MR. PATRICK O'BRIENI beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has any objection to cause the prison inspectors to inquire directly of the officers in uniform the maximum number of hours they are kept on duty, and report whether any officers are employed as much as 15 hours per day; whether officers off duty are obliged to sleep in the prison, in case of emergency, that they should be within call; and, whether the Departmental Committee recommend that such night duty should reckon for pay; and, if so, whether he will see that pay is given in such cases in future?
§ SIR MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEYPrison officers are afforded frequent opportunities of personally bringing to the notice of the Commissioners, Directors and Inspectors any grievance or matter of complaint. I cannot go farther and invite the officers to make complaints. It is a part of the regular duty of every officer to take his turn of "sleeping in" the prison; the duty is a light one, and was not considered by the Committee of 1891, which specially inquired into the pay and hours of duty of prison officers, to involve any strain or to be one for which they were entitled to compensation. It is very rarely that officers are disturbed. I am not aware of the reasons which led the Prisons Committee to make their recommendation, and am not prepared to give effect to it.