What discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Justice on measures to reduce drug-related reoffending among women who have previously served a custodial sentence.

The Home Secretary has engaged with senior Ministers, including the Secretary of State for Justice, in the development of the shared public service agreement indicator to reduce drug-related offending and of the 2008 drug strategy. The strategy includes measures to reduce drug-related crime and offending through proactively targeting and managing drug-misusing offenders, including women.

On a visit to HM Prison Send to see the women there in the RAPT—Rehabilitation for Addicted Prisoners Trust—programme, I saw the excellent work going on there. Those women's greatest fear was of being released and slipping back into a life of drug-taking and then reoffending. What extra help can be offered by the two Departments, working together, to ensure that those women get the care that they need following their release?

My hon. Friend raises an extremely important point, and through the drug strategy that has just been published we are trying to recognise that if we are to treat substance misuse successfully we need not only to treat the addiction but to recognise the chaotic lifestyles that people often had prior to being imprisoned and to which they will go back when they leave. We need to tackle that problem, which means closer co-operation between the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office, and between all the other Departments that deal with benefits, housing, employment, the family and other family-related and social issues. We are working together as a Government to ensure that the offender manager for the women in question takes into account all those factors and that there is much closer co-operation between all involved to ensure that all the needs of offenders are met when they leave prison.