The Department is working to start an academic Peer Review of the Ipsos Mori Retribution survey ahead of publication to ensure it is analytically robust and the results are interpreted correctly. The process will begin in Summer this year.

Improvements in prison management arising from the Managing Women in Crisis Working Group have not yet been shared more widely, but H M Prison & Probation Service will shortly be publishing its 12-month progress report to H M Inspectorate of Prison’s thematic report ‘Time to Care: What helps women cope in prison’, setting out the measures it has put in place.

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. That is why the £40 million that we are investing in drone technology in particular is important, but we are also investing in new X-ray machines across our prisons to drive down drug use.

A full evaluation of the £100 Security Investment Programme, aimed to reduce crime in prison including reducing smuggling of drugs, was published on 5 September 2024 and can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/security-investment-programme-evaluation.

Airport-style enhanced gate security, comprising of metal detectors and X-ray baggage scanners, is used in 54 high-risk prison sites (both private and public sector), enabling routine searching of prison officers. In addition, local security strategies allow for routine and random rub-down searches of prison officers and other staff upon entry to, or within, prisons.

This year, we are investing over £40 million in physical security across 34 prisons to further prevent contraband entering prisons.

Ministry of Justice officials received research findings from Ipsos MORI in November last year (2024) and are currently considering the implications of the work.

Research findings are published in accordance with Government Social Research guidelines, following a peer review process to ensure the quality and robustness of the work. Until that has taken place findings cannot be published.

A full evaluation has been undertaken of the £100 million Security Investment Programme (SIP), whose aim was to help strengthen security and reduce crime in prisons. The findings of the evaluation have been published and can be found at the following: Security Investment Programme Evaluation - GOV.UK.

Ministry of Justice officials received research findings from Ipsos MORI in November last year (2024) and are currently considering the implications of the work.

Research findings are published in accordance with Government Social Research guidelines, following a peer review process to ensure the quality and robustness of the work. Until that has taken place, findings cannot be published.

Ministry of Justice officials received research findings from Ipsos MORI in November this year and are currently considering the implications of the work. Officials will advise Ministers soon.

Therefore, no conclusions have yet been drawn from these findings and we have not made any changes on the basis of the research project.

The Government’s £100m Security Investment Programme, aimed at reducing the conveyance of illicit items such as drugs, was completed in March 2022.

This investment delivered 75 additional X-ray body scanners resulting in full coverage across the closed adult male estate. As of October 2023, we have recorded 46,925 positive indications, helping to tackle the smuggling of drugs and other illicit items into prisons.

The investment also funded Enhanced Gate Security at 42 high-risk sites, enhancing our routine searching of staff and visitors. Over 140 new staff were recruited into the Counter-Corruption Unit through the Security Investment Programme. This includes regional Prevent teams dedicated to building staff resilience through training, awareness raising and individual support, as well as 20 Police Investigators dedicated to investigating corruption within HMPPS.

As part of this investment, we are undertaking a full evaluation for the Security Investment Programme. The evaluation explores whether the programme has achieved its intended outcomes, how the programme has been delivered, whether it has been delivered as intended and to identify factors which further strengthen its effectiveness.

The Department is working with Ipsos Mori to finalise the research design and ensure it is analytically robust. The survey has not yet been conducted but the expectation is that results will be available later this year.

Delivery of the £100m Security Investment Programme was completed in March 2022 and included measures to prevent the smuggling of illicit items, such as drugs, into prisons. Under this investment, 75 additional X-ray body scanners were deployed, resulting in full coverage of the entire closed adult male prison estate. Between July 2020 and October 2022 there were approximately 28,000 positive indications on these X-ray body scanners.

The number of incidents where drugs are found in prisons in England and Wales is published in the HMPPS Annual Digest through the incidents data tool. Between April 2020 and March 2022, there were 37,995 drug find incidents in prisons in England and Wales. In comparison, between April 2018 and March 2020, there were 39,900 drug find incidents in prisons in England and Wales.

This reports the number of drug find incidents rather than the amount of drugs found, and incidents can include different quantities of drugs. It is important to consider with incidents of drug finds in prisons, that an increase in numbers may be as a result of more items being found, rather than more items being present in prisons.

The number of incidents where drugs are found in prisons in England and Wales is published in the HMPPS Annual Digest through the incidents data tool.

a) Between 2013 and 2017, there were 41,354 drug find incidents in prisons in England and Wales.

b) Between 2018 and 2022. There were 92,130 drug find incidents in prisons in England and Wales.

It is important to consider with incidents of drug finds in prisons, that an increase in numbers may be as a result of more items being found, rather than more items being present in prisons.

Delivery of the £100m Security Investment Programme was completed in March 2022 and included measures to prevent the smuggling of illicit items such as drugs into prisons. The Investment included deployment of Enhanced Gate Security at 42 high-risk sites and 75 additional X-ray body scanners, giving full coverage across the closed adult male prison estate.

We are seeing progress. It is a combined approach of drug recovery wings and incentivised subsidised free living, and ensuring that security is able to stop drugs getting into prison through things like x-ray body scanners, which we have deployed in many prisons.

