Oral question asked in the House of Commons, by Michael Jack (Conservative). It was answered on Monday, 19 March 2007 on behalf of the Home Office.

Prisons (Drug Use)

Question: I thank the Minister for that encyclopaedic answer. I am sure that he will appreciate the seriousness with which Kirkham prison in my constituency takes fighting drug and alcohol addiction by prisoners. He will be aware of the use that it has made of the counselling, advice, referral, assessment and throughcare—or CARAT—programme. The integrated drug treatment service now beckons. Kirkham wishes to adopt that because it wants to do better in countering recidivism. When can Kirkham expect that particular facility to be made available to it?

Answer: I am most grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his involvement in all aspects of Kirkham’s work. It has a proud record in dealing with drug treatment. He will recognise the improvement that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker), talked about: the increase in the drug treatment budget of 974 per cent. The right hon. Gentleman made the point about the integrated drug treatment service, which is additional funding. It is going into up to 45 of our prisons. At the moment it is mainly concerned with the first 28 days of custody, and it is more likely to be rolled out in remand prisons because that is where the biggest problem is seen to be. I take his point that we need to look at prisoners who are on release—most of the prisoners in Kirkham are shortly to be released. We will do that through the National Offender Management Service. I do not charge him personally, but the Opposition voted against the Offender Management Bill. It is important that actions from that Bill are initiated to ensure that we deal with offenders. The release of offenders with drug and other problems is an important matter. We will look at the issue that he raised. Clearly, there is an issue about people coming out of prison with a drug habit.

Secondary information