§
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £3,490, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1936, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Prisons Department for Scotland and of the Prisons under their control, including the Maintenance of Criminal Lunatics, Defectives, and Inmates of the State Inebriate Reformatory, and the Preparation of Judicial Statistics."—[Sir G. Collins.]
§ 6.37 p.m.
§ Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLEThis Supplementary Estimate is required for three items, the restoration of economy cuts in pay, the provision of materials and tools required for the use of prisoners, and the charge for making up a private road adjacent to Aberdeen Prison. These items amount to an additional charge of £4,160. Against that, there is an Appropriation-in-Aid of £670, being, in the main, receipts derived from the sale of mail bags to the Post Office. That leaves a total of £3,490.
§ Mr. MACLEANWhat it the item F, in regard to the instruction of prisoners?
§ Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLEThat is material required for the work done in the instruction of prisoners. No extra amount is required for special services.
§ Mr. BUCHANANWhat prisons are actually affected?
§ Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLEI think it is throughout the poisons where the manufacture of mail bags is carried out, and is in respect of tie canvas for mail bags for the Post Office.
§ 6.39 p.m.
§ Mr. BENSONI want to protest against what is happening in prisons.
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANI am afraid that that does not arise on this Supplementary Estimate.
§ Mr. BENSONOn a point of Order. I want to protest that there are certain individuals in Barlinnie Prison who ought not to be there. Had they not been there, the amount of money involved in the purchase of extra materials to be worked upon would be considerably less.
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANThe hon. Member is being very ingenious, but I cannot admit his argument.
§ Mr. BENSONSurely it is permissible to raise reasons why the money has to be spent?
§ The DEPUTY - CHAIRMANThat might be true, but the hon. Gentleman cannot use that principle upon which to hang an argument that would only be admissible on the main Estimate.
§ Mr. BENSONI should like to know how it is that £3,310 has been spent on materials for making mail bags and that the Appropriation-in-Aid only amounts to —670? I feel very strongly about mail bags, having made many of them. I feel that if prisoners working on £3,300 worth of material reduce the value of the material to £670, Scottish prisoners are considerably less skilled than the prisoners were in my prison.
§ 6.41 p.m.
§ Mr. MACLEANI take exception to the sum required. The manufacture of mail bags ought not to take place inside His Majesty's prisons whether ordinary prisons or criminal lunatic asylums. We are justified in taking exception to the amount that has been put down to purchase material with which to provide instruction to prisoners in the manufacture of mail bags. I would be out of order of I were to suggest any form of employment which, in our opinion, would be an improvement upon that work, which the prisoners will never be required to do outside. Those who control the prisons of Scotland should improve their instructional methods, and should provide prisoners with work to which they could turn their hands when they come out of the institution. The sum which we are voting will be lost, because it is going into a cul-de-sac, a dead-end of occupation for those who are going to use the material.
This Vote deals with all classes of prisoners, including those in criminal lunatic asylums as well as with Stoneyetts, to which prison mental defectives are sent. I have had my attention drawn recently to a number of cases, which I have sent to the Secretary of State for Scotland. In one I was informed that the individual concerned was being instructed in a special class, but my latest information is that the special 338 training consists in digging drains. That represents practically no instruction of an educational character. The individual is being used almost as a manual labourer, with several others. Such cases seem to be growing in number. In Glasgow, particularly, young lads, guilty merely of a little horse-play or a boyish escapade, are taken before a court and sentenced to one or two months' imprisonment. They are examined under the authority of the Scottish Office and the Prisons Department, certified mentally defective, and sent to Stoneyetts.
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANThe hon. Member will be in order in referring to matters connected with the instruction of prisoners, but he is now dealing with general questions of administration.
§ Mr. MACLEANI was stating, for the information of the Committee, certain things that are happening in Glasgow, in order that I might lead up to the question of the numbers of these youths under 20 who, under the system that seems to have grown up in our local police and sheriff courts, are now being certified and sent to this asylum for mental defectives, where they are supposed to be receiving instruction which in fact they are not getting. If there were only one individual case it would be bad enough, but when there is a number of cases in which the same treatment is being received we have a right to protest. I suggest to the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary that there ought to be an inquiry into the system which now prevails. I have seen some of these young lads, and in my opinion they are not mentally defective at all, but they are, practically speaking, being put to manual labour on the ground. I suggest that the Minister, the Under-Secretary and the Scottish Office ought to review the whole of the circumstances. I have asked for a permit to visit this institution, but I have not yet received it. I am told that, if I will state on what day it will be convenient for me to go, they will let me know if I can go there. That is not sufficient for a Member of the House who is interested in the welfare of a number of his constituents. I want to be able to pay such a. visit when I return to Glasgow, but I cannot always acquaint either the authorities in Glasgow or the Scottish 339 Office of the particular days upon which I shall be able—
§ Mr. BUCHANANWhy should they not give us a free pass to all the prisons?
