To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how much he has allocated for the provision of alcohol awareness programmes in schools over the next three years; and how much was spent on such programmes in each of the last three years. (150414)

The Government recently published the new Alcohol Strategy for England, which highlights young people as one of three priority groups. Alcohol education is delivered alongside education on drugs and volatile substances as part of Personal Social and Health Education, and is a vital element of the current approach.

DCSF does not provide ring-fenced funding for schools’ drug education lessons, which are funded from schools’ general budgets.

The Government provide ring-fenced funding to prevent substance misuse among young people. The Young People’s Substance Misuse Partnership Grant (YPSMPG) is made available to local authorities for the provision of universal, targeted and specialist responses commissioned and delivered at locally, based on their area’s needs and priorities. The grant funds a range of different projects across the country determined at local level, which are available for young people.

The grant brings together into a single pot funding from the Home Office, the Department of Health, the Youth Justice Board and the Department for Children, Schools and Families. The following table details the total YPSMPG expenditure for the past five years (note that the first year, 2003/04, was a pilot year in 27 local authority areas):

The YPSMPG is used in addition to mainstream funding to provide a comprehensive range of services for young people up to 18 years:

Universal—substance misuse education, information and advice and prevention campaigns

Targeted—early identification, assessment and prevention interventions with vulnerable young people in risk groups

Specialist—provision of specialist substance misuse treatment for under 18’s

In addition to supporting the work of local partnerships, The Government fund specific programmes targeting messages for young people about substances, including the FRANK campaign which has become a credible source of information and advice for young people and their parents. The cross departmental campaign was launched in 2003 funded by Home Office and Department of Health, with the Department for Children Schools and Families contributing from 2006/07.

The Government are committed to expanding and improving the quality of school drug education (Inc tobacco, alcohol, volatile substance), through encouraging the development of well structured high quality programmes of PSHE across all key stages.

The national health schools standard requires schools to demonstrate effective PSHE provision. The Government have also invested over £6 million on Blueprint, the largest research programme ever run in this country designed to test the effectiveness of a multi-component approach to drug education, involving an intensive set of school lessons for 11-13 year olds supported by work with parents, communities, health professionals and local media. The full results of the programme will be available over the next 12 months or so.