Following Dame Sally Coates’ 2016 review, the budget for prison education was moved from the Department for Education (DfE) to the Ministry of Justice. This was in response to the core recommendation to give prison governors more flexibility and control over the curriculum so that they could better meet the learning needs of their prisoners. To address further recommendations, we introduced assessment on entry for English, maths and learning difficulties and disabilities, and boosted the capability of prisons to engage with employers through the creation of the New Futures Network (NFN). We expect to further improve the infrastructure for learning through the Government’s commitment to invest £200 million a year by 2024-25 to tackle reoffending and meet the manifesto commitment of delivering a new Prisoner Education Service. We have already started to trial innovation such as specialist education roles, as well as invest in digital tools to support prisoners with additional learning needs, such as trialling the use of reader pens.

Data on drugs finds are published online in the HMPPS Annual Digests. Although the data does not cover the precise period detailed in the question each Digest provides data for a 12-month time period up to March for a given year. From this data it is possible to calculate how many drug finds in prisons there have been in the two years before 1 April and the two years following 1 April 2019 (inclusive).

In August 2019, the Government committed to invest £100 million in prison security in an ambitious new Security Investment Programme. One of the aims of the Programme was to reduce the quantity of illicit items, including drugs, entering the prison estate.

Since then, we have seen the installation of 73 X-ray body scanners, with over 9000 positive indications. This has included contraband being retrieved, for example in one case 10.5g of cocaine with an estimated prison value of £4000 was recovered. The roll out of Enhanced Gate Security (EGS), based on the measures used in airport screening, has resulted in hundreds of illicit items prevented from entering prisons.

Preventing contraband such as drugs into prisons via the gate, reception and post is a key priority of my department. Despite challenges to operational delivery during the pandemic, we are delivering on our commitment for safer and more secure prisons including through the £100 million investment in prison security through the Security Investment Programme (SIP).

The evaluation of the impact of SIP is still in its early stages and we will report indicative findings in Spring 2022 and final findings in Spring 2023. Although formal evaluation is in its early stages, we do know that within its first year, the SIP has had multiple successes, achieving the following:

• The installation of 69 X-ray body scanners, with over 9000 positive indications. This has included contraband being retrieved, for example in one case 10.5g of cocaine with an estimated prison value of £4000 was recovered.

• The roll out of Enhanced Gate Security (EGS), replicating the measures used in airport screening, resulting in hundreds of illicit items being prevented from entering prisons.

This Government is committed to reducing reoffending by ensuring that all offenders have the tools they need to turn their backs on crime.

Families and friends can be a positive influence on reducing reoffending. Strengthening the ties individuals have with their families and friends is one of the many important factors to successful rehabilitation and reducing intergenerational crime.

We know family contact can reduce the likelihood of reoffending, Ministry of Justice research analysis reporting on surveys carried out from 2001 to 2004 found that the odds of reoffending were 39% higher for prisoners who had not received visits compared to those who had. The research summary is available here: Factors linked to re-offending: a one-year follow-up of prisoners who took part in the Resettlement Surveys 2001, 2003 and 2004 (antoniocasella.eu). However, information on the number of visits a prisoner receives and a reduction in reoffending behaviour is not available.

The latest published data on reoffending rates for those released from custody was published 27 May: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/proven-reoffending-statistics-january-to-march-2019

Stopping drugs getting into and circulating in prisons is a key priority. Whilst we will not be introducing a specific target, we are taking decisive action to improve our ability to disrupt this type of criminality by putting in place security counter-measures that would allow us to seize more items than ever before.

In August 2019, we announced £100 million investment to boost prison security and restrict supply with a focus on technology to detect and disrupt drugs and mobile phones from entering prisons. This is supported by enhancements to intelligence and counter corruption capabilities.

This investment supports our National Prison Drugs Strategy published in April 2019. The Strategy has three strands to tackle drugs in prisons: (1) restricting the supply; (2) reducing demand; and (3) building recovery from drugs and substance misuse. We are working with law enforcement and health partners across government to implement this and improvements to our drug testing framework are a key component of this strategy.

The Drug Recovery Prison (DRP) at Holme House, is a £9 million project which is jointly funded by the Department for Health and Social Care and MoJ. It provides an innovative, whole system approach to tackling substance misuse. The pilot aims to reduce the supply and demand for illicit substances in prisons, whilst supporting recovery. Findings from the evaluations of the pilot will help to identify successful initiatives that will be shared across the prison estate.

By its very nature, drug trafficking is intended to be a clandestine activity. It is therefore not possible to estimate a volume reduction in drugs being smuggled into prisons. However, we are taking a number of steps to strengthen our prisons’ defences against this type of criminality.

To support the ‘reducing supply’ strand of the National Prison Drugs Strategy, we are taking decisive action to improve security. This will make it much harder for illicit items to be smuggled in by prisoners, staff and visitors; strengthen staff resilience to corruption; and target organised criminals who exploit prisons as a lucrative illicit market. This package of measures is being funded through the £100m investment to tackle crime behind bars, announced by the Prime Minister last summer. This is funding tough new measures including X-ray body scanners to detect items smuggled inside prisoners’ bodies. Our ability to tackle drugs supply is also supported by efforts to reduce demand for drugs. This is why the National Drugs Strategy takes a three-pronged approach and focusses on tackling supply, reducing demand and building recovery from substance misuse.

A planned evaluation of the £100m investment will consider the wider benefits and outcomes for the safety and security of prisons as measures of success. It will use a range of both quantitative and qualitative measures to assess whether delivery of the investment has successfully reduced drug trafficking into prisons through the targeted supply routes.