AN MP says security measures aimed at stopping the flow of drugs into his local prison don’t go far enough.

On the day Theresa May brought her cabinet to the North-East, it emerged Justice Secretary David Gawke had visited Holme House prison, in Stockton, where extra staff, new body scanners and extra sniffer dogs were recently introduced.

Stockton North MP Alex Cunningham said he had been pressing the Government to trial a new kind of scanner at Holme House which can detect substances within the body as the current equipment was inadequate in this sense.

Mr Cunningham said greater action was required by the Government to tackle drugs at the Stockton jail in the wake of a “damning” annual report that was published earlier this year which exposed continuing concerns about the use of psychoactive substances and levels of violence.

He said: “I have asked the Prisons Minister [Rory Stewart] to include Holme house in the trial of new scanners which can detect drugs inside the body.

“I’m sure that would help with the increasing use of Spice, which is damaging for prisoners and staff alike.

“I hope that the Justice Secretary will agree with me after his visit that there are serious concerns that need to be addressed, particularly on the issue of drugs, prisoner on prisoner and prisoner on prison officer violence.”

Labour’s Mr Cunningham said he was surprised at the apparent secrecy surrounding Mr Gauke’s visit and said while he was briefed the justice secretary was in his constituency, the media was apparently unaware.

The Ministry of Justice did not detail the exact nature of Mr Gauke’s visit, but said it had spun out of the cabinet visit on Monday.

A Prison Service spokesman said it had now been made a criminal offence to possess psychoactive substances in prison

He said: “We are investing £14m each year to stop criminal gangs doing business in jail.

“More staff, new body scanners, extra sniffer dogs and a dedicated drug search team have been introduced at Holme House, which has already seen a drop in the level of drugs.”

Some prison officers have described being overcome by the fumes produced by Spice when it is smoked by inmates

It has also been held responsible for an increase in violence with users becoming zombie-like and losing control of their senses and reality.

Earlier this year a representative of the Tees Esk and Wear Valley NHS Trust, which provides mental health care at seven prisons in the North-East, said psychoactive substances within the prison state were “crippling us”.

Its head of offender health Lisa Taylor said it was also spending “a lot of time trying to coordinate the safety of our staff” at Holme House.