1. What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for the Home Department of the effects on the size of the prison population of implementation of the provisions of the Drugs Act 2005. (32677)

We have not recently discussed this specific point, but both the Government’s sentencing and rehabilitation Green Paper and their drug strategy include commitments to encourage drug-misusing offenders into recovery-based treatment.

Jailing drug offenders costs taxpayers half a billion pounds a year—£41,000 per prisoner. As health treatments are far better value and more effective, would not it be more sensible to treat drug addicts as patients, not as criminals?

It may be more sensible in many cases. That is why we said in the Green Paper that we published before Christmas that we would test options for intensive community-based treatment—both residential and non-residential—and couple that with more rigorous community orders. It is important to have a punitive element for offending as well. The goal should be to ensure that offenders get off drugs, but too often that is not the case.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the new drug strategy represents a significant shift from the present treatment system, which is characterised by repetitive assessments and conflicting funding streams, to one of payment by results—those results being the number not of boxes ticked but of addicts in recovery beyond the prison gates?

I strongly agree: we do have a problem at the moment. A recent study showed that nearly a fifth of offenders in prison who had ever tried heroin had tried it for the first time in prison. In some cases, offenders get on to drugs, and we also have a problem with treatments, with drug rehabilitation requirements that are not completed. We have to get more rigour into drug treatment. That is why the payment-by-results model that we will pilot to get offenders off drugs, for both community orders and post-release treatment, is such an attractive way forward.