To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what his policy is on the taking of illegal drugs in prisons; and if he will make a statement. (100969)

The taking of illicit drugs in prison is not tolerated. A comprehensive framework of initiatives is in place to reduce the amount of illegal drugs getting into prisons. Robust measures are in place to deal with those individuals who use drugs in prison or who attempt to supply drugs into prisons.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many prison places he plans to bring into use from (a) refurbishment, (b) new build on existing sites and (c) new build on sites that do not currently house a prison in each of the next five years; (112278)

NOMS undertakes a rolling programme of refurbishment on the prison estate. As schemes come back into use following refurbishment, other schemes are taken forward and the accommodation is taken out of use.

Around 10,000 places are planned to be delivered over the next five years. Approximately half will be on sites not currently occupied by prisons. The programme is still in the planning stages and the number of places to be provided in each of the next five years has not been finalised.

The estimated capital cost of this new capacity is around £1.7 billion. The breakdown of costs in each of the next five years has not yet been finalised.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he receives daily reports from the Prison Service on the number of prisoners housed outside the prison estate during the previous night. (112319)

The number of prisoners held in police cells is available as management information to Ministers on a daily basis.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many vacant prison places there are for male category (a) A, (b) B, (c) C and (d) D prisoners in England and Wales. (112391)

Only adult male sentenced prisoners are allocated a category of A, B, C or D. Categorisation takes into account a number of factors, one of which is security. A prisoner must be assigned to the correct security category even if it may not be possible to allocate the prisoner to a particular establishment for prisoners in that category. Therefore, as prison places can hold a variety of category of prisoner (but not a higher category than the prison is designated to hold), it is not possible to calculate the number of vacant prison places for each category.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many vacant prison places there are for female prisoners in (a) category A, (b) open and (c) closed prisons in England and Wales. (112392)

Female prisoners are categorised as suitable for open, semi-open or closed conditions. A prisoner must be assigned to the correct security category even if it may not be possible to allocate the prisoner to a particular establishment for prisoners in that category. Therefore, as prison places can hold a variety of category of prisoner (but not a higher category than the prison is designated for), it is not possible to calculate the number of vacant prison places for female prisoners in open and closed conditions.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prisoners were transferred from Category C prisons to Ford Prison in each month since 1 January 2006; what category of offence had been committed by each of those prisoners; and what the term of the prison sentence was in each case. (116192)

The information requested is not available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the prison places to be provided by the new prison HMP Kennet in Merseyside are (a) part of and (b) in addition to the 8,000 extra places promised by 2012. (117739)

The places provided at HMP Kennet are additional to the 8,000-place building programme as announced in July 2006.