We are currently running a proof of concept pilot testing a sobriety condition as part of an adult conditional caution. Under this pilot, the sobriety condition cannot be imposed on an offender; and the offender must admit guilt and agree to accept the condition. This pilot commenced in May 2012 in five criminal justice areas.

In addition, the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, introduced a new alcohol abstinence and monitoring requirement as part of a community order. We will establish a pilot, as required by the legislation, before making this available nationwide. The pilot will provide us with evidence of the likely scale of take-up of the requirement as well as information on the processes for running a sobriety scheme. We would also expect to collect data on compliance with the alcohol abstinence requirement during the pilot.

The noble Baroness asks about the impact of compulsory sobriety schemes on alcoholism. The requirement will only be able to be imposed in cases where alcohol has acted as a contributing factor to the offence committed. However, individuals who are considered to be alcohol dependent are specifically excluded from the requirement. For dependant drinkers, courts are able to impose an alcohol treatment requirement as part of a community order or a suspended sentence order. In these circumstances, the offender must have expressed a willingness to comply with the alcohol treatment requirement before the court can impose it.

The Government is committed to stopping drugs entering prisons and to getting offenders off drugs. Fewer prisoners are testing positive for drugs than any time since 1996, but there is more to do, so we are working closely with the Department of Health and other service providers to create integrated, recovery orientated and outcome focused services.

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the authority to reply.

Letter from Glen Watson, dated December 2012:

As Director General for the Office for National Statistics, I have been asked to reply to your recent questions.

The following tables provide the number of deaths where the underlying cause was alcohol-related (Table 1) and related to drug poisoning (Table 2), for (a) Haltemprice and Howden parliamentary constituency, (b) East Riding of Yorkshire unitary authority and (c) Yorkshire and the Humber region, for the years 2009 to 2011 (the latest year available).

Alcohol-related deaths are reported consistently across the United Kingdom using an agreed National Statistics definition that only includes those causes regarded as being most directly due to alcohol consumption (see Box 1 as follows). Alcohol-related death figures for the UK and its constituent countries are available on the ONS website at:

www.ons.gov.uk/ons/publications/all-releases.html?definition=tcm%3A77-29395

Figures on the number of deaths related to drug poisoning registered in England and Wales are available on the ONS website at:

www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/subnational-health3/deaths-related-to-drug-poisoning/index.html

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the authority to reply.

Letter from Glen Watson, dated December 2012:

As Director General for the Office for National Statistics, I have been asked to reply to your recent questions.

The following tables provide the number of deaths where the underlying cause was alcohol-related (Table 1) and related to drug poisoning (Table 2), for (a) Haltemprice and Howden parliamentary constituency, (b) East Riding of Yorkshire unitary authority and (c) Yorkshire and the Humber region, for the years 2009 to 2011 (the latest year available).

Alcohol-related deaths are reported consistently across the United Kingdom using an agreed National Statistics definition that only includes those causes regarded as being most directly due to alcohol consumption (see Box 1 as follows). Alcohol-related death figures for the UK and its constituent countries are available on the ONS website at:

www.ons.gov.uk/ons/publications/all-releases.html?definition=tcm%3A77-29395

Figures on the number of deaths related to drug poisoning registered in England and Wales are available on the ONS website at:

www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/subnational-health3/deaths-related-to-drug-poisoning/index.html

I have been asked to reply on behalf of the Home Department.

Information is not available at this level of detail. Questions on drug use are asked in the self completion module of the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW), formerly known as the British Crime Survey.

However, the sample size of the CSEW is not large enough to provide a robust estimate of the level of substance misuse rates for police force or probation trust areas.

The following tables contain estimates of the number of hospital admissions for those aged 17 and under with suspected alcohol-induced conditions split by economic group, ethnicity and gender for the years 2009-10 to 2011-12 and April to July 2012. It should be noted that data from April 2012 are provisional.

