drugs are getting in in the first place. Will he now instigate a review of how drugs are getting into prisons, and will he consider making searches of visitors and prison staff mandatory?

I established a review under Mr. David Blakey, the former chief inspector of constabulary and former chief constable of West Mercia, which was published at the beginning of last year. I commend that review to the hon. Gentleman. As long as there are some drugs in prison that should not be there, none of us should be satisfied about the environment in prison. This is not an issue that I, the Minister of State, my hon. Friend Maria Eagle, the managers of the Prison Service or the staff take remotely lightly. It is very serious. The performance of prisons varies, including between similar categories of prison, and we are constantly searching for ways to improve performance, including searches of both staff and visitors-

Mandatory?

Whether they are mandatory depends on the prison, the availability of staff and the categorisation of the prisons. I promise the hon. Gentleman that I do not rule out mandatory searching in all circumstances.

Two years ago, illegal drugs were freely available in every prison in Britain. How many are drug-free now?

Generalisation like that belies the fact that it is very difficult to get drugs into prison and that staff do a huge amount of work to ensure that drugs are not there. It is not possible to answer the point that my hon. Friend puts to me, which is essentially a negative, but what I can say is that, as I have told the House, the results of mandatory drug tests show that there has been a 68 per cent. decrease in the use of drugs in prison, which is something for which we should thank the National Offender Management Service.

First, the problem is that people who are bringing in the drugs are visitors and that we are not effective in punishing those who are carrying the drugs. In fact, if they refuse the search we let them go rather than dealing with the importation of drugs into prisons. Secondly-this point is very important for my right hon. Friend-the reduction in prison officer numbers and the increase in prisoner numbers make it even harder to try to control prisons, such as Garth and Wymott prisons in my constituency.

On the latter point, there has been absolutely no reduction in prison officer numbers. Staffing in prisons has increased commensurately with the increase in prison numbers, and spending has risen slightly above the increase in prison numbers.

As for the searching of visitors, the rules are very clear. I have made it absolutely clear to the prison service that I expect those rules, and tough sanctions on visitors, to be followed through.

I know that the Government have done some work on this, but is there not a serious problem in that some offenders go into prison clean of drugs, and then come out addicted? What is the Government's estimate of the number of prisoners who have acquired or intensified their drug habit while in prison?

I cannot rule that out as a possibility, but the truth is that the overwhelming number of people who seek drugs and abuse them in prison are addicted to drugs outside prison. An alarming proportion of offenders-apart from, interestingly, sex offenders and the high-end offenders who are drug dealers rather than drug users-are people who abuse drugs. One of the many reasons why we make every effort to control the availability of drugs in prison and to increase the sanctions on their use is so that there can be drug-free environments. However, when I talk to prisoners, time and again they tell me that they have got clean in prison. They say that they have benefited from the medical treatment and the fact that drugs are not available there. They have got clean in prison but their worry, which should be a worry for us all, is about the transition between prison and the community. That is why we are putting a great deal of effort into that transitional process.