§ Mr. MACLEANWe might go there sooner than we expected, and some of those of us who have been protesting about the manufacture of mail bags might be engaged in it themselves. Surely we are entitled to inquire about people in whom we are interested and whose parents have protested to us about the treatment and instruction that they are receiving. We ought to be able to go and see for ourselves, giving due notice, of course, but not having to wait for a permit from the Scottish Office. There should not be the present delay and the red tape which seems to be even more plentiful than the material which is purchased for the manufacture of mail bags. The way in which young persons in Glasgow are being certified and sent to become mere manual labourers, without receiving any instruction that will benefit them in civil life, is becoming a great scandal.
§ 6.49 p.m.
§ Mr. LEONARDThe Secretary of State may recollect that, the last time these Estimates were discussed, certain observations were made with regard to the question of buildings and offices. I would like to put a question with regard to Sub-head O—Ordinary Repairs of Buildings. As far as I can ascertain, the Department has attended to one point that was raised, namely, the provision of water tanks for prisoners and others working in the quarries, which was very much overdue. I want to refer to Barlinnie Prison—
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANBarlinnie Prison comes under Sub-head N, which is not now before the Committee.
§ 6.50 p.m.
§ Mr. BUCHANANI agree with the remarks of the hon. Member for Govan (Mr. N. Maclean) about Stoneyetts. I wish that the Secretary of State for Scotland would pay a visit to that institution. I go to Peterhead sometimes, but when I go there I might as well be the Man in the Moon. As a Member of the House of Commons I am asked to vote money for Peterhead Prison, but I am 340 never allowed a single facility, although I should like to know what I have voted that money for. I wish that the Secretary of State and the Lord Advocate would provide Members of Parliament who take an interest in prison work with reasonable facilities for access to these prisons.
I desire to ask a question on Subhead C—Pay and Allowances of Officers—with regard to the restoration of the cut in wages. The original Estimate was for £83,718, and the revised Estimate is only £320 more. Obviously if the cuts had been restored to every one it would cost far more than £320. Why is it that this sum is so small as compared with what the restoration of the cuts would cost? I cannot see how, in the case of a prison, the Estimates could be very far wrong. It is not a Department of State that is constantly chopping up and down, and I would ask whether the smallness of this increase is due to any other form of economy, such as reduction of staff in any other direction?
§ 6.53 p.m.
§ Mr. HARDIEWith regard to the question of instruction of prisoners, which is included in Sub-head F, should I be in order in asking what the instruction in farming is, and whether any instruction is given to those who are put on the land? One cart understand pretty well the question as regards mail bags, but since under this Sub-head we vote money for the purchase of implements to deal with land, I should be glad if we could be told, as regards the instruction in farming, whether there is anyone who is qualified by skill in farming to give instruction to those who are detained there.
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANThe note on my copy of the Estimate states that this money is required for the purchase of canvas. The question with which the hon. Member is dealing does not now arise.
§ Mr. HARDIESub-head F is for:
Materials and Tools for Manufactures and Farms.
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANThat is only the general heading. In the note there is a very definite statement of what the money is required for, and we must keep to that.
§ Mr. HARDIEAre we to understand that the £3,310 is only required for the purpose of materials, and has nothing to do with the cost of instruction?
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANThat is the statement which is put before the Committee, and I must abide by that statement.
§ 6.57 p.m.
§ Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLEI think there has been some misunderstanding as to the width of the Supplementary Estimate. Under this Sub-head the extra sum required is simply for the purchase of canvas for the making of mail bags. I do not think I should be in order in entering into a wider explanation than is demanded by the Estimate. To set at, rest the mind of the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benson) with regard to the value which is secured from sales, I would point out that the two items in question refer to entirely different subjects. On the one hand the appropriations-in-aid arise from sales made in the past, while the other item is for a fairly large purchase of raw material in order that work may be done upon that material in the future. The hon. Members for Govan (Mr. N. Maclean) and Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) have spoken of the interest which they have in the welfare of the people in these prisons, and we wish to say that anything we can reasonably do to facilitate their interest we should certainly wish to do. I am aware of the keen interest which the hon. Members take in these matters, but I do not think I can now enter into a discussion of the details of that welfare work. With regard to the question raised by the hon. Member for Gorbals about the sum of £320, of course he will realise that the real expenditure incurred in paying back the cuts is not expressed in that figure, but in the original figure of £83,718. The revised Estimate, which is £320 more, is for an additional small amount that is required to make up the full total. The hon. Member will find that the error works out at something like ¼ per cent., and I do not think he will suggest that that is a large error. As to his anxiety that there should be no general cutting down of wages, I can assure him that there is not.
§ Mr. BUCHANANNor staff?
§ Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLENor staff. I have not the details with me, but I do not think there has been any cutting down of staff to reach the amount which is now asked for.