§ MR. LABOUCHERE (Northampton)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, in reference to the fourteen days' annual leave granted to the officers of Her Majesty's Convict Prison, Portland, which leave is to be taken under the regulations as to one seven days before the 1st July in each year, and as to the remaining seven days after the 1st July, whether it was intended that such divided leave should be granted to the prison officers so far as possible when convenient to them, especially having regard to the fact that, when they were formerly allowed eleven days' leave of absence, such leave was not only granted without apportionment into two halves as now, but was obtainable when most convenient to the applicant?
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. MATTHEWS,) Birmingham, E.It is intended that leave should be granted when most convenient to the officers, subject to the requirements of the service and the claims for preference of choice among the officers themselves. It was found formerly when no system was followed that applications for leave were made at the same period of the year, with the result that they could not all be granted. The present system has been in force at other convict prisons, with the result of spreading the leave more equally over the year.