Clause 12
Offender Management Bill
3:15 pm
Gerry Sutcliffe (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Bradford South, Labour)
As I said, I do not believe that the powers will be used on a vast number of occasions. I do not have an exact figure to hand. However, the police would clearly be interested in acting if reasonable concerns had been raised by the prison custody officer. I am not trying to deflect the hon. Gentleman’s question. I am as concerned as he about the use of police resources, but we are trying to set out a sensible opportunity for the police to be called if there is a reason to suspect that an offence is being committed. We think that the two-hour period is enough to ensure that there is no impact on police resources and is appropriate in areas where great distances need to be travelled. If we have any figures, I will make sure that the hon. Gentleman receives them. We are talking about prison visitors here, so any occurrence would be very rare.