Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 20 December 1976.
I am not saying that. I think that my hon. Friend is being most unfair when he makes that suggestion. The hon. Member for the Isle of Wight talked about a queue for the special hospitals. We are ensuring that the queue continues to move. The Park Lane project will provide some extra places, although I concede what the Butler Committee reported.
The hon. Gentleman raised the problem whether those who are remanded to Holloway are rightly remanded and whether there is any need for a remand in custody, especially when we bear in mind that 10 per cent. of those who are remanded are acquitted. I must make it clear that it is a matter for the courts to decide. In my view, the courts are rightly independent of ministerial directive as to what decisions they make in individual cases. The legislative framework that the House has provided by the recent Bail Act should mean that the number of remands in custody will diminish. That is because the criteria for remanding in custody are tightened and turn chiefly on the person on remand re-offending while awaiting trial.
The last matter raised by the hon. Gentleman was the sports complex at Camp Hill. He is right in saying that many of our institutions are Victorian in a very real sense of the word. Conditions are undesirable. We would wish to see them improved if we could do so. Part of the dichotomy lies in the public's attitude.
I suspect that the hon. Gentleman must have experienced a certain reaction from some of his constituents. When a sports complex is built, such as the one at Camp Hill, for use by prisoners, a similar attitude is expressed to that which is heard about unemployment or social security—namely, "If I were unemployed, I should be getting money from the State" or "If I were not working, I should get social security payments." The same reaction is heard when attention is turned to prison facilities. It is said, "If we were prisoners we should get sports facilities, but as we are not we do not get them." The country has to face that profound dichotomy.
The fact is that if the public want prisoners to be in a fit state to re-enter life in the community, the facilities that we have been discussing are necessary. But more important than that is that if people want good relationships inside the prisons between staff and prisoners, such facilities are necessary both for the welfare of the prisoner and for the good running of penal institutions. All these matters are considered, and I have dealt with the amount of money that we are spending on capital projects and the emphasis that is placed on security and general basic maintenance.