Drugs Bill

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Standing Committee F

Tuesday 1 February 2005

(Morning)

[Mr. Eric Illsley in the Chair]

Drugs Bill

Clause 3

Drug offence searches: England and Wales

9.10 am

Mrs. Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con): I beg to move amendment No. 35, in clause 3, page 4, line 22, at end insert—

'(d) a prison officer'.

This is a probing amendment. Subsection (6) defines ''appropriate officer'' as:

''a constable, . . . a person who is designated as a detention officer in pursuance of section 38 of the Police Reform Act 2002 if his designation applies paragraph 33D of Schedule 4 to that Act, or . . . a person who is designated as a staff custody officer in pursuance of section 38 of that Act if his designation applies paragraph 35B of Schedule 4 to that Act,''.

Clause 38(2) in part 4 of the Police Reform Act 2002 defines ''officers'' as

''community support officer; . . . investigating officer; . . . detention officer; . . . escort officer.''

The amendment is a request for clarification because the clause does not mention prison officer. I would like the Minister to define clearly the appropriate officer, and to include prison officer under the definition in the Bill if she believes that the term should be included.

We all know that there is an enormous problem with drugs in our prisons. The number of people in prison for drug offences alone is very high and is growing. The last figures that I have for 2002 show that 16 per cent. of sentenced male prisoners were convicted of drug offences, whereas in 1993, only 7 per cent. of our sentenced male prisoners were convicted for drug offences. There has been a similar enormous increase in the number of sentenced female prisoners convicted of drugs offences. Back in 1993, some 27 per cent. of the sentenced female prison population had been convicted of drugs offences, but in 2002, that figure had risen alarmingly to about 40 per cent.

The Home Office has undertaken several studies on the problem. A recent Home Office study found that 47 per cent. of recently sentenced male prisoners had used heroin, crack or cocaine in the 12 months before imprisonment, and that heroin was the drug most likely to be used daily. Overall, 73 per cent. of all respondents from the sentenced male prison population had taken an illegal drug before entering prison. In some inner city local prisons, as many as eight out of 10 men are found to have class A drugs in their system on reception. In Styal, the women's prison, the same number of new arrivals are thought to have a drugs problem.

 
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Drug use on release from prison is also very high, which is alarming. A Home Office survey of prisoners who had mostly served short sentences and had used drugs in the 12 months before imprisonment found that 77 per cent. admitted taking illegal drugs since release. We can therefore see a pattern emerging: many of the people entering our prison population are users and abusers of drugs, but an enormous number of those who are released after having served a prison sentence are also taking illegal drugs.

The problem is highlighted by Anne Owers, the chief inspector of prisons for England and Wales, in her latest annual report, which came out in the past week or so. As page 36 makes clear, there are huge drugs issues in prisons, and supply reduction and monitoring is an issue in all of them. Apparently, there were gaps in mandatory drug testing in many prisons, with little or no weekend testing and inconsistent target testing. The majority of the mandatory drug-testing positives related to cannabis, but the key performance target did not distinguish between cannabis and class A drugs, so it provided a limited measure of the scale of the problem. Interestingly, there were also issues in some establishments about the reliability of particular drug dogs, which are used extensively in prisons. Establishments that integrated supply and demand reduction were likely to be far more successful in reducing the availability of illegal drugs.

Although the term ''a prison officer'' is not included in the Bill, we need to know what the situation in our prisons is. We cannot have hard evidence, but it seems likely that people who are going into prison are not being cured of their drug problem and that others may, indeed, even acquire a drug habit while they are in prison. I therefore tabled the amendment so that the Minister can tell us what is happening in our prisons, what statistics are being kept in prisons and how she will prevent prisoners from acquiring drug habits and from leaving prison in a worse condition than when they went in.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Caroline Flint): I look forward to you chairing today's proceedings, Mr. Illsley. I hope that we make good progress.

I shall resist the temptation to have a lengthy debate about prisons and drugs; suffice it to say that record sums are going into tackling drug addiction. That includes ensuring that we have appropriate access to treatment across the Prison Service and that we take a coherent approach from the time that someone is arrested so that they are given support if they go to prison and afterwards. That is why record resources are going into dealing with this issue.

The drug interventions programme is very much about dealing with what has been a weakness over many generations: when people with a drug problem have gone to prison, little attention has been given to their problem, and they have ended up passing through the revolving door time and again. That is why testing is important and why the process of engagement needs to start before people go to court. It
 
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needs to continue when they go to prison and—let us not forget—when they leave prison and go back into the community.

We are trying to tackle some of the problems about which the police have informed us. People may, for example, hide drugs in the cavities of their bodies and refuse to have an intimate search, which has caused the police problems. That is what lies behind the clause. The amendment would include prison officers in the definition of an ''appropriate officer''. I have looked into the matter and have had extensive discussions about whether it is right to leave prisons officers out of the clause. I have asked what happens when a prisoner, a visitor to a prison or, regrettably, somebody working in one is involved in drug activity. While they are on duty, prison officers have all the powers of a constable, including arrest. Prisoner custody officers, who are the officers at contracted-out prisons, do not have the powers of a constable, but they have a citizen's power of arrest. There is likely to be a change to the Management of Offenders and Sentencing Bill that will give prisoner custody officers the power to detain a suspected smuggler for two hours, pending the arrival of the police. That will be a helpful strengthening of their role.

If a prison officer suspects that a visitor is trying to smuggle drugs into a prison by concealment, that visitor will be stopped, arrested and detained pending the arrival of the police. The visitor will not be subjected to an intimate search at the prison, either by prison officers or by the police. The police will decide whether to release the visitor or to take him into custody, where he will be removed to a police station and processed as would any other suspect. In that situation, following the authorisation by an inspector that is covered in the clause, the suspect might be subject to an intimate search at the police station under the provisions of section 55 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. The clauses, if agreed, will apply in that situation. I have asked whether we are missing something—whether prison officers, having received authorisation, should be able to ask a person whether he will comply with an intimate search. The feedback has been that it is not necessary because, if that point is reached, it will be a police matter, and it should be dealt with in a police environment. However, I hope that I have made it clear that that is not to deny that prison officers and prisoner custody officers have a role in tackling the use of drugs in prison and their being brought in.

Mrs. Gillan: I appreciate that the Minister has been making inquiries as to what happens in prison. However, she has raised a few points about people who work in prisons. I should like, briefly, to explore with her what rights prison officers have to search other people working in a prison who are suspected of having brought in drugs.

One of the most serious issues that I have found on visiting prisons has been that visitors often bring in drugs by concealing them not on themselves but on children attending prison on family visits. One of the biggest problems for prison officers is their feeling that they should inspect babies' clothes and nappies,
 
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because they are vehicles by which drugs can be brought into prisons. What have the Minister's inquiries revealed on those two fronts?

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Prepared 1 February 2005