71. Mr. CREECH JONESasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the attention of all benches of magistrates and of all police forces has within recent years been called to the recommendation in the Judges' Rules and in the report of the Royal Commission on Police Powers and Procedure, 1929, dealing with the impropriety of refusing hail except where there is grave probability that the prisoner will fail to answer to his bail?
§ The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd)The question seems to be based on some misapprehension. The Judges' Rules relate to the questioning of suspected persons by the police and contain no recommendation about bail. The report of the Royal Commission on Police Powers dealt with the question of bail by the police in those exceptional cases where the police inquiries are incomplete, but there was no suggestion in the report that the police fail to make proper use in ordinary cases of their power to bail persons taken into custody for offences which do not appear to be of a serious nature. The grant of bail by the magistrates was not a question which came before the Commission.