§ MR. CLAVELL SALTER (Hants, Basingstoke)To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that at the recent Quarter Sessions for Hampshire, soldiers who were on their trial for criminal offences were compelled to appear in the dock in prison dress; whether this practice is general and has been ordered or sanctioned by the Home Department; and whether, in view of the degradation and indignity involved, he will direct that in future soldiers placed upon their trial may be given the option of wearing civilian dress.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) It is undesirable that soldiers should be placed in the dock wearing His Majesty's uniform. If they have other clothes fit to wear they are allowed to wear them, but if not they are supplied with clothes of the special kind supplied to other prisoners awaiting trial, when they do not wear their own, and quite different from those worn by convicted prisoners. This seems to me the best arrangement possible.