The following questions stood upon the Paper in the name of Mr. KING—
15. To ask the Secretary for Scotland whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that in 1914 704 prisoners were sentenced for prison offences to sleeping on a wooden guard bed; if he will state the kind of bed thus used and the maximum term for which a prisoner may be condemned to sleep on it; whether he is aware that in England no prisoner may be deprived of his mattress; and whether he will consider the making of a similar rule with respect to prisons in Scotland?
16. To ask the Secretary for Scotland whether he will state what is the maximum term for which a prisoner in Scotland may be sentenced to solitary confinement for a prison offence; and what was the average term for which the seventy-five prisoners sentenced in 1914 to such confinement were so sentenced?
17. To ask the Secretary for Scotland whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that in 1914 no prisoner in Scotland was sentenced to solitary confinement except at Peterhead, where seventy-five prisoners were so sentenced; and whether, in view of the fact that elsewhere in Scotland the punishment has been found to be unnecessary, he will order the abolition of the punishment?
Mr. McKINNON WOODWould my hon. Friend postpone these questions till next Tuesday? I have not yet got the information for which he asks.
§ Mr. WATTAre we to understand that the last time the hon. Member for North Somerset (Mr. King) was in Scotland he spent most of his time in these institutions?
Mr. McKINNON WOODI could not hear the question of my hon. Friend, and 1638 I am sorry, because it appears to have been witty. I must ask him to speak up. Would he mind repeating the question?