These numbers provide an estimate based on the proportion of diseases and injuries that can be wholly or partially attributed to alcohol, rather than a count of episodes with an alcohol related diagnosis or cause code.

The attributable fractions are not applicable to children under 16. Therefore figures for this age group relate only to wholly-attributable admissions, where the attributable fraction is one.

It should be noted that these data should not be described as a count of people as the same person may have been admitted on more than one occasion.

We do not collect data on a constituency by constituency basis. The following table shows the number of reported personal injury road accidents where at least one car driver was assigned a contributory factor of "impaired by alcohol" or "impaired by drugs (illicit or medicinal)", for the London region, in each of the last five years:

The tables contain the sum of the estimated alcohol attributable fractions for admissions for High Peak parliamentary constituency, Derbyshire county primary care trust (PCT) of residence, East Midlands strategic health authority (SHA) of residence, England (residence), population data and crude admission rates for 2007-08 to 2011-12.

It should be noted that a parliamentary constituency breakdown is not possible before 2008-09.

It is not possible to make an assessment of such admissions compared to UK averages, only England figures can be provided for comparison.

It should be noted that these figures are not a count of people and do not represent an actual number of admissions that were attributable to alcohol.

Alcohol attributable fractions (AAF) are based on the proportion of a given diagnosis or injury that is

estimated to be attributed to alcohol. Some diagnoses or injuries will, by definition, be wholly attributable to alcohol and have an AAF of one, others will only be partly attributable to alcohol and have an AAF greater than zero, but less than one. Diagnoses or injuries that are not attributable at all to alcohol will have an AAF of zero.

These figures are derived by summing all AAFs for the relevant admissions and should therefore only be interpreted as an estimate of the number of admissions that can be attributed to alcohol.

Activity in English NHS Hospitals and English NHS commissioned activity in the independent sector.

The following table contains the sum of the estimated alcohol attributable fractions for admissions via accident and emergency departments in Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk primary care trust (PCT) of main provider for the years 2009-10 to 2011-12.

It should be noted that these figures are not a count of people and do not represent an actual number of admissions that were attributable to alcohol at the time of admission.

In respect of substances which have in recent years become subject to control under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, the Office for National Statistics

(ONS) has collected information about deaths relating to gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB) and its precursor gamma-butyrolactone (GBL), piperazines (benzylpiperazine—BZP and trifluoromethylphenylpiperazine —TFMPP) and cathinones such as mephedrone.

The following table provides the number of deaths relating to these substances for (a) England and Wales,

and (b) the North East region in each year from 2009 to 2011 (the latest year available).

Figures have not been provided for Sunderland local authority and Sunderland central constituency in line with the ONS guidance for protecting confidentiality within birth and death statistics.

The information which is collected centrally about hospital admissions for drug poisoning does not distinguish between any of these newer substances. In “Statistics on Drug Misuse England, 2012” published on 29 November, the Health and Social Care Information Centre highlighted a consultation on whether additional codes should be included in collecting statistics on hospital admissions for drug poisoning.

Available data relates to the number of persons aged under 18 arrested for drug offences in England and Wales between 2008-09 and 2010-11, and are given in the following table.

Data on arrests are reported to the Home Office on the basis of aggregated offence groupings only, therefore it is not possible to separately identify arrests relating specifically to class A drugs.

The number of juveniles (ages 10 to 17) proceeded against at magistrates courts and sentenced at all courts for all drug offences and all Class A drug offences, in England and Wales, for the years 2009 to 2011, can be viewed in the following table.

The Government takes the issue of new psychoactive substances (so called 'legal highs') very seriously.

In May 2012 the Government published a new psychoactive substances (NPS) action plan which sets out a number of actions to address the trade in these substances. The action plan is available at:

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/alcohol-drugs/drugs/annual-review-drug-strategy-2010/drug-strategy2010-review-may2012?view=Binary

A copy of which will be placed in the House Library.

