Written question asked by Lord Astor of Hever (Conservative), in the House of Lords. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 20 March 1997. It was answered by Baroness Blatch (Conservative) on Thursday, 20 March 1997.

Blatch, Baroness

Question: Statement on the present position on the availability of information from the Prison Service mandatory drug testing programme. - Includes fact that as a result of internal checking, a number of errors have been found in the information held centrally. The Prison Service have commissioned the National Addiction Centre to carry out an independent validation of a sample of the available statistical information until such information is available, all previously published figures relating to the percentage of prisoners who test positive for drugs should be regarded as provisional. This Answer should be taken as correcting any inadvertently misleading statements which may have been made in relation to mandatory drug testing statistics.

Secondary information