§ SIR HENRY JAMES (Bury, Lancashire)asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If his attention has been called to the sentences under which several successive floggings are to be inflicted upon certain prisoners; and, whether Her Majesty's Government purpose taking any steps, by legislation or otherwise, to prevent sentences of such severity being inflicted?
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS) (Birmingham, E.)Yes, Sir; my attention has been called to two sentences of flogging recently passed at the Leeds Assizes for offences of robbing with personal violence under an Act of Parliament passed in 1863. Her Majesty's Government have not had under their consideration the expediency of modifying the provisions of that statute. The subject of corporal punishment as part of a criminal sentence is one which, in my opinion, well deserves to be reconsidered as a whole.