Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-07-14
Topic: Law and Crime
Jonathan Toby Harris (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I support the amendment of my noble friend Lord Rosser. As some of your Lordships know, I have spent a certain amount of time in the last year or so visiting prisons in respect of the review that I have carried out for the Ministry of Justice on self-inflicted deaths of young people in prison. Psychoactive substances were not a prime element of our report, although the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman’s report issued in the last few days highlighted their increasing significance. I was struck by a discussion with the head of healthcare in an establishment who, when I asked about the level of drug use in the prison, said instantly one word, "Rife", to the embarrassment of the deputy governor accompanying us. That goes to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, about the prevalence of drugs in prisons, and the growing proportion of them which are these new psychoactive substances. The reason they are a growing proportion is because of their undetectability and the fact that it becomes more difficult to identify and prevent them. That is why it is important to have an aggravating factor with regard to the supply of these substances in prisons The Government have already legislated to prevent people throwing things over the prison wall. Although that has been reported to me as a significant problem, I am not convinced that it is the main source of drugs in prisons, nor do I think that it is the most difficult source of drugs in prisons to deal with because it is pretty obvious where things have been thrown over the wall and no doubt somebody could pick them up before the prisoners do so. However, drugs brought in from outside are often brought in by individuals. The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, talked about issues with visiting families and friends. I think that we should also examine the possible role of prison officers in this regard. Although this is not relevant to the report I was doing, I noticed the very different search regimes that exist in prisons for visiting dignitaries such as myself and those who are visiting because they are friends or family of prisoners, all of whom are subjected to fairly rigorous search regimes these days, and the apparent complete absence of similar search regimes for prison staff. These things should be examined as there is clearly a mismatch in that area Again, it was right for the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, to highlight the fact that there seems to be an underlying current of people saying, "The only way that you can maintain good order in prisons is for there to be a certain level of availability of these things". That is not the right approach—the right approach is to ensure that there is sufficient staffing, purposeful activity and focus on education and rehabilitation in the prison to ensure that availability of these things is no longer the mechanism to deliver good order. In the context of the report from the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman in the last few days and the report issued today by the Chief Inspector of Prisons, and given the level of the problem that exists in prisons, I hope that the Minister will feel able to accept my noble friend’s amendment.