Action to restrict drug supply, including illegal NPS, is a priority for law enforcement and the Home Office is working closely with the Serious Organised Crime Agency, Border Force and the police to develop new approaches to identify importers, distributors and sellers of NPS. This activity includes action to close websites advertising illegal NPS; the creation of a multi-agency working group to identify and tackle the trade in NPS by organised

criminals; ongoing development of a national intelligence picture; and the publication of Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) practice guidance on NPS for the police.

Estimating the extent of a covert activity such as drug use in prisons is by nature very difficult. One measure is the proportion of prisoners testing positive under the random mandatory drug testing programme. In 2011-12, 7% of prisoners tested were positive, down from 24.4% in 1996-97.

NOMS has a comprehensive range of measures to tackle drugs. These include drug detection dogs, procedures to tackle visitors who seek to smuggle drugs and phones into prisons, and mobile phone detection technology. NOMS is also increasing the number of drug free wings in prisons, rolling out a networked IT intelligence system and providing prisons with short range mobile phone blockers which will help prisons prevent prisoners using mobile phones, which is often associated with drug supply.

I have been asked to reply on behalf of the Department of Health.

No recent estimate has been made by the Department on the number of prisoners addicted to heroin or alcohol as a nationwide total or by prison. However, further analysis of data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) survey of psychiatric morbidity among prisoners in England and Wales carried out for the Department in 1997 showed that, in the year before prison, 29% of male remand prisoners and 21% of male sentenced prisoners reported heroin use. The ONS data showed 41% of female remand prisoners and 26% of female sentenced prisoners reported heroin use.

ONS data also showed that in the 12 months before coming into prison, 30% of male sentenced prisoners and 30% of male remand prisoners reported alcohol dependency. For female prisoners, 20% of sentenced prisoners and 19% of female remand prisoners reported alcohol dependency. Alcohol dependency was measured by ONS as a score of 16 or more on the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test.

Data is not collected by the Department about the number of people serving custodial sentences who died from a heroin overdose while in prison.

Data is available on the number of clinical interventions for opioid dependence since 2001 in prisons and is shown in the following table. It is only possible to

disaggregate maintenance prescriptions from detoxifications since 2007-08 and caution should be shown when using this data because it refers to the total number of clinical interventions, not the number of prisoners receiving these treatments. Individual prisoners may receive more than one clinical intervention in any given year.

I have been asked to reply on behalf of the Department of Health.

No recent estimate has been made by the Department on the number of prisoners addicted to heroin or alcohol as a nationwide total or by prison. However, further analysis of data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) survey of psychiatric morbidity among prisoners in England and Wales carried out for the Department in 1997 showed that, in the year before prison, 29% of male remand prisoners and 21% of male sentenced prisoners reported heroin use. The ONS data showed 41% of female remand prisoners and 26% of female sentenced prisoners reported heroin use.

ONS data also showed that in the 12 months before coming into prison, 30% of male sentenced prisoners and 30% of male remand prisoners reported alcohol dependency. For female prisoners, 20% of sentenced prisoners and 19% of female remand prisoners reported alcohol dependency. Alcohol dependency was measured by ONS as a score of 16 or more on the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test.

Data is not collected by the Department about the number of people serving custodial sentences who died from a heroin overdose while in prison.

Data is available on the number of clinical interventions for opioid dependence since 2001 in prisons and is shown in the following table. It is only possible to

disaggregate maintenance prescriptions from detoxifications since 2007-08 and caution should be shown when using this data because it refers to the total number of clinical interventions, not the number of prisoners receiving these treatments. Individual prisoners may receive more than one clinical intervention in any given year.

There are no plans for the Ministry of Justice or its arm's length bodies to provide a universal definition for the term ‘drug-dealer’. While there is not a statutory definition, there is a common understanding of what constitutes drug-dealing, informed by the offences in the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and associated legislation. As drug dealing is considered to be a form of drug supply, I consider that the statutory provisions in place are adequate.