§ Lord Aveburyasked Her Majesty's Government:
Who pays for the "interpreters used where appropriate" in monitoring telephone calls made by prisoners from SSUs, as noted in the Review of the Implementation of the Recommendations contained in Sir John Woodcock's Report on the Escape from Whitemoor Prison on Friday, 9 September 1994 by General Sir John Learmont.
§ Baroness BlatchResponsibility for this matter has been delegated to the temporary Director General of the Prison Service, who has been asked to arrange for a reply to be given.
20WALetter to Lord Avebury from the Director of Security and Programmes, the Prison Service, Mr. A. J. Pearson, dated 9/1/96:
The Home Secretary has asked me, in the absence of the Director General from the office, to reply to your recent Question about who pays for interpreters of telephone calls made in non English languages by prisoners from Special Security Units [SSUs].
The budget for translation of non English language calls has been devolved to area managers and through them to the governors of the prisons where these prisoners are held. It is for the governor to decide how many calls should be paid for by the Prison Service out of this budget. If a prisoner wants to make any calls in addition to the limit set by the governor and the governor allows these calls to be made, the prisoner must meet the cost of translation.
Translation costs are paid by the governor of Belmarsh for one telephone call a month, and in Whitemoor the governor pays for the translation costs of two telephone calls a month.
We are currently considering whether it would be right to establish consistency between SSUs.