I am thankful to the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, for summarising his thinking behind this amendment. Clause 10 amends Section 64 of the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000, which allows for the Secretary of State to impose a drug testing requirement on offenders aged 18 or over released from prison on licence. The Bill deals with efforts to improve the rehabilitation of offenders and to cut reoffending. Many noble Lords will agree that tackling offending behaviour will often mean tackling an offender’s problem with drugs. Drug use is common among offenders serving custodial sentences. One study reported 64% of people surveyed as having used class A drugs and 74% as having used class B or class C drugs.
Research has also shown that drug use among prisoners is strongly associated with reconviction on release, with the rate of reconviction more than doubling for prisoners who reported using drugs in the four weeks before custody, compared with prisoners who had never used drugs. And it is not just class A drugs that are
associated with higher reconviction rates. Offenders who use class B or class C drugs in the four weeks before imprisonment had a reconviction rate of 48%, compared to 30% for those who had never used drugs. What drives this association will vary from offender to offender. For some offenders who are dependent on, say, cannabis or amphetamines, their crime may be linked to the need to fund their drug habit. For others, a propensity to misuse such drugs may expose them to other offenders, risky environments or situations that encourage further reoffending. That can make the process of rehabilitation that much harder. If a connection, direct or indirect, with class B drugs, such as cannabis or amphetamines, is a factor in a significant number of offenders ending up in custody or reoffending, we should do what we can to support offenders to break that connection. Testing for class B drugs is designed to complement those activities.
Turning to the substance of the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, Section 70 of the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000 currently provides a power for the Secretary of State to specify via statutory instrument the class A drugs for which an offender released on licence can be tested. This power is subject to the negative resolution procedure. In extending this order-making power to cover class B drugs, we have proposed to keep the negative resolution procedure. It is important that if changes need to be made to the list—for example, if drugs are reclassified or renamed or new drugs appear—that can be done quickly. When initially specifying what class B drugs are within scope, we will, of course, want to look in detail at the evidence for their usage by offenders, their links to reoffending and the availability of testing equipment. I should also point out to noble Lords that the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee did not raise any issues with this extended power remaining subject to the negative resolution procedure. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, will feel able to withdraw his amendment.