To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the likely impact on the rates of drug related acquisitive crime of changes in funding levels for Westminster city council’s drug intervention programmes for 2007-08. (139055)

There is a well established link between certain acquisitive crimes and drug misuse. Drug treatment has been shown to significantly reduce drug related offending which is why through the Drug Interventions Programme over 75,000 offenders have entered treatment since the beginning of the programme in 2003.

The Home Office is working closely with the regional Government offices, including London and colleagues from the National Treatment Agency, to encourage partnerships to ensure that operational capacity—which is the key to getting offenders into treatment and reducing crime—continues to have top priority in the new budget allocations. The Drug Interventions Programme remains on course to meet its target of getting 1,000 offenders a week into treatment by April 2008.