§ Mr. IllsleyTo ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what progress is being made in increasing the numbers of problem drug misusers in treatment. [109169]
§ Marjorie MowlamThe Government have allocated an additional £200 million over three years to provide treatment for drug misusers. We are beginning to see the effect of this investment in expansion of treatment services in prisons, the development of arrest referral schemes and the expansion of community-based drug treatment services.
One of the barriers to faster expansion is the shortage of suitably skilled staff and I have recently announced a major new recruitment campaign for drug workers, to begin in March. This campaign will be jointly funded by the Department of Health and the Home Office and we aim to recruit up to 300 new drug workers. We hope to attract people from a wide range of backgrounds, and we are ensuring that training will be available to enable the new drug workers to begin work as quickly as possible.