Minister calls for drugs in prisons to be treated as public health issue

A minister said substance-free wings are ‘a really good way of supporting people’ (Alamy/PA) -

Prisons minister Lord Timpson has called for the problem of drugs in the UK’s jails to be treated as a public health issue, as MPs heard of the deaths of 17 inmates at Parc prison in South Wales.

Four members of staff at the prison in Bridgend were arrested on suspicion of assault and misconduct in September following reports of the deaths.