We have made great progress in reducing drug misuse in prisons. Drug misuse, as measured by random mandatory drug testing, is down by 63 per cent. since the 1996-97 financial year. Record numbers of prisoners are engaged in drug treatment. Prison drug treatment funding has increased year on year since 1996-97—a thirteenfold increase—and record numbers are engaging with such treatment.
Is it really a good idea for the Government to spend £4 million on installing automatic vending machines in many prisons, including Dartmoor prison just outside my constituency, to supply methadone to prisoners? Is that really the best way to bear down on drug abuse?
The reference to methadone dispensers—which are medically arranged treatment programmes for prisoners that ensure that each prisoner gets only the correct dose of their maintenance treatment—as vending machines is a travesty of the truth. Vending suggests selling—that is what the word means—and there is no question that the Prison Service deals in such behaviour in our prisons.