Former MP for Shoreditch and Finsbury
Question No. 52, Sir.
asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he will announce the new standing orders relating to letters sent by prisoners to Members of Parliament; and what are the principal changes he is considering.
While welcoming that reply, may I ask the hon. and learned Gentleman if he is aware that an urgent letter from my constituent, Collier, then under sentence of death, took six days to reach me? Is he aware that the prison authorities said that this was because it had been held back pending sanction by the Commissioner before it was posted? Is not it intolerable that even in matters of life and...
Is the hon. and learned Gentleman aware that I received the letter on a Wednesday, delayed six days, and that the man was due to be hanged on the following Tuesday but was reprieved on the Friday? Is he aware that the letter was kept back only because of a stupid, harsh rule and that as a result of delay the man might now be dead? Surely that kind of thing is utterly wrong and indefensible....
asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is yet in a position to announce his proposals for reducing overcrowding in local prisons by reducing the time spent in stage I by preventive detainees.
But does the hon. and learned Gentleman realise that many of these detainees are sweltering three to a cell whereas at Parkhurst there are 138 empty cells and there are empty cells at other prisons? Is the difficulty that he cannot get the Commissioners to change, and if that is so, will he suggest to his right hon. Friend that he should change the Commissioners and get something done?
asked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that domestic furniture deliveries in the first quarter of 1958 were 15 per cent. below the level of the corresponding period in 1954; that, since 1st January, 1957, owing to Government restrictions, particularly affecting the furniture industry, 29 manufacturers in the London area, with 2,027 employees, have gone into liquidation or...
Is the Minister aware that last March his right hon. Friend told a trade deputation that the trade was at the head of the queue for easement of restriction, and that since then conditions have very much worsened and that most firms in the trade are on short-time, many on half-time? When will a decision be reached? Is not a serious situation